Here’s a little nice to know fact for people in Hong Kong. The web business is a big business, fools. Just look at Alibaba, by far the best buyer/seller community.

Alibaba has confirmed they will go public later this year in Hong Kong with the application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last Friday. Internet related listings on the HKSE are a rarity (true? I’m a HK stock market virgin) since the good old days, like Tom.com. We’ve also seen some successes and failures of Chinese tech stocks in the US stock market in the past. So for Alibaba to go public in Hong Kong is obviously good news for them but it also would provide a much needed boost for the web industry in Hong Kong.

But the Internet is such a powerful tool that has fundamentally changed how people do business. I worry about a lot of my Hong Kong friends. If Hong Kong doesn’t use the Internet [for business], there’s going to be a disaster.

Looking back a year ago, Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma made some observations and bold predictions about the web in Hong Kong known to the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce. His insights were precise then and his prediction still has to play out completely, but I have been in complete agreement with him.

The Internet is not going to kill the middleman, but it’s going to create a new kind of e-middleman

To give my audience, outside of HK, an idea that the web is in a sad sad state (and I am not making any of this up), we look at some of the top local brand’s website, Broadway Photo Supplies and Fortress. They are the Best Buy or Circuit City of Hong Kong. Given their scale, you would think, at minimum, they would offer a lot more product information on their website. Of course, that’s not the case and they don’t offer e-commerce to the consumers and you’ll find it funny that their entire site is exactly like a paper advertisement.

As with many of the companies here, they would rather spend their money on rolling out new physical stores instead, only smaller companies are looking to the web to power their business. These are just a couple examples off the top of my head, but there are countless other companies out there that do not use the web to their advantage. Web 2.0 or not, you can see how disappointing the web industry is here and you could see why Jack Ma’s prediction could in fact become a reality.

Whether the companies here chose to learn from him or not, the internet landscape should change for the better once they debut on the HKSE. With the IPO, maybe companies will revisit his insights and change their online business strategy. Maybe local university students will think twice before joining the ranks in the large corporations and instead opt to join a startup or even start one themselves. Maybe I am just dreaming the impossible.

Eventually, things will change and you’ll see more businesses in Hong Kong moving their business to the web or realigning their presence in the web. Why? Because they’ll be blinded by Jack Ma’s success by way of his precious stock symbol and the number of millionaires emerging in the mainland from this IPO.