Chinese web auction company Taobao.com (owned by Ali Baba) has a User Experiment Design department called Taobao UED, which helps develop Taobao’s products, web pages and generate an online community based on the company and its technology development.
On May 22 a blog post about a party was posted on the Taobao UED website by user Yong Sha (咏沙). On the guest list are A-Listers from the tech sphere: experts from Paypal US, the head of technology from HFI Asia, and senior researchers from IBM and eBay.
Their parties have been going on for a year, and the one year anniversary date was announced. The party uses the product in its name, hence the “Taobao UED carbonic acid soft drink gathering” (Taobao UED 碳酸饮料会).
The internal advert that they have posted, however, is slightly unusual:
The whole text reads:
Taobao UED carbonic acid drink party. Sharing not only a beverage!
Our anniversary, our date!
Only one commenter expressed surprise at the choice of date; the majority showed support for the Taobao brand, the need to use a straw whilst drinking out of the 1-shaped hole, as well as encouraging the product to go on official release to the public.