Economy

Markets

Industries

Insights

Reports

Events

US entrepreneurs eyeing at the China market

By Bing Wei
Updated: 2008-05-23 14:28

(San Jose, California, USA) It is, of course, a dream coming truer for all writers, journalists, professor and event CEOs – a computerized pen the size of a Mount Blanc, but lighter in weight that stores all your hand-written notes.

The notes can be transcribed to your PC whenever you wish and can be replayed, saved and searched. Further more, the "Pulse Smart Pen" can translate between various languages and speak words out for you if you are in a foreign country and cannot get your message across. The fascinating detail is whenever the pen is hooked up with your computer; you can see the spoken version of your notes appear as text on your screen.

The magic pen reminds of the Magic Carpet in the story of the Arabian Nights, as it can really keep you in touch with the pulse of the ever-changing world today, even letting you blog at the beach.

The creator of this product, Jim Marggraff, CEO of LiveScribe, is no stranger in the field of developing innovative learning tools out of modern technology. As a serial entrepreneur and visionary leader in the industry, his well-know children's education company Leapfrog, known for its popular multimedia learning products, reaped $1 billion in five years' of operation. Now Marggraff has taken the magic of learning and notes-taking-storing to the adult world through his new company LiveScribe, which he founded in 2007.

His product was on the top of the prestigious Red Herring 100 Award list this May at the magazine's North America conference in San Jose, the heart of the Silicon Valley. The 300 attendees raved about the pen after Marggraff's presentation. It was at this conference I had the honor of a personal demo from Mr. Marggraff. He asked me to speak in Mandarin "Where is Forbidden Palace" to the pen and the pen immediately recorded my voice. As he wrote the same sentence in English, my recorded-voice broadcasted back in Mandarin with a touch of the button on the paper-based note book he used to scribble on. This note-book was also created and custom-made with the magic pen.

The note-book uses a special type of paper and computerized buttons at the bottom to connect to the pen. The weight and size of the note-book is similar to a normal hard-back note book which can be easily carried to conferences and interviews.

Marggraff is in discussions with a few potential Chinese partners to launch the product in China to assist in English and other language learning using the magic pen. The pen currently has over 10 different language capacities.

Red Herring's publisher Alex Vieux says this is what he likes to see as the organizer of the conference – as entrepreneurs come back to the conference to share their new success story.

As the 11th year of Red Herring 100 Conference where 100 awards are honored to entrepreneurs, the conference has been a major meeting point between Silicon Valley VCs and promising entrepreneurs such as Jim Marggraff.

This year at the Red Herring 100 conference, it seems many entrepreneurs are building products for the Asian market, aware of the global village of 2008. The other entrepreneur's social-networking and on-line dating sites reflected the similar sentiment. "Funckysexycool" is a site for over 18 age group with about 200,000 subscribers globally, mainly from Australia, US and Germany. The CEO Tim O'Connor is beta testing Asian language sites, from Thai, Chinese to Japanese where millions mobile phones are used among the young. Having been to the Red Herring's conference in the past, O'Conner is pleased to fetch the trophy too. The award will certainly boost his company another credential in the expansion stage of the fundraising for his company.

"The awarded companies were selected from over 1200 applicants by a team of seasoned editorial staff from our magazine," Alex Vieux said. He himself, speaking French as his first language is also looking into having a Chinese version of the magazine soon – "Sooner than the French version, I am sure," he said.

From the sponsor point of view, Michael Terpin, the CEO of Terpin Communications also finds the products by the US entrepreneurs growing globally, aiming at Asian users this year.

Being a serial entrepreneurs himself after creating Market Wire and making a deal of US$18 million with NASDAQ, Terpin is a PR industry veteran and news distribution pioneer. He has been sponsoring the Red Herring 100 for the last five years and believes blogging is the biggest things to hit the world of business since the Web itself. Therefore, the "blogging everywhere" capability of LiveScribe's magic pen attracted Terpin's attention. Terpin has also been active in the China market with clients based in Shanghai and looking into opening up a China office.

While the Red Herring 100 conference in fact held its first conference in Beijing last year with attendees from various parts of China, Japan, Korea, Singapore gathering in the ancient city. Although its Hong Kong conference remains the largest event for Asian crowds, the Beijing venue is certainly getting more and more attractive for entrepreneurs and VCs to travel to.

The Red Herring Wireless 2008 will take place in May 28th to 30th at the Ritz Carlton in Beijing.