I love to drink wine and try to drink only good wines – Life is too short to drink bad wines, right? Over the past decade I tried many different Chinese wines, but most of the time I was not very impressed with what I tasted. Sure, there were a few decent ones among the tens of locally produced varieties that I drank, but generally they were at least twice as expensive as a similar non-Chinese wines. I’d love to find a good Chinese red wine below RMB 100 that I could drink at night on weeknights, but so far I have not been able to find one.

A couple of weeks ago I was doing a late night ice wine tasting at home. My friend Alexandre Imperatori (a race car driver who among others races in the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, you can watch him this weekend at the Shanghai Circuit before the Formula One race) had given me a couple of excellent Canadian ice wines, and it was time to try them.

I posted the results of the tasting on Facebook and then one of my FB friends told me that a friend of his was related to the owner of a Chinese vineyard that produces ice wines. I was intrigued, because I had never heard about Chinese ice wines before. He asked me if I would be interested to try the Chinese ice wine, and if so he would arrange for some bottles to be delivered to my home.

And indeed about 2 weeks ago 2 beautifully packaged bottles of Vidal Eastars Ice Wine were delivered to my place. Because I was about to go on a business trip I decided to save them for a better moment, which turned out to be last Sunday. My parents were visiting and they also like good wines, so we opened one of the bottles.

To be honest, my expectations were not very high. I had been disappointed so often by Chinese wines that I expected an okay wine, but nothing special. But I was wrong: the wine was excellent! It was a typical dessert wine, deep yellow with a thick almost oily structure. Of course the wine was intensely sweet and it had a very nice after taste. If someone had told me that this was a Canadian ice wine I would have believed it, this wine was at least on par with some of the bottles I had before.

This means I can’t keep up my saying that China doesn’t produce any good wines. This bottle proved me wrong and I am happy to admit it. And the good news is that I still have a second bottle waiting to be opened!

Eastar ice wine’s website is here (Chinese only). The webshop is empty however, so you can’t buy any wines there. I found another shop online where you can buy the wine, 6 small bottles (375 ml) for RMB 1488 (USD 227).

Spil Games has taken a leadership role in the HTML5 gaming space, not only globally (see for example the Game Jam together with Google or our HTML5 contest), but also in China. We have been involved in all HTML5 conferences that were organized in Shanghai and Beijing over the past couple of months and we have launched our mobile HTML5 game platform at youxi.cn. The good thing about HTML5 games is that you can play them on every mobile smartphone, so not only on Android (like with Flash games) but also on the iPhone.

I personally believe that eventually HTML5 will make apps obsolete, and it seems more and more people agree with me. See for example this article on Venturebeat from a few days ago: http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/07/how-html5-will-kill-the-native-app/ Of course a lot of the commenters don’t agree, it somehow reminds me of the early days of Flash games where there were a lot of non-believers as well. I still remember that about 5 years ago we were trying to convince the Game Academy in Shanghai to start offering Flash courses, but they didn’t believe it would be important for games. Times have changed, now it’s easy to find Flash game courses in China but nobody is offering HTML5 courses yet.

As part of Spil Games leadership role we actively try to roll out partnerships with mobile social networks. Among others we put HTML5 games on Japan’s leading mobile social network Mixi, where we even had the #1 game in January. In China, however, mobile social game networks for smartphones are not as developed yet, but that will change fast as well.

Yesterday Spil Games launched its first HTML5 game on the mobile version of Kaixin001 (still as an app, HTML5 games can easily made into apps with a wrapper). Play it here! This is a big milestone for HTML5 games in China, because as far as I know this is the first HTML5 game on any mobile social network here. Also other giants like RenRen and Tencent don’t have this yet.

Spil Games worked closely with Kaixin to help develop their mobile API, so we would be able to roll out the HTML5 game with social features, such as high scores. But you can now also post your score in your timeline for all your friends to see (notification) or ask your friends to play as well (invitation).

This is just the beginning of course, very soon we have some other big projects that will go live on Chinese portals. Exciting times for HTML5, I believe this is the beginning of the future!

If you’re in Shanghai and want to be more involved in the HTML5 scene, make sure to attend this weekend’s HTML5 conference. Peter Driessen (Spil Games co-founder & CEO) will give a keynote about the future of HTML5 games and Spil Games’ role in this.

For more than a year I have been using the Nexus One Android phone. That’s probably a record for me, because I used to change phones every 6 months or so. It shows I really liked the phone and especially the Android operating system. Before the N1 that I had been switching from iPhone to Android and back (first an iPhone 1, then the G1 (the first Android phone on the market), then back to an iPhone for 6 months and when the Nexus One came out I switched back to Android). I felt the Android OS was better than iOS and I liked the fact that it’s more open than Apple.

But over the past months I had problems a few times with my N1, and I started thinking whether I should not get a new phone. I use my phone probably 2-3 times as much as an average person, so after a year it’s not unusual that it starts to malfunction a bit. The problems started when I suddenly lost all my contact data a few weeks ago and I was not able to retrieve all names and numbers anymore. This was a major nuisance and for the first time I realized that if you edit phone numbers on your phone they are not automatically synced in your Google contacts (most phone numbers I lost were ones that I put in manually during the past year). This is something I never ever had with iOS.

Then I started to have battery problems: after upgrading to Gingerbread my battery time suddenly halved. After turning off some background applications that use a lot of energy (you can see that in Android) it improved a lot again, but it was not as good as before. Not a reason to changes phones yet, I actually considered changing my battery (something you also can’t do with an iPhone). But then a major problem occurred 3 weeks ago: suddenly I could not hear people who were calling me anymore… It did not happen all the time, but only with some calls –

I was in Holland over the past couple of days for business meetings. My original plan was to just stay from Wednesday to Friday, because I had been away from home way too much (because of that this blog is almost becoming a travelogue). But when I saw that I could save EUR 800 by staying 2 days longer I decided to spend the weekend at my parents place.

I had a nice couple of days with them and now I am sitting at Amsterdam Schiphol airport waiting for my flight back home. On Friday my dad picked me up from Amsterdam and we drove to their place. My sister also joined us later, she had had her last day in her current job before moving abroad to a completely different position. She is very excited about it, and I am very happy for her. This means my parents will suddenly be “alone” in Holland, so I am sure we’ll see them often in Shanghai.

Friday night we had an excellent dinner at De Groene Lantaarn in Zuidwolde, one of the better restaurants in the Eastern part of Holland. Very good food and nice wines and of course good conversations with my family. After the dinner was over I fell asleep in the car. I didn’t have too much of a jet lag, but after the big dinner with copious amounts of alcohol I just couldn’t stay awake anymore. At home I went straight to bed and had 8 hours of sleep, I needed it I suppose.

The next day my sister had to go to a wedding, so I spent the day with my parents. The weather was very nice, with temperatures up to 25 degrees, very unusual for this time of year. We spent most of the day in the garden, working and reading a bit. I also went for a run with my dad, but that didn’t go very well for me, especially the first few kilometers. We still managed to run about 7.5 km, but I had wanted to run much longer.

Saturday night I mainly spent reading my book Water for Elephants and I went to bed quite early (11 PM or so). Sunday morning I felt great, so my dad and I decided to go for an early morning run. This time it went much easier and we ran about 12 km over trails in the woods. I loved it, I wish Shanghai had some more nature so I could do this there as well.

The rest of the morning I mainly spent working on emails (once again I am far behind on them), before taking a train to the airport around 2 PM. I am now in the business lounge at Schiphol, enjoying my last few minutes of fast Internet without having to use a VPN. That’s one of the other few things I miss in China. You can’t have it all.

This year South by Southwest (SXSW) took place for the 25th time in Austin, TX. I had never been there but when I was invited to be a panelist I decided to visit the festival. Even though it’s quite a trip from Shanghai (and especially from Phuket…) I recommend it to everybody. The panels and speakers are world-class and there are tons of networking opportunities. Not only are most US Internet start-ups there to promote their products, but also the VCs are all in town plus of course journalists, bloggers and the biz dev people of more established companies.

I went to SXSW with my colleague Floris-Jan Cuypers of Spil Games who flew in from Holland. I had reserved the hotel, which had been a bit of a hassle because all hotels downtown were of course fully booked already

Flying is often a hassle, especially when you need to fly a lot and there are no direct flights between the places that you want to go to. During my current trip I already had my fair share of problems. On the way to Phuket my flight from Bangkok to Phuket was cancelled, meaning that I had to spend 3 hours in Bangkok at the airport and missed the beginning of Stream Asia. I was not the only one that had that problem, several Stream Asia participants had planned their arrival on Phuket with not much time to spare, so we all ended up at the same later flight. That flight was pretty empty, which led me to believe that the original flight was simply cancelled to save money because there were not enough enough people on it.

On the way back to Shanghai things got even worse. The flight from Phuket to Bangkok was on time, but the on the leg between Bangkok and Phuket we were notified by the captain that we might not be able to land in Shanghai right away because of heavy fog. We circled between Nanjing and Shanghai for about an hour until the fog finally started to clear and we started our descent. I was a bit worried that we had to stay in the air longer than planned because I only had a few hours in Shanghai quickly go home, say hi to my wife and kids, pack my suitcase and hop on another plane to San Francisco, but with just an hour delay I would be fine.

But no, things turned out a bit different: suddenly the pilot came on the intercom and started a long story in Thai (I am on a Thai Airways plane) from which I could not understand much, but from his tone I figured it was not a good message. And indeed, when he finally translated his story into English it turned out the fog had gotten worse and the plane was rerouted to Japan… While writing this we are on the approach to Fukuoka. The islands below me are beautiful, but I am less than thrilled. I have no idea if I can make it back to Shanghai on time to catch my plane to the US, and I certainly won’t be able to see my kids for 2 hours (my original plan) before going on another weeklong trip.

My plan is now to call my wife to pack a suitcase for me for the US and then send the driver to the airport. In case I make it on time back to China I might still be able to check-in and make it to the US later today. I have important meetings planned both tonight and tomorrow (some people are even flying in to meet me), so postponing the trip by a day is not a real option. The uncertainty about whether I will make it or not is actually worse than the delay itself. Anyway, can’t change it. Flying is a hassle. Regards from Fukuoka…

Update: After spending some time at Fukuoka airport, Shanghai opened again and we got permission from air traffic control to fly back to China. We landed around 11:15 AM at Pudong airport and I rushed through the large airport and customs to the exit gate. I had called my wife from Japan and she had come to the airport with our driver with my suitcase and a set of new clothes. I quickly repacked part of my suitcase and ran to the United Airlines to check in to my flight with just 45 minutes left before departure. I was the last (and only) person to check in and I was glad they still let me do so. Then I freshened up a bit, changed to a new set of clothes and then literally ran through customs, realizing that I had only been in China for about 15 minutes (my shortest stay ever). I bought a sandwich for on board and then boarded the plane to San Francisco with only minutes to spare. I made it! I am now in San Francisco where I need to change to the last part of my journey, a flight to Austin, TX. I have been traveling for close to 30 hours already and feel incredible tired and jet lagged, but I still have a whole day ahead of me. Starbucks will hopefully get me through it!

I have been to a lot of conferences over the years, and the one I just got back from was among best of all of them: Stream Asia 2011. The event took place at the Club Med in Phuket (Thailand) and about 200 people were invited to join this 2-day unconference. Best of all, WPP paid for everything! They rented the whole beach resort, so there were no other tourists around to distract us from our sessions.

Because it was an unconference you never know in advance what exactly will happen and what sessions will be presented. At the beginning of the conference the participants have to decide what they want to speak about and make sure they get a speaking slot. I had two speaking slots, one with Sarah Harden, Larry Namer, and Deborah Mei about what games traditional media is playing when it comes to digital, and one that I did by myself about the future of ecommerce. I also particpated in a couple of sessions and discussions related to online games, Internet in Indonesia, China, Facebook, and innovation & entrepreneurship. Most of the sessions were really good, especially because some of the topics were non-bloggable/twitterable so people could speak freely, and of course because the topics fit to my personal interests.

There were also some plenary sessions, among other a Q & A with WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell. He was very open about how he views the advertising world, his clients and his competitors. The only problem was that his talk took place right at the moment that the earthquake took place in Japan, meaning that many in the audience (incl. me) were paying too much attention to the Japan events on Twitter and Facebook. In a way it was a bit surreal, Martin talked a lot about Japan (I won’t repeat what he said, I think it was off the record) while he was not aware of what was happening there but many in the audience were.

Another very good session was with the renowned conductor Itay Talgam about conducting music and leadership. I did not know him before Stream, but got to know him a bit on the ride from the airport to the resort when he coincidentally sat next to me. For one thing he is very modest, in the bus he just told me that is a musician! During his talk he let us look at how conductors conduct their orchestras, something I never really paid attention to. Very interesting to observe the differences between some of the world’s top conductors, esp. the final one in which Leonard Bernstein (Itay Talgam’s teacher) conducted an orchestra with his eyes, eye brows and mouth. But, as Itay stated, this is not how you get started in conducting!

Of course a major part of this kind of events is the networking. The people that were invited were a good mix of advertising people and their clients, people from traditional and new media (incl. Facebook, Yahoo! and Google), entrepreneurs and VCs. Almost everybody you met to was interesting to talk to and I met a lot of cool people. Several of my business friends were also there and it was good to catch up with them as well.

The evening program was also quite something. Among others there was a gadgethon where people could show off their gadgets. Some really cool things were shown, among others the iPad 3 (ask Scott Spirit about this one, it was made in China), and iPhone with a TV antenna, a demonstration of the Motorola Xoom, and some gadgets that people put together themselves. There was also Powerpoint Karaoke, where you have to do a presentation based on a powerpoint that you have not seen before, leading to some hilarious situations. And of course here was the Stream Band consisting of Stream participants, playing until deep in the night.

The event was very well organized by WPP, despite it being an unconference things went very smoothly. The resort was nice and quiet, the right atmosphere for a conference. The food and drinks were very good, so good that I ate way too much and also had quite some wines and beers over the past 2 days. The only thing that could have been better was the wifi. That’s more the problem of Club Med than of the organizers, who even managed to set up their own Stream Asia network during the event, but it was still difficult to connect. In my room there was no connection at all, so I did most of my work at the swimming pool!

All in all I look back at a great event with excellent participants and good content. Glad I took the time out of my busy schedule to join this conference, it was absolutely worth it.
All my pictures of the event are here on this Flickr set

Both UnitedStyles and Spil Games Asia’s game studio moved into new offices this week. A pure coincidence, but it was kind of interesting to have 2 new places to work from after I came back from San Francisco.

UnitedStyles’ move was not completely voluntary: the building where we had our office is going to be ‘redeveloped’, meaning that it will be demolished and something more valuable will be built there. Not a bad thing for us actually, because the new office is much brighter and we are next to our production partner.

The game studio moved within the same building to a bigger and brighter office. The old one was not bad, but this one has a lot more windows and it looks a lot better. My office is a bit smaller than my old one, but the views totally compensate for that: the Suzhou Creek is right below my window and in the distance I can see the Pudong skyline with the Oriental Pearl Tower.