April 21 was declared a National Day of Mourning for the victims of the 4.14 Earthquake in Yushu, Qinghai Province. Public entertainment activities have been suspended, flags fly at half-staff, and newspapers have gone gray. The front pages of major online websites have switched to mostly black-and-white as well……

Two months after announcing to leave China due to Chinese government’s censorship policy and amount of highly sophisticated hack attacks from mainland to Gmail accounts, Google said earlier today that it stopped censoring its Chinese search services and redirected Chinese users to Google.com.hk ……

This morning, it came a HUGE news for everyone who involves in the China Internet industry. Google announced in its official blog that it was going to say NO to China government’s censorship policy due to amount of highly sophisticated hack attach to Gmail accounts.“We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China,” said Google…….

Xiaonei, the leading social networking site popular among college students in China, announces to rebrand to Renren on 4th August so as to target the mass market.

Chen Yizhou, CEO of Xiaonei’s parent company Oak Pacific Interactive, declares the reason and plan in a public PR letter to Xiaonei’s users……

As China Web2.0 Review, Danwei, and CNreviews posted, today is defined by netizens as “The Chinese Website Maintenance Day (中国网站维护日)”. Due to the 2oth anniversary of 1989 Tiananmen Massacr, the administrators of total 358 Chinese domestic websites have put the inaccessibility on their sites for a perid of 2-3 days via using the excuse “technical maintenance” since June 3rd, according to a collaborated-made “Chinese Site Maintenance Google Spreadsheet”……

Chinese social networking sites are enjoying in a rapid development now. There are so many players in this market: 51.com, 360quan.com, Kaixin001.com, Kaixin.com, Xiaonei.com, hi.mop.com, AiMi.com, etc. At the end of May, Chinese Internet gaint Sohu and Taobao kicked off the open beta test for their social networking sites – Sohu Bai (白社会) and Taobao Jianghu (淘江湖)……

House and Garden is Kaixin001’s most popular app. Now, in the “props shop” of this app, there is a prop called “Vanke Scenery Card”. Once you buy and activate the prop, you can have a special background scenery about Vanke buildings. In addition, there is a link on the background scenery which point to a ShenYang Vanke Group, which established in February this year. Through the group, people who live in the same Vanke community are getting together. On May 2nd, ShenYang Vanke also held a successful offline meet-up for the group members……

Recently, I came across with a newly-established grassroot musical ensemble, called Mr. Before. I knew it since somebody recommended it on BBS. Same as other original and independent musicians/bands, Mr. Before popularize itself through Neocha, Tudou, Youku, etc.

Yesterday, Chinese young “creatives” (musicians, artists, writers, designers, etc) were under-represented by mainstream media and lack effective distribution platforms. Today, even there is no more Super Girl, they still can exposure themselves through social media and digital channels……