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Break Out the Black Ties
Hyping the industry with Net awards
By ERIC ELLIS
February 15, 2000
Web posted at 9:40 a.m. Hong Kong time, 8:40 p.m. EST
American Netizens might be breathlessly awaiting next month's Oscars, but to hear Hong Kong-based conference organizer Michael Westcott tell it, their Asians counterparts are obsessing about their own awards night--the Internet World Asia Industry Awards next month.
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It all promises to be a bit of fun, a gathering best viewed as part of the industry's efforts to hype itself into the Asian corporate mainstream. At the risk of sounding like a party-pooper, I'm hoping there'll be emotional scenes--a nerdy Gwyneth Paltrow lookalike sobbing as she thanks her family for the ISP of the Year Award, or a touchy-feely Richard Gere-type dedicating his gong to the Dalai Lama, or some such. You get the picture.
A 20-strong panel of regional experts--journalists, analysts and academics--have short-listed five nominees in each of 12 award categories. I'm on the panel and I have to say, it was tough going trying to come up with nominees for a couple of the categories, in particular the most innovative idea and the best ISP.
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Asian Net innovation so far has been mostly about inventing new ways to encourage investors to part either with their wallets or with their common sense--meaning, Hong Kong's current precarious fad to inject Net assets into listed company shells, or the successful effort by Singapore's K.K. Fong to convince the republic's city planners that having hundreds of so-called Internet kiosks that few people actually use somehow confirms the nation's "Wired Island" image.
And as for Best ISP, Asia sadly commands some of the world's highest online charges at a time when the emerging international trend is to provide free Net access as a societal necessity. Step forward SingNet for the worst ISP award. I'd heard Singapore Telecom's SingNet was hoping to score a best ISP nomination--the very same SingNet that fiddled around uninvited in subscribers' computers last April searching for--what was it again?--oh yes, "viruses."
A keenly-contested category is Internet Visionary of the Year. (Now that would look good on a press release or, better still, an IPO prospectus.) The five nominees are India's Pradeep Kar, chairman of Bangalore-based Microland; T.K Wong, the Singaporean who founded SilkRoute Ventures and the savvy B2B site Advanced Manufacturing Online; Outblaze's Yat Siu; William Ding of the mainland Chinese portal Netease.com; and Netbig.com's Charles Huang. But what's wrong with this picture, you may ask? Of course, there's no Richard Li. Somehow, amazingly, the Pacific Century Cyberworks wunderkind didn't make the cut. Must be billionaire envy among the judges.
T.K Wong and SilkRoute promise to be the sweeping blockbuster, the Gone With the Wind, the Ben Hur, the Titanic of the black-tie (do nerds own penguin suits?) awards evening in Singapore March 2.
Wong has garnered four nominations--Internet Company of the Year and Best B2B Internet Site for AMO, and Internet Visionary of the Year and Best B2C Internet Site for SilkRoute's auction site Collective Juice. That list could have Wong rising from his seat for much of the night; this dedicated and sometimes emotional family man is potentially the Tom Hanks of the Asian Net. I can't wait. Ladies and gentlemen, the envelope please...
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