This question puzzles a lot of people right now. And often their answer is: there is none! They are sure that the Metaverse does nothing for anybody. At least not in the short term. For them, the whole thing is all hype, no substance. Of course, there is indeed a…

While the user experience (UX) of e-commerce in the West has largely remained static over the past two decades, recent developments suggest a potential shift on the horizon. In just the past few weeks, three separate narratives have surfaced, hinting at significant changes for Western online retailers come 2024: SHEIN…

How Digital China’s ideas and strategies revolutionize online retail, breaking a 20-year period of stagnation. E-commerce still works today as we envisioned it in the late 90s. There have been many tweaks since then, yet little real change. The user experience of online shopping has remained largely the same. But is this a problem? Is there anything really missing? Yes, quite a few things, actually…

Successful brand building requires genuine connections, but genuine connections can't grow at scale. — Last week, there was an interesting article in the German business newspaper Handelsblatt about how large corporations fail miserably when it comes to Direct-to-consumer brands. D2C brands should be pretty straightforward: Take a simple product that can be easily distributed online, invest in a few influencers, and run some ads…

Tiktok is the Western version of a Chinese service called Douyin (that’s why the Tiktok logo sports a d!). UI & UX of those two services are pretty similar, but what is different is the content: Douyin has lots of really cool and often interesting, educational content (mixed with a…

Die Grünen haben nicht als Hoffnungsträger ausgedient, weil ihr Minister ein bisschen Unfug im TV redet. Es ist umgekehrt: Habeck redet Unfug, weil die Grünen als Hoffnungsträger ausgedient haben. Bisher hat Habeck einen guten Job gemacht und so was kann man prima offen & transparent kommunizieren. Doch dann kam die…

Best prediction since Clifford Stoll's seminal work on the Internet that will never happen... " The truth is no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works." https://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306

Do you realize that is the way many Asians have understood the world for ages...? That everything is part of a larger system might be new for us in the West. It is hardly new for e.g. Chinese entrepreneurs. They often build companies as complex ecosystems where we prefer to think in simple silos. We never really tried to understand this, because we always thought our way of thinking was superior - which might have been the case 150 years ago. But now we need to realize that things have changed...

ChinaBriefs Kolumne, erschienen in FOCUS Online/DLDaily am 24.03.2020 In unserer letzten Kolumne ging es um die Auswirkungen von COVID-19 auf das alltägliche Leben in China. Gerade mal zwei Wochen später können wir genau die gleichen Dinge direkt vor unserer Haustür erleben. Dabei hätte ich damals noch gedacht, dass die drakonischsten…