Xiaomi Wants Its Fans to Sell Its Phones. Will That Fix Anything?
Probably not.
QDaily in English
2310 completed translations from the archive. Articles retain their original publication dates.
Luxury Brands Want to Talk to Young People in China. Do They Have Any Other Options?
Luxury brands are still embracing WeChat enthusiastically. But the world may change again before they notice.
American bread-makers say 96 ingredients are off-limits — and they call that "clean food"
Take a look at what you're "not" supposed to eat.
Privacy, in the End, Is About Keeping the Individual Safe in a Noisy Society | Is This Society Too Good to Young People? Part 5
QDaily interviewed 20 people, most of them from academia, media and publishing. What they share is a long habit of paying attention to public affairs, and the hope of passing on a "good society." The question we put to them: as the younger generation becomes more and more the mainstream of society, is that the future world we want?
Cars, Speakers, TVs, Phones… Just How Many Devices Around You Can Record Your Every Move?
No urban legends here — every eavesdropping case below is backed by evidence.
Apple Did Twenty or Thirty Big Things That Shook the Fashion World. Now Its Fashion Campaign Is Over.
Apple's grand record was built on friendly electronics and an aesthetic of extreme simplicity. The Apple Watch — a blurry product that has run through so many playbooks — looks like the odd one out.
Zara's Biggest Flagship in China Was in Chengdu. Why Did It Close?
Zara's pause on new stores and H&M's aggressive expansion send the same signal: the good years of opening stores on the back of the department-store bubble are over.
What Is JD.com Up To, Now That E-Commerce Growth Has Slowed?
Is e-commerce a zero-sum game in the end?
From Street Stalls to High-End Malls: What Has Changed in China's Milk Tea Market?
If you treat the mainland milk tea industry as a single brand, its challenge is how to stretch from the low end up to the high end. That is not impossible — but the first problem is building an environment and a level of service good enough to make customers sit down.
Post-Truth Is Everywhere — So What Made Us Lose the Truth? | Is This Society Too Kind to Young People? ④
QDaily interviewed 20 people, most of them from academia, the media and publishing. What they share is a long-standing attention to public issues and a wish to pass on a “good society.” The question we put to them: as the younger generation increasingly becomes society's mainstream, is this the future world we want?
200 Years After Jane Austen's Death, Why Are People Still Obsessed With Her?
Readers of popular romance have moved much of their attention to Fifty Shades of Grey, yet Jane Austen is still what a large share of them pick up. Then again, who says the two have nothing in common?
Fast Fashion Isn't as Strong as It Looks: H&M Opened the Most Stores Last Year, and May Be the Most at Risk
Slowing economic growth, the drop in consumer demand that follows it, and a bubble in China's commercial real estate market all make H&M Group's next round of expansion risky.
A Rare Photography Show in Beijing Tracks a Century of Fashion Under Western Taste
Here are 8 points that don't quite count as spoilers.
The Young Men Sent to the Outpost Found No Meaning in the War — Only 'Ready With the Dawn'
*Pumpkinflowers* is a clear-eyed, arresting memoir whose portrait of young soldiers stands alongside Tim O'Brien's *The Things They Carried*, and whose subject is a war almost nobody was watching.
104 Super Bowl Ads, 49.9 Minutes Total: How Did the Brands Spend Their Money?
America's most expensive 30 seconds of television cost $5.5 million this year — a contest of top-tier creative work.
Snap Is Going Public: 9 Charts on the Biggest US Tech IPO Since Facebook
The US hasn't seen an internet IPO like this in a long time. Whether Snap succeeds or fails will decide the fate of a whole cohort of startups.
What kept a department store innovating for 90 years — and what killed it over the 40 that followed?
Sears's 130-year rise and fall may hold a lesson for the American department stores in trouble today. PS: this one will cost you a little reading time.
A Company Called “Mr. Science” Turns Scientific Phenomena Into Strange Toys | 100 People With Ideas
A business built on curiosity that opened up the gift market by accident.
How Did They Build the Bridge That Changed the History of Bridge Building in America — and the World? | This Is How Our Lives Were Designed
Its structure, its methods, its materials: everything about it was new. More than a hundred years ago, the Brooklyn Bridge, sitting on New York's East River, proclaimed the power of technology and industry.
130 Years On, the Great Detective Sherlock Holmes Is a Composite of 70 Actors and 200-Plus Screen Roles
Let's look at how Sherlock Holmes became what he is today.
One Pitfall, One Lesson: In the Jungle of Tricks, Young People Have Grown Eyes That See Through Everything | QDaily Research Lab
Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel once described today's young people this way at the American Magazine Media Conference: "They're very good at spotting phony behavior online."
The Idea He Had 200 Years Ago Made Everything “Standardized” | This Is How Our Lives Are Designed
In a farming society that ran on human labor, he used machines to solve the problem of efficiency; in an age when industrial manufacturing depended on highly skilled workers, the production model he proposed let ordinary people do the job, making mass production possible.
Head of the Basketball Association: Is This Yao Ming's Failure, or Chinese Basketball's?
What has China's most famous basketball player actually done for basketball reform over the past year?
Why do so many things that claim to capture young people's attention make you laugh the second you see them?
Because young people may look like they have money, but they are not the sort to hand it over easily.
He Made the Refrigerator Car Pay, and Changed How We Eat Meat | This Is How Our Lives Were Designed
Gustavus Swift was the first man to rebuild the whole business of shipping and processing meat, and to make sure nothing went wrong at any step.
The Last Day of the Holiday: 16 Apps to Help You Recharge | The No-Pep-Talk Spring Festival Guide
Over the past few days we've handed out twelve guides to help you try something new. Today, with the holiday balance running low, you may need more than a little inspiration for enjoying the moment — you need methods you can use right away, something to give yourself a shot of adrenaline.
Isaac Merritt Singer: How a Sewing Machine Alone Built America's First Multinational | This Is How Our Lives Were Designed
He was an inventor, but he had no dream of changing the world. His story begins with the redesign of a sewing machine, and what came of it touches every one of us.
Today's Flaws Will Be Left for Young People to Fix. What Have We Done to Prepare Them? | Is This Society Too Good to Young People? ③
QDaily interviewed 20 people, most of them from academia, the media and publishing. What they share is a long-standing attention to public questions, and what they hope to pass on is a "good society." The question we put to them: as the younger generation becomes more and more the mainstream of society, is that the future world we want?
He Let People Draw on a Computer, and Created a Whole New World | This Is How Our Lives Are Designed
The cases of CAD misuse suggest that when the hands and the brain are separated, it is the brain that suffers.
Samuel Insull: The Man Who Lit Up Our Nights | This Is How Our Lives Were Designed
He built a monopoly to push electricity prices down, brought time-of-use billing to America, and finally put electric light in ordinary homes — then became the scapegoat for the Great Depression.
Who Drew the Map That Taught Us to Know the World? | This Is How Our Lives Are Designed
The people who set the standards are always great ones. QDaily will tell you seven stories, each about someone who changed the world.
What's Wrong With Young People Sweating the Small Stuff? Maybe They Just Love Life More
Happy New Year! Did you go chasing small-scale high drama today too?
The Death of Marshal Akhromeyev, and the Past 100 Years | Books About the Soviet Union
One hundred years since the October Revolution, and 25 years since the Soviet Union came apart.
What's Truly Strange Is That No Space Is Left but Entertainment | Is This Society Too Good to Young People? ②
QDaily interviewed 20 people, most of them from academia, the media, and publishing. What they share is a long-standing attention to public affairs, and what they hope to pass on is a "good society." The question we put to them: as the younger generation becomes the mainstream of society, is this the future world we want?
With Less Than 1% of China's Market, Amazon Is Now a Niche Player. Will It Be the Next eBay? | Top 15 Annual Report
A global juggernaut everywhere else, Amazon is down to its last stand in China. If its new bet — Prime membership plus cross-border shopping — can't turn things around, it will be the next eBay.
Unsung at Home, Adored Abroad: What Other Chinese Products Are Worth Buying, Buying, Buying?
No Pechoin here, and no cooling balm either. #The Good Stuff#
Disney Spent 30 Years Building Its Brand in China. Now It Has to Worry About What Comes Next | Top 15 Annual Report
A slowing Chinese economy is bad news for Disney, whose products don't come cheap.
Would You Pay 999 Yuan for a Genetic Report About Yourself? | 100 Entrepreneurs
The technical barrier to genetic testing has come down. The barriers of risk and consumer education have not — which makes this hard to call a good business.
More and More Young People Keep Finding New Ways to Spend, While Insisting: “You’re the Middle-Class One — You and Your Whole Family”
“Middle class” sounds like an affected word, but there’s another name for it: “consumption upgrading” — sounds much better, doesn’t it?
Alibaba Is Now a Top Olympic Sponsor. But Is the Olympics Still a Good Business? | QDaily Business History
A businessman named Peter Ueberroth invented the modern commercial model of the Olympics at the 1984 Los Angeles Games — in plain terms, he put a price on the Olympics. The fiercest fight inside that model is the one for top-tier sponsorships. But today the Olympics is losing its hold on people's attention.
Baidu Hit a Ceiling Over a Medical Scandal, and This Time Its Usual Patchwork Fixes Won't Work | Top 15 Annual Report
A company that only ever chased short-term returns, unable to bear the responsibility its scale demands.
Russians and Adidas: Who Makes Whom?
Two internet-famous names have teamed up, carrying a hidden football subculture and the clothes of Russian street toughs into polite company.
Is This Society Too Good to Young People? ①
QDaily interviewed more than 20 people, most of them from academia, the media and publishing. What they share is a long-standing interest in public affairs and a wish to pass on a "good society." Our question: as the younger generation becomes more and more the mainstream of society, is this the future we want?
He Has Designed Kindergartens for More Than 40 Years. A Kindergarten, He Says, Is Not a Playground — and Doesn't Need to Be Colorful
What matters is opening up every possibility for growing up. Color is one of them, but not the only one.
Tencent Built a Giant Intranet Out of WeChat, and Users Are Already Used to It | Top 15 Year-End Report
Apart from perfecting its giant intranet, Tencent didn't get much done this year.
Qi Lu Joins Baidu: The End of the Myth of the Chinese Tech Executive in America
Tang Jun, Kai-Fu Lee, Ya-Qin Zhang, Qi Lu — one by one, the ethnic Chinese executives who were once fixtures in the media have all joined Chinese companies.
Two Years After Its IPO: How Have Alibaba's Ten Big Challenges Played Out? | Top 15 Annual Report
Alibaba switched to a new story — and the market seems to have bought it.
The Man Who 'Saw the Great Wall From a Plane' Is Gone — This Is the Tuition Wang Jianlin Paid Hollywood
Wanda paid a high price for Legendary Pictures, and a large part of the reason was one man: Thomas Tull.
Small Shops and Pop-Ups: Will Shanghai's HKRI Taikoo Hui Become Commercial Real Estate's Trendiest Template?
Commercial real estate keeps getting harder, and "fast" has become a new requirement.
Two European Architects Spent 10 Years in China. What Mattered Most Was "Guanxi."
But here, "guanxi" isn't a shady shortcut — it's a network of people.
How Did a Very, Very Local Flavor Cross the Ocean and Become a Craze? | Market Inventors
Sriracha, made by Vietnam-born David Tran, opened up a different appetite for heat among Americans.
Wanda Was Doing Just Fine in Real Estate. So Why Did It Suddenly Want Out? | Top 15 Annual Reports
The steady rise in property values that Wanda once leaned on could paper over any problem. Now everyone buying into its "asset-light" pitch should beware the mindset of a general on the march — so fixed on the destination he never stops for the rabbits at his feet.
Phones weren't selling. So what was Xiaomi doing in 2016? | Top 15 Year-End Report
After a year of hustling on internet services and home appliances, Xiaomi came back to the most traditional business of all: selling phones.
Few of Last Year's Big Companies Deserve to Be Called Digital Winners | 2016 Corporate Digitalization
This is QDaily's year-end review of corporate digitalization in 2016.
Hotels in 2017: Which Trends in Service and Experience Are Worth Watching?
Shared public spaces, sharing everything; hotels as local community centers; more digitization and smart technology; and lifestyle brands opening hotels
Everyone Who Watches TV Dramas Has Moved Online. Will the Business Keep Getting Better? | QDaily's 2016 Year in Review
People will always hunt down the content they love, and no medium can stop them.
Can "Internet Thinking" Fix Renting for Young People? QDaily Has 39 Findings
Are the apparent "innovations" of branded long-term rental apartments and similar services a real attempt to meet users' needs, or a wishful misreading of what young people want? Do young people really believe that "the apartment is rented, but life isn't"?
Comedy Variety Shows Took Off This Past Year, But They Can't Fix the Market | QDaily's 2016 Year in Review
Once they took off, though, they followed the path Chinese variety television has worn smooth: copycat shows piled up, competition sharpened, and as the novelty wore off, the audience drifted away again.
Why Does Almost Anything Become a Hit Now, So Long as You Attach 'Sang' to It? | QDaily Anthropology
Sang has become the punk of a new era, spreading among the young. Its subtext: life is hard enough already — can't I just say something true?
Muji Sells the Same "Simple Life" in Japan and China. So Why Are There Two Mujis?
One is a symbol of cheap mass-market goods; the other, of refined middle-class taste. Where does the difference come from?
Innovation Is Slowing and There's No Breakout Product: Uniqlo Should Be Worried | Top 15 Annual Report
What happened to the idea that "Uniqlo isn't really a clothing maker but a technology company"? If Uniqlo's dry spell in product innovation drags on too long, the downward chain reaction could come far faster than anyone imagines.
From Chanel's Archrival to France's Haute Couture Club: What Has This Brand Been Through?
A textbook case of a brand forgotten because it fell out of step with what its time wanted.
So Many Musical Geniuses Died in 2016. What Built the Golden Age They Thrived In?
The 1960s through the 1980s are seen as music's golden age. Where did it come from, and why did it fade?
McDonald's China and Its 2,400 Restaurants Will Soon No Longer Belong to McDonald's
All of McDonald's China becomes franchised in one stroke. For the next 20 years the largest franchisee will be a new joint venture of CITIC Limited, CITIC Capital, The Carlyle Group and McDonald's — but the controlling shareholder is CITIC, a company with state-owned roots.
Stock Slumping, Old Playbook Broken: Nike's "Future Plan" Is Full of Doubt | Top 15 Annual Reports
Fashion's growing pull has made athletic companies — once fixed on athletes, sweat, and the track — far easier for trends to sway. Caught up in a fast-fashion pace, Nike has slowed down on product innovation.
[Japanese] 2016: The 10 Words That Show What Japan Was Talking About
Show business still took a healthy share of them.
At the World's Largest Consumer Electronics Show, These 19 Products Are Genuinely New | Dispatch From CES
Not all of them represent the future, but they're the most interesting things we've seen so far.
Sixteen Years: The Birth and Death of a Broadsheet Dream | QDaily Business History
A technological revolution, a shift in who holds the microphone, and ever-tighter controls seized this industry by the throat all at once.
The World's Biggest Consumer Electronics Show Turns 50: You Used to See the Future Here — Now It's Just Concepts and Shopping
Fifty years on, CES feels more like an ordinary trade show.
How 160 Years of Design Changed Our Lives: A Shanghai Exhibition Covers It All
Every ism and every principle has a reference point somewhere in these 160 years.
Why Is Faye Wong Still So Popular? | QDaily Anthropology
Faye Wong fits many people's fantasy of a settled life and an independent mind. The powerful, the literary youth, the successful, the middle class — all of them can find something in her to project themselves onto. She is a miniature of this society's "ideal life."
We Made a "Social Media Rage List" | QDaily Research Lab
Yes — not what's popular, but what's infuriating.
LeEco's Car Partner Unveiled a New Car, But Production Is Still Nowhere in Sight | Live From CES
The American company that can't shake off its ties to LeEco failed to use its new car to prove it has the technology.
The 2016 QDaily Advertising Oscars: The Final List, and What Happened in Advertising Last Year
"Advertising has gotten a bad name, which is why some people now prefer to call it 'content.'" But truly great advertising ideas can break through the medium on their own.
What Are *Onmyoji* Players Really Hooked On? | QDaily 2016 Game of the Year
*Onmyoji* launched a "recall a friend" event on New Year's Day — a remarkably unusual move for a game less than six months old.
You Can't Take These Home, But They Make Life Better All the Same | QDaily Annual Design Awards
We hope you can feel it.
QDaily's 2016 Company of the Year: Didi. Six of the deepest conflicts in China's economy converged inside this one company — and it could not navigate them.
This company lived through the most dramatic events any internet company could face.
In Pictures: These 50 Photos Sum Up 2016, a Year That's Finally Over
Happy last day of 2016.
QDaily's New Company of the Year, 2016: Mobike, and the Bike-Sharing Boom That Changed Short Trips in the City
But the investment frenzy has pushed this industry further and further from making money.
Why Guo Jingming Cried, and the Vanishing Voice of the Post-80s | QDaily 2017 Trend Insights, No. 4
Why has every once red-hot product, company and emblematic figure failed to carry over to the next generation of consumers — why did even Guo Jingming, who seemed to have timing, terrain and allies all on his side, fail this completely this year?
Why Does Everyone, No Matter What They Sell, Now Insist on "Making Content"? | QDaily 2017 Trend Watch, Part 3
The essence of content is value. It demands real labor time from whoever makes it, and that is both a sign of sincerity and a mark of credibility.
Forget "Consumption Upgrading" — The Biggest Change in Commerce Today, Online and Offline, Is "Fast-Fashionization" | QDaily's 2017 Trend Insights, Part 2
The fast-fashion industrial model has handed the market countless new choices, but where it leads isn't the vague word "upgrading" — it's something far more complicated: differentiation.
15 Things We Found Out About Eating — and You May Soon See Every One of Them | QDaily's 2017 Trend Insights ①
Both sides are subtracting from their food, yet Americans look as if they no longer want to eat anything, while Chinese consumers look as if they can never get enough. In both cases the care people take in choosing food comes from the same place: less instinctive appetite, more control and self-restraint. That may be another meaning buried inside "consumption upgrading."
Behind Blizzard's Overwatch League Are Five Questions the Whole Esports Industry Is Asking
How do you make money? How do you set the rules? How do you recruit the best players? Esports is an industry still growing up.
Luxury Brand Loewe Finally Evolved — All It Took Was Finding Someone Who Could Sell Good Looks | QDaily Business History
Without these, the brand's 170-year history might as well not exist.
Every Fast-Food Chain Is Opening a "Smart" Restaurant. How Smart Are They, Really?
The point is to win young people back, but it may have little to do with being "cool."
Music Is Recovering, but Hits Are Getting Rare. What Happened? | QDaily's 2016 Year in Review
Ask yourself, and the people around you: what was the song of 2016? How many different answers do you get?
We Asked Microsoft's Chatbot Xiaoice About Winter Solstice Dumplings — and About Its Future
Samantha from *Her* may be the direction it's headed.
Driverless Cars, Robots, Other Future Bets — Pivoted or Killed. Google Is Still an Ad Company | Top 15 Annual Reports
How to make money from artificial intelligence is a question Google, too, has to answer.
There Was a Film in Theaters You Never Noticed — About a Tibetan Man Searching for His Own Identity
Pema Tseden is called a director of the "Tibetan New Wave." He doesn't make his living off screen time in theaters.
iQiyi Has Burned Cash for Four or Five Years and Tried Every Business Model. Now It Is Talking About Making Money Three or Four Years From Now
Count from the founding of Youku and China's video sites have gone ten years without a profit.
Mid-Range Hotels at 400-500 Yuan a Night Are the New Trend. What Are the Players Thinking?
Really, this is just the last wave of budget-hotel fever, upgraded.
Why Is Going Digital So Hard for Newspapers — and Why Is It the Same Everywhere?
In 2016, every newspaper had a go at going digital. The results have all been discouraging.
What Will Future Cities Look Like? A Dutch Architect Has Three Bold Answers
"Simply copying European architecture onto China, a country with an ancient civilization, would be meaningless — you could even call it a kind of sin."
Don't Be an "Onlooker": We'll Tell You 50 "Truths" About 2016 | QDaily Dictionary Year-End Summary
We picked the industry-playbook words you have heard but never quite understood, the ones that need a second translation; and we coined a few of our own, to sum up the subtle changes and new experiences this year brought to daily life.
In Five Years, How Did Huawei Go From Working for the Carriers to China's Biggest Phone Company?
In Honor's third year as an independent brand, phone makers can no longer afford to look only at the home market.
So Many Films This Year — Which Poster Makes You Want a Closer Look?
If the first impression isn't good, how can it be alluring?
Google Has Published This Year's Top Fashion Searches. What Was Everyone Curious About?
One weakness of Google Trends: it pays far more attention to what happens in the United States.
2016 Was a Rotten Year — Which Made It the Right Moment for Christmas Ads to Compete on Warmth and Comfort
The grandest gesture is to shoot a short film and tell a good story; other brands put out a "Christmas edition" product to give you a reason to buy; and if all else fails, put up a Christmas tree — anyone can manage that, right?
Apple's First Decline in 13 Years, and Its Hunt for the Next iPhone Has Come Up Empty | Top 15 Annual Report
The deeper problem: you can watch the chase for higher margins warp Apple's judgment about its own products.