If you take a look at the subscription information, you may notice a few things have changed. There's a new product, and some prices have fallen as well.

Guided
ChinesePod Guided offers you everything that comes with a Premium subscription, plus a live voice evaluation of your language abilities with a trained Chinese teacher in Shanghai. That teacher will assess your Chinese level, then recommend some lessons from our massive archive, based on your level, your goals, and your interests. That teacher will continue to give you feedback and guidance throughout the month, and will also test you on what you learned at the end of the month. You don't ge tthe daily speaking practice that you get with the Executive subscription (formerly known as the Practice Plan), but you do get valuable guidance in your studies at a much more affordable price.

Price Changes
We have updated our pricing to be a bit more consistent, and, in several cases, more affordable as well. Please note that 6 month Premium subscriptions are now $11 cheaper, and the Executive subscription prices fell even more drastically.

Of course, you can find info about all this stuff on the Subscription Information page.

We just made a tiny little "upgrade" to all of our comments. It's now easy to link to individual comments in any lesson, user post, or group conversation.

Next to the username in each comment, you see this little icon:

That little word bubble is no longer just decoration! It links to the individual comment. Richt-click on it to copy the link, and then you can use that in your conversations or e-mails to refer to specific comments made.

I know, it's a tiny change, and we probably should have done it before, but sometimes tiny changes like this, especially in large quantities, make a big difference. More to come!

Is there any site for chinese news in an audio form. Maybe RSS or podcast? CCTV?

Hi guys!

I just put up a new post filling you in on what tech stuff we've been working on, and also asking for specific feedback on how we can improve the Community section of the site.  Please take a look, and if you have ideas, now is the time!

ChinesePod Development Updates, Community Discussion

2009! Great year for China wasn't it?

Anyway I can't resist posting this from Chinasmack, 62 news photographs and their original captions (translated into English, so look away now education lovers.)

Or maybe you'd rather just see a building not quite falling down in Liuzhou.

I received an email this morning that reads:

Free Accommodation & Free Transportation to Shaoxing!
“Here is your Golden Opportunity to enjoy a Free Trip to Shaoxing at the expense of their local government. Here you can take advantage of free Textile Sourcing Exhibitions and City Tours!”

This isn’t the first time I’ve received this sort of mass invitation, but it made me smile because I had just read just yesterday this article in the Times, which reports that the computers of Shaoxing have just been found to be the origin 21% of the world's “malicious hacker” emails.

I doubt very much that the city’s cyber-espionage activities are linked in any way to its government’s efforts to entice more foreigners to visit. Still, I thought it was an amusing coincidence.
 
As an aside, one thing that irritates me with these sorts of articles in western papers is the anti-China stance that they always seem to take – and the barrage of anti-China  comments this inevitably generates from readers. The UK is clearly concerned about espionage from China, but the Brits and Americans are also engaging in the same activities. I guess for the papers it’s just a question of using attention-grabbing "news" hooks, and all things “China” continue to offer this.

Sooo, anyway, if any foreigners here in China do fancy an all-expenses-paid trip to Shaoxing, let me know and I'll forward you the email ;-)