Well, the latest web meme has arrived. Googleganging. Or in other words - the strange affinity that people feel to total strangers with whom they share the same name. The buzz started with the new book 'Finding Angela Shelton', about a writer who describes her meetings with 40 other Angela Sheltons. According to the New York Times, there is some social science behind what I suspect is really just an exercise in vanity. But I thought I'd give it a try. So anyway, I was highly amused to find of us Walsh clones had decided, like in the movie 'Highlander' that there could only be one. From his website, the other Mike Walsh explains:

"Be forewarned! There are a lot of Mike Walshes out there. There is a guy in Hong Kong (used to be in Australia) who is some kind of luminary on interactive media. There is a Mike Walsh out of Helsinki (go figure) who is big in online games. There is a Mike Walsh (now dead) who used to be president of Textron. He was an early adopter of the cellular phone and died of a brain tumor at the early age of 42. Urban legend says that the publicity surrounding his death was the origin of “can cell phones cause cancer.” There is a Mike Walsh who perpetrated an accounting fraud against Boston Company, a big subsidiary of American Express, back in the 90’s. Based on the emails I receive, there was a Mike Walsh who apparently screwed every woman in Texas during the 80’s. Alas, I’m not a luminary; not a gamer; not dead yet; never perpetrated a decent sized fraud and never knowingly screwed a woman in or from Texas ( although there was the redhead from Plano… oh forget about it). So to end the confusion once and for all, I decided to become themikewalsh. Pretty clever, huh! Now when people come up to me and say… are you the Mike Walsh who … yada, yada. I can just cut them short and tell the… “I’m themikewalsh.”

Pure genius. You win. I'm changing my name. 

They are at it again. The Record Labels in China are filing suit against Baidu and Sohu for their involvement in aiding piracy by linking to unlicensed music files. The WSJ has a useful summary of the less than successful attempts by the labels to force compliance in the past.

In some ways the situation in China may be a lead indicator of the future of the music industry in the west. Chinese artists derive only a tiny fraction of their income from CD sales, earning their keep instead from events and endorsements. Under that model, what you might call piracy, others might see as free marketing. The Labels probably know that too. Music downloading is such an integral part of the Chinese web experience, and a large proportion of the traffic to sites like Baidu - that I suspect that these law suits have more to do with gaining leverage in negotiations than forcing a change user behavior.

Major League Baseball is ramping up their efforts to broaden awareness of the game in China. The interesting thing is that they are using the Web to do it. The FT reports that they will begin streaming games and other content on a Chinese language website it is creating with BroadWebAsia.

Although still not that popular in China, MLB has actually been a powerful content driver of new platform adoption elsewhere in Asia. One of the earliest deals South Korean Mobile TV operator TU Media did was with the MLB to broadcast games of Korean major leaguer Chanho Park. Ride on the subway in Seoul, and you will observe just how popular watching baseball on mobile phones has become. But don't hold your breath on the mainland catching up anytime soon. While Japan, Korea and Taiwan already send their best players to the US, the game is as yet barely played in China.