1. On the size of online China: Sam Flemming gives us some statistics for the fan bar (=community) of “Li Yu Chun, aka Super Girl, aka LYC, aka ChunChun”: over 17 million posts on just under a million topics - in less than a year. Also, some stats on Sina bloggers.

2. On the possible end of (super) cheap labor: Moving to an urban area shows to be expensive for many farmers:

According to Zhong Naiyi, a researcher at Shanghai Institute for International Studies, what has caused the labor shortage is the fact that although farmers’ income has risen in recent years, migrant workers haven’t seen much growth in their income. As a result, farmers feel less inclined to leave for a city job.

Read the Knowledge@Wharton article “Does a Growing Worker Shortage Threaten China’s Low-cost Advantage?”.

3. On the importance of having a good strategy when going to China: Yahoo! feels a need to defend themself. They wouldn’t, had they done their homework (like Google did).