Shopping for Clothes Online in HK?

Yes Does it Again, but will it stick?

From e-commerce pioneer YesAsia is their new bi-lingual fashion e-commerce site YesStyle.com.

Choose from latest fashion from South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong for men and women for clothes, jewelery, shoes, bags and accessories and brands like Anna Sui, Chow Sang Sang, Escape, Ella-K, Kenzo and if you are a brand you can get in on the site as well.

YesAsia.com has survived all these years because they have been selling books, DVD’s and music CD’s to Hong Kong, Asia and overseas all in multiple languages. So it must be a sign of the strengthening Internet economy that after 8 years they decide to open a new storefront.

I think their strategy of marketing Asian products internationally is the right way to do it and something the TDC should look into more like Alibaba.com has done for the trade business. If you are looking to get your fashion product out to a bigger market then have a look at YesStyle.com – if not, you might find something you can’t find in the stores of Hong Kong.

Slimmest Mobile Phone – For Now!

Samsung Puts Their Phone on the Ultra Diet

I’ve been meaning to post about this phone for the past week. Just when you thought that Motorola had the title of slimmest phone, Samsung comes around with one better. Or rather TWO better.

Not content with their Ultra Edition 6.9, the shaved an extra 2mm off that one and spawns this amazingly thin slider called the Ultra Edition 12.9. 3.13 Megapixel camera, 2.1″ TFT screen, MP3 with 0MB embedded, Bluetooth and weighs 85kg. It gets an 8 out of 10 at CNET Asia and is supposed to hit Hong Kong in late March.

And in other mobile phone news, IDC reports that a total of 1.02 BILLION handsets shipped in 2006 driven by a strong holiday season where 295 million were sold. That year number beats 2005 by 22.5% of 833 million units.

And it breaks down like this: Nokia is #1, with 35% market-share, Motorola is #2 at 22.3% and Samsung is #3 with 11%. So you can see these 3 top dogs control more than 60% of the worldwide market with Sony Ericsson and LG rounding out the top 5.

‘Pandora’ Opens the Box on Music

Like that band? Find out new ones that are similar!

This is a famous site that I want to recommend if you haven’t seen it before. If you don’t watch MTV or Channel V day in and day out, if you like Western music and want to learn about new artists you haven’t heard of before or if you just want to expand your musical tastes, this is the site for you.

At Pandora.com you can listen to music and the system will basically find you bands and songs that you might like that are similar. You vote on if you like the song or not and then the system will then try and find ones that match you so the more you tell Pandora what you like the better it will match you with new songs.

So head on over, type in a Western artist or song you like and watch it hook you up with new sounds you’ll want on your iPod.

MySpace is Coming to China

Now You Can Be Friends with Poor Factory Workers Too!

Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp Team are finalizing investments to launch MySpace in China WITHIN A FEW MONTHS! This is reported by the Chinese government via Reuters in Shanghai.

Any of you that follow China business know that Mr. Murdoch has had a hard time cracking his international business into China with all the – literally – red tape.

This all sounds great but what happens when the Chinese Government think that “Tom” is a member of Fulan Gong or that his “Democracy Now” T-shirt is just too sensitive. Remember this is the country that just banned The Departed for its extremely mild China references.

But the venture will have to negotiate with China’s strict regulation of media content, as well as compromise on potentially sensitive content, said Liu Bin, principal analyst at Beijing-based research firm BDA.

“It’s hard for a foreign online service provider to get an Internet content license and other news licenses,” he said.

“If MySpace forms a JV in which it takes a minor share, the company can still be looked at as a domestic company,” he added.

Good luck Mr. Murdoch – I really want to keep closer tabs on my friends at the Dongguan factory! Read the rest here.

Netvigator x PS3 = Help Me

You Try and Figure out Netvigator’s PS3 Promotion

Ok so if you are deciding on changing your broadband provider or if you are looking for a cheap Playstation 3, this might be the way to go. Netvigator is offering a HK$4,626 PS3 package for a lot cheaper – I think – if you sign up with Netvigator. A upfront of $1500 and a monthly recurring fee of $66 for, I think, a year – basically gets you a PS3 for half price with 2 games.

Read more about it here. We at Butterboom have been using Netvigator’s service for quite a while, and earthquake aside, its always been pretty good.

3′s new XSeries Service

Get Your TV Sent to Your Mobile

Now here’s something cool. 3 has decided to give everyone flat fees for their 3G service in Hong Kong. Good idea because I was getting a little confused with all the offers. Now you can pay HK$28 and get MSN Messenger on your phone. But what really interested me was that you can send your SlingBox signal from your home to your 3G phone so you can basically watch any show that you have at HOME on your 3G phone!??! That is pretty cool!

Different pricinging plans can be found here. But if you want me to IM and Google, you better offer me a 3G phone with a QWERTY keyboard. We’ll watch this as it develops out.

The Cost of the iPhone

A Breakdown of the Parts and Costs of the new Apple Supreme Gadget

BusinessWeek has a neat run down on the cost of the pieces that will make up the iPhone coming to the U.S. in June. Hong Kong won’t see this revolutionary new mobile device until 2008 but in a way that means there might be a new version by then as well as – oh – about 300 copies of it from various other companies.

us iterations of the iPod, the Xbox 360, and the PlayStation 3, iSuppli analysts have relied on intelligence gathered among component manufacturers, published price sheets, and industry insider information to estimate the manufacturing cost of the iPhone. Adding up the cost of all the parts that Apple is expected to use in the device suggests it will cost about $230 to build the 4GB version that will sell for $499 and about $265 to build the 8GB version that will sell for $599.

The single most expensive part will be the 3.5-inch touch-sensitive display, which iSuppli says will cost $33.50, while the combined cost of the NAND-type flash memory chips—probably supplied by Samsung—will run $35 to $70, depending on the model.

Read the full story here.