So before everyone starts freaking out over drive by media coverage of the new regulations in China affecting video sharing sites, I thought I'd get my friend and CEO of CultureFish Media, Lonnie Hodge to weigh in on what he thinks the new regulations likely mean. In his own words:

It feels a bit like everyone is crying "wolf" or "totalitarian"a bit early.
The government has not said anything specifically about Youtube yet. In the case of Skype a few years ago China openly threatened to restrict access because they perceived Skype as a threat to China Telecom. But in the end, when CTC's stock kept blowing through the roof, the saber-rattles ceased. I use Skype daily.

The Chinese video share sites are not pulling in a lot of revenue and costs are high, so part of this new mandate may be in part protectionist.
Christine is right: this does not differ from controls already in place for websites, individuals and portals. China is choosing to regulate the Internet in much the same way the FCC controls TV and radio in America.

I think it is too soon to get hysterical. And my guess is the average Chinese netizen is going to prefer Chinese content--censored or not--over lots of Youtube offerings. And as stated above: any savvy user here knows how to bypass the controls. Also, Youtube loads terribly slow here on this developing system of relays and bandwidth, so a lot of Chinese just avoid Youtube anyway. I no longer assign Youtube videos to my students to watch because the school servers are just to slow to make it a reasonable request.

Google videos have been blocked here for as long as I can remember. How will this be any different?

I also think the comments that have been left regarding this on the TechCrunch article are quite interesting for getting other people's thoughts and concerns.

My own personal take on it is there too. Basically, I spent 5 years in China working for a foreign company involved in both retail and broadcast television - 2 industries that were hands off to foreign companies on the books. Key word, on the books. The government needs to put something regarding online video sharing on the books. As Lonnie mentioned, no different from the FCC in the U.S. and its regulations right? I don't think these regulations are going to be detrimental to the online video sharing sites as regardless of people's personal issues on the matter, companies operating in China already practice their own form of self censorship anyways.

For more insight you can also refer to a few good blogs who's weighed in on this issue as well:

China Media Project

Danwei.org

Ogilvy Digital Watch

TechBlog86

Little Red Blog

So I came across the following post the other day from Wired that paints a different picture of who's really playing hardball between China Mobile and Apple regarding their iPhone negotiations. The way you read it from Wired, it sounds like Apple is the one playing hardball and walking away from the deal. Hmmm...so what's the deal?

According to Rick Martin of CNET Asia's Little Red Blog:

I don't see Apple playing anything other than hardball with China Mobile. I think they're currently in a position where they don't need to beg from anyone.

Considering that they may be receiving as many as $18 per iPhone per month from AT&T, I can see how playing hardball could pay off for Apple in the long run.

Let me talk out loud for a second in an attempt to understand it...so Apple is willing to play hardball in order to maintain their rev share even if it means going with China Unicom instead? I just have a hard time understanding why Apple wouldn't want to give a little in exchange for having access to 363 million customers. Granted, only a fraction will actually be able to afford an iPhone and many who can probably have a cracked one from Hong Kong already. LOL.

My guess is, it would only have helped make Steve Jobs look like a rock star if he could have announced at Macworld that they were in partnership with China Mobile. It would have sure helped with their latest dissappointing forecast - especially with the slowdown in the U.S. economy translating to an almost certain slowdown in high end consumer spending.

Besides, there are a lot of really cool mobile phones (many that I never see here in the U.S.) from other companies. Does Apple really honestly believe the iPhone is the end all, be all of mobile phones worldwide and China Mobile should concede to their demands to be allowed to sell them to their customers? Just sounds unlikely to me.

Or maybe Apple doesn't really care about whether they partner with the largest carrier in China because they think their iPhone will sell well in the market regardless of if China Mobile or China Unicom sells it. Just talking out loud here because I admit, I jumped to AT&T from TMobile for the iPhone when it came out last summer. Even though AT&T service isn't the first choice of many here. Hmmm.... would be interested in getting some other thoughts on this.