Tech Talk: Drum Roll, Please

AN STYLE="font-size: 75%; color:#990000">Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2001 | I kind of agree with Groucho Marx, who famously said he didn't want to be in anything that would have him as a member.

I was a judge at Asia's Internet Oscars last year, where gongs were handed out for the then brightest lights in Asia's emerging New Economy. Indeed, all but one of my calls won awards so my record isn't bad. Or more correctly, as I described last week, I was right at the time. One tech wreck later and most of the winners have so far failed to live up to their promise. And their valuations. They looked like good ideas then. Most of them don't now. Step forward Tom.com.

Asia Buzz is not judging this year's awards, to be held at the Ritz-Carlton in Singapore on March 8. So I'm free to offer the Asia Buzz gongs, without any conflict of interest. Based on my stellar record in 2000, here are my tips for this year. (All nominees and categories can be found at the official Internet World Asia awards site.)

Nominated for Internet Company of the Year are: Global Sources, NTT DoCoMo, Korea ThruNet, Kimo.com and AsiaInfo (China). And the Asia Buzz gong goes to... none of these. My tip is Hong Kong's Quamnet.com. O.K., it's badly designed and analyst Tony Measor needs to take a Journalism 101 course, but there's no doubting Quam's usefulness for Hong Kong punters who want share quotes. With Quamnet, you can watch your portfolio disappear down the sink in real time.

Nominees for the Best "New Face" of the Internet are: Icered.com, Indya.com, Iamasia.com, Elipva (formerly known as sttarfire.com) and Deansee.com. Again, none of these would get my vote. I'd give it to Malaysiakini.com. True, it's been around for longer than a year, but it really hit its straps this year as an alternative to Malaysia's lapdog press. We know that because the Malaysian government has been making life hard for editor Steven Gan and his team.

Internet Visionary of the Year? The official nominees are: Keichi Tachikawa, CEO of NTT DoCoMo; Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh state in India; Edward Tian, CEO of Netcom China; Dennis Lee, who cofounded Elipva and Shao Yibo, CEO of China's Eachnet. My nomination goes to Hong Kong's Dr Doom, Marc Faber, who said in February last year, two months before the tech wreck kicked in, that Asia's Net boom would end in tears. That was vision.

Best B2B site? The nominees are: Global Sources, Satatools.com, Thaigem.com, iSteel Asia and PacificNetMarkets. Again, I don't reckon B2B is developed enough in Asia to warrant a gong, but if Asia Buzz had to give a nod, it would go to Global Sources of Hong Kong, which trades off its massive database of trade contacts. Its challenge now is to turn that into serious money, instead of the losses it is racking up.

HSBC, Daishin, Internet Auction, Eachnet and CoolBid.com are all nominated for Best B2C site -- and the overwhelming winner has to be HSBC. In one fell swoop, it went from the world's Internet banking loser to the best banking site I've seen and used. Perhaps I'm biased because I'm an HSBC Power Vantage customer, but for Asians on the run, this is way better than a swipe card and sharp elbows in your side. HSBC is also a nominee for Best Internet Entrant by a brick-and- mortar company, along with Thaigem.com, Epulppaper.com, Li & Fung and Daishin. HSBC should walk away with that gong too.

The award for Best E-commerce Solutions Provider is to be decided among Core Solutions, Web Connection, PlanetAsia, AsiaCommerce and iMerchants. Again, none of these impress. Get in touch with Singapore-based Net Megastore, which evolved out of the old B2C, Discvault.com. These quiet achievers are doing great work installing well-though-out solutions. But don't take my word for it -- ask Vivendi and HMV.

This next award surely has to have been included as a joke -- Top Investor/VC of the Year. The nominees are AsiaTech Internet Group, ING Barings, Intel Capital, Techpacific.com and Walden International Investment Group. What? No PCCW? No Asiacontent.com?

Best ISP of the year? The choices are Satyam Infoway, Korea ThruNet, Capital Online, StarHub Internet and NTT DoCoMo. The winner: probably Korea ThruNet given the way that country is broadbanding itself to being one of the world's best connected networks. But I would've also thrown in Singapore CableVision. You can never be quite sure who's looking inside your box in the Wired Island, but SCV is generally fast and relatively cheap.

I'd give Hong Kong's David Webb the gong for each of the next two awards, the Impact Award 4 Charitable Contribution to the Net Community and Internet Analyst of the Year. The nominees for the first are: Smehome.com, Iandiasia.com, i100corp.com and Quizbrain.com, while Webb, Jay Chang of CSFB Technology Group, Matei Mihalca of Merrill Lynch, Jasmine Koh of UBS Warburg and the TechBuddha people are up for the second.

If you'd followed Webb's call that Richard Li's PCCW was really worth not much more than $HK6 (77 cents) when it was roaring at $HK28 ($3.60), you'd happily give half your windfall to charity after short-selling PCCW to under $HK4. It was a very good call, which is better than Matei Mihalca can claim. He said PCCW was "a proxy for the Internet in Asia, backed by strong management." He also said "for investors, to put money into such a vehicle offers diversified exposure when Internet business models and future winners are still unclear."

The last award is for Best Internet advertising campaign. The nominees are: Carlton Cold, FinanceAsia.com, Shanghai General Motors, Compaq Asia Pacific and Wrigley. I'm sure they were all brilliant, but who would know? Who looks at ads online?