Focus, which runs video ads on public LCD screens, gets credit by many for upping the excitement around Web 2.0. The key is that the company's screens are located where lines congregate, which is to say everywhere in China: bank lobbies, shopping centers, convenience stores, inside elevators, and the lobby next to the elevators where a person can wait a minute or longer for a car.

The company formed in 2003 and held an IPO in 2005. The stock went out at US$17 a share and now sells for around US$44. Revenue in the first quarter came to US$58.1 million, up 75 percent from a year ago, while profit rose 73 percent to US$16.3 million.

The rapid success and somewhat unusual delivery model for ads "changed the mindset" of both entrepreneurs and local advertisers, who were more focused on print and TV, said Ian Chin, president of Wealink, a Mandarin language version of LinkedIn. "You have to wait so you have eyeballs."

Word got around fast. "After they went public, the Focus executives would hit the button for Floor-1 (the floor below the lobby) instead of L (for lobby)," said Chin, who works in the same building. Instead of stopping in the lobby to exit the building, the executives were going a floor lower to the garage, where their new cars were parked.

Gavin Ni, CEO of Zero-2-IPO, a publishing house that tracks the Chinese market, asserts that a lot of the activity isn't so much around technology, but the relatively untapped nature of the domestic market.

"China is a developing country, and so now what people want are brands and consistency," Ni said. "Clothes, food, beverages are interesting."

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