Apparently Tencent is the hottest Internet company in China with services that include QQ, a mobile IM service, and this New York Times article describes its ascent to stardom and why it was able to beat out the likes of Google.

One of the figures the Times reports is that 70% of Internet users in the US are over 30, whereas 70% if Internet users in China are under 30. Not that I don’t believe it, but how do they get these figures? It’s not like people broadcast their age each time they send packets over any given network interface. (Translated for the non-geeks: People don’t always advertise their age when sending email or IMs, or during casual Internet browsing.) The age data that does exist out there are mostly likely from parents who sign up for Internet service so their kids can use it, or from kids who create accounts with fake birth dates so they can access that “special” content. The only accurate (though not necessarily precise) method I can think of is surveys of random households, which I doubt they did.