Search is only part of what Mister Wong offers; it’s also a social network. Users can create and join groups to share site links, or they can be “buddies” with each other. Like Facebook users, they can also add images to their accounts and send each other messages.
Tietjen has managed to broker deals to link with major sites like Deutsche Telekom, Der Spiegel and Die Zeit. As a result, it now has about 2.5 million users in Germany. Tietjen has opened Mister Wong sites in Russian, Chinese, Spanish, French and English, and plans for a Japanese version are in the works. The use of local-language sites is important, says Tietjen, because it allows people to bookmark their specific cultural preferences in things like news, blogs, videos, music and cities. When entering a new market, the firm woos bloggers in the target country in the hope of creating buzz.
The road to becoming both a global and local brand at the same time has not been smooth. Mister Wong’s original logo—a cartoonish nerdy East Asian man—outraged some Asian-Americans just as the company was trying to enter the United States market last spring. “Mister Wong had better be based on a real person [who] saved twenty burning German orphanages, because otherwise, I’m calling foul,” wrote a poster on the blog 8asians. Some German users responded that offended parties should calm down and stop spreading political correctness “all over the world.” Tietjen removed the controversial logo, apologized on a Mister Wong blog and announced a contest to design a new logo. (The winner will be announced within the next month.) The Mister Wong brand hasn’t yet caught fire outside Germany, which accounts for four fifths of its 3 million users. Tietjen is hoping that a successful site can grow with slow steps rather than a big bang.
