Eight day of the week? – Week08.com turns anecdotes into cash

By Liang Meilan

eBay, one of the few survivors of the dot-com bubble that rocked IT in the late 1990s, has been a model for countless smaller copycats.

But creativity has been the exception among clones. First there was the Belgian site Zilok, founded to auction rented services, and then UK-based Sweemo, selling life moments.

Now China too may have hit on a new model: Week08.com, a website trading real and tested experiences.

Since last June, the idealistic start-up has been creating a stir in the e-commerce field with its new ideas. But new ideas are not a guarantee of success.

From unknown to OK

Drawing on his background in e-commerce, Xiong Xinxiang believes he has found a perfect match between online auctioning and his life philosophy: Week08, a website updated dynamically to sell new stories about daily experiences.

“Life is punctuated by question marks and OKs,” the CEO says. “The experiences gained from everything in between are precious, valuable on their own and useful for others.”

The CEO, now in his 40s, is also the boss of an IT company and is one of the shareholders in one of the top information websites, Zhubajie.

“We consider our boss a philosopher and admire his strong belief that it is not only the experiences of accomplished people which should be recorded in books. There is value in the small bits of wisdom ordinary people gain from daily life,” said He Ping, manager of Week08.

The site attempts to draw on profitable assets usually left buried in people’s minds to turn them into documents that can be sold via online auction. “Experiences being auctioned on the website vary from subtle tips on child rearing to making sure your company’s secrets stay secret,” He said.

“The value of these experiences is demonstrated only when passed on to the right people. Week08 uses the wide availability and interactivity of the Internet to get these experiences to the people who might benefit from them,” said Wang Song, e-commerce expert with IResearch.cn, a research website specializing in new economy analysis. “This model is significant for people who need tested solutions to the kinds of problems that appear while on the job.”

From its inception, the website has targeted office workers who spend their life in front of a terminal. “Week08 as a name signifies that we give workers a new ‘eighth workday’ where the website can work for them by turning their summary of experiences into extra money,” He said.