I arrived in Beijing for WWW 2008. I will give a talk at a workshop and participate on a panel. That begins tomorrow.
I arrived yesterday evening — local time, 15 hours ahead of USA, so it is Monday morning now.
The new airport is very impressive — nice imposing architecture with lots of nice shape. All modern facilities. Clearly CHina wants to impress the world as a leader. And they have done every thing to make sure that physical facilities are world class. Roads were equally impressive. Unfortunately it has been raining so I have not yet been out of the hotel — may venture soon. Have to visit Nuistars office this evening so will have to venture out — before that I want to go and register for the conference.
First impression about the service is not in the same class as about the physical facilities. In addition to language, something else seems to be lacking. I will observe this and other things over the next few days — it is too early to form any concrete impression on that.
I have been thinking a lot about Web Science. Hopefully my talk tomorrow will reflect that.