CCTV9英语新闻：中国互联网发展（在线收听）

Beijing’s Zhongguancun district is considered China’s Silicon Valley. Just about anything to do with computers can be bought there, but it has also been a crib for the country’s IT elites, who have gone on to influence the growth of China’s internet and related industries. They are the so-called ’net-knitters’ of China’s internet.

For more on this, I’m joined in the studio by my colleague Han Peng.

Q1: Give us some of the famous names in China’s internet history?

A1: Yes, Zhong Shi. In January 2000, Robin Li Yanhong started his search engine company in a small hotel room near Zhongguancun district in Beijing. Before that, he worked as a staff engineer in Silicon Valley in California, when saw opportunity knocking in China. Now his company, Baidu, has become the dominate internet search engine in China with more than a 60 percent market share, and hundreds of millions users. Jack Ma or Ma Yun, was an English teacher in east China’s city of Hangzhou before he started to build websites for Chinese companies. Now he owns China’s largest e-commerce group. By March 2013, Ma’s Taobao.com and Tmall.com had a trade volume of one trillion Yuan, or 160 billion US dollars. Then there’s Ma Huateng, the founder of Tencent, the fifth-largest Internet company in the world. Ma founded Tencent in 1998. The company’s online messenger app QQ has over 800 million active users in China, and its mobile instant messeger Wechat has 350 million users. There are also two lesser known internet pioneers -- Qian Tianbai and Zhang Shuxin -- who played crucial roles in early development of China’s internet. Qian sent China’s first email in 1987, and registered the China’s internet suffix ’dot.cn’ on behalf of China in 1990. Zhang established the first internet service provider in China in 1995. Back to you, Zhong Shi.

Q2, Thanks, Han peng. There have been a number of pioneers in China’s internet history who have become very wealthy, but what about ordinary people? What do they say about the development of the internet in China?

A2: Well, we took our camera on to street to find the answer to that very question. Many people said they clearly remember their first experience on the internet. They also say the internet has become an essential part of their life.

And so two decades ago the "Internet" was just an novel sounding word, and few could have imagined it would become such an integral part of modern life. But then came email, instant messaging, online games, e-business, mobile apps, and now people say they couldn't live without it. Back to you, Zhong Shi.