Imagethief

 See also: About the Imagethief blog

My name is William Moss. I am an American who has lived and worked in China since 2004, first in Beijing, then in Shanghai, and now back in Beijing. I am a director at one of the big, international public relations firms. I don't name it in this blog because I don't want any confusion about the fact that this is a personal blog. Although I write about public relations, communication and propaganda, among other things, the opinions within are solely my own and not those of my company. You can Google if you want to know more. More information on the blog and my posting policies can be found via the link above.

I enjoy what I do. I am a media junkie and always have been. I love to read, write and watch. For a media junkie and a student of the media and its influence on society there is no more interesting place or time than China, right now. China is in the midst of discovering what it wants from a modern media, and what that means in terms of ethics, government and society. It is not an easy or clear path for a country that still bends under the weight of Mao's legacy. To be able to live and work here alongside a team of bright and engaging Chinese colleagues and to be able to watch the story of modern China and its media unfold first-hand is an adventure and a privilege. I keep this blog to share some small part of that experience.

I can be contacted at dwmoss -at- gmail -dot- com.

Bio
I have a background in media and the Internet. I was born and grew up in San Francisco and spent time working in music and talk radio and television news in the Bay Area while in grad school in the early nineties. I also spent a lot of time writing, co-authoring two books on computer games on the old pre-Internet commercial online services and the Internet (both of which were out of date the moment they hit the shelves).

In late 1995 I left the United States and went to Singapore with five friends, including my co-author on those two books, to work on an Internet computer games project in Singapore for a company callled Sembawang Media. That project was fascinating...and an immense disaster. You can read all about it in my my proto-blog on the experience, written and originally posted in 1995, '96 and early '97. Eventually my five partners all returned to the USA. I stayed in Asia and I've never looked back.

After our operatic swan-dive at Sembawang Media I joined a Singapore-based Internet consultancy called SilkRoute Ventures where I spent more than  four years. SRV --as we called it affectionately-- had the distinction of receiving a US$25 million dollar investment from Richard Li, an event that I somewhat cynically date as the beginning of our downfall. To make a long and frustrating story short, I am not a stock-option millionaire. I did, however, make many of my best friends during that time.

After two Internet cataclysms in a row I sought refuge in the comparatively sedate world of public relations starting in late 2001. I became the technology industry specialist at Baldwin Boyle Shand (BBS), the Singaporean outpost of a New Zealand based PR firm more known for its work for New Zealand's immense dairy cooperative, Fonterra.

At about that time I found Singapore's horizons beginning to feel a bit narrow. I took up Mandarin language study in 2002 and in 2004 I quit BBS and came to China to do a three month full time language program. Imagethief was launched shortly after I arrived in Beijing, in June, 2004. I enjoyed Beijing and found China fascinating. When my language program ended I joined my current firm in Beijing and Mrs. Imagethief, a Singaporean woman who was a colleague at SilkRoute Ventures, moved up to join me. We have been in China ever since.

In addition to working for a PR firm I do a fair amount of freelance writing for various magazines and online publications. Most recently I kept the "Little Red Blog" China technology blog at CNET Asia for a year, during 2006 and 2007. It is now written by the capable and entertaining Rick Martin. I also did a lot of writing for That's Beijing and still do a quarterly China technology column for China Economic Review as well as other odds and ends that don't conflict with my work.

CV
For people who may be googling my name, here is a keyword CV:

Diccon William Moss (a.k.a. Will Moss, Diccon Moss or, in China, Li Weile -- 李伟乐)
Marin Country Day School (73-81)
Palo Alto High School (81-85)
UC Santa Cruz, Porter College (85-89)
San Francisco State University (92-95), and KSFS Student Radio
KPIX TV, KDBK Radio, Star FM, KSOL Radio, KSFO Radio
Author or co-author of Online G@mes (1994), The Complete Internet Gamer (1995) and several Cyberpunk and Castle Falkenstein game books for R. Talsorian Games (1989-1994).

Singapore (1995-2004):
Games Online / Sembawang Media
SilkRoute Ventures / Latitude Web
Baldwin Boyle Shand