The foundation-laying stage

1998

Looking back at 1998, we can recall the fight against flood and disaster relief, the France World Cup and the bitter Indonesia riot. In the field of Internet, 1998 was a very important year. It was the year of exploration for business modes of Internet applications. In this year, portal websites started to become important Internet application and e-commerce started to make transactions. In this year, environment for venture capital started to be improved and financing paths for Internet enterprises were gradually clarified. Moreover, Ministry of Information Industry was established in the spring of the year as the superior authority of the Internet industry.

China's first government news portal people.cn was founded back in 1997, but the true year of portal websites in the history of China's Internet was 1998. In this year, value of portal websites was recognized by the Internet circle. Sina, NetEase and other portals that profoundly influenced Chinese people's way of information inquiry started to emerge out of transformation from other modes in this year. Except for these business websites, central news portals such as website of Xinhua News Agency (later renamed Xinhua Net), Gmw.cn and CRI Online and local portals such as online.sh.cn and wuhan.net.cn were gradually launched. Though portal products were not mature at that time and advertising income was limited, the portal age of Internet was gradually ushered in.

E-commerce attracted increasingly greater attention in this year. China's first online transaction was made in March and the first e-commerce contract was generated online. In this year, Jack Ma returned to Hangzhou and founded Alibaba together with others. An e-commerce kingdom was therefore unsealed.

In this year, the industry of venture capital closely related with Internet started to develop. The internationally famous venture capital agency IDG started to invest in new-tech industry in China and a proposal on venture capital development was confirmed as the proposal of top priority in the year's CPPCC conference. Development of venture capital solved the capital dilemma for Internet enterprises and laid the foundation for lasting prosperity of the Internet industry later.

Besides, this year, newly established Ministry of Information Industry was identified as the superior authority of the Internet industry. Existence of a superior was favorable to industrial regulation and development.