November 29, 2007

Yahoo Europe Gets New Hire, Facing Possible Closing

Though Yahoo Europe has been given until the end of the first quarter next year to improve their numbers or face closing, their new hire of Kristof Fahy - former brand manager for BlackBerry and telephone service provider Orange - shows they do not plan on going out without giving it a hard shot.

Fahy dealt with brand, planning and advertising for the mobile operator Orange's UK business. Something Yahoo needs in Europe where they have a track record of abandoning products.

The growth of international search resurrected their interest in non-US countries and purchases of companies like Terespondo, the Latin search engine for Spain and South America.

Toby Coppel, the Yahoo! Europe managing director said recently "that poorly performing parts of the European business have until the end of the first quarter next year to improve or faced being closed down or sold," the UK Guardian reported.

Though I have advocated Yahoo move to niched portals and communities - I think they should have these available in Europe and the other continents, not just the US. If they are serious about competing in the search world then any plans to drop countries being serviced is a major sign of surrender.

Posted by Frank Watson at 2:30 PM | Permalink

November 19, 2007

Yahoo Could Be Selling European Units

Seems Yahoo is unhappy with their European marketing efforts, the new head of Yahoo's European business Toby Coppel told the Financial Times.

"Yahoo's problems in Europe stemmed from a historical lack of focus on the region," the FT.com report stated.

Coppel told FT.com "that Yahoo has not always used its most advanced technology in Europe'.

"In rushing out to market, we built a lot of applications that didn't speak to each other," Coppel t said. "We didn't have the same resources. We were managing a larger number of legacy products with fewer people than in the States."

If the European division does not increase market there is the possibility Yahoo will sell it off. Seems Yahoo did this a few years ago and then had to play catch up again. While agree that the portals need to be geared towards the various European countries to get more repeat visitors, they may need to purchase some of the small European engines to gain that boost. Similar to the purchase of Telerespondo which help improve the Latin market.

The other local engines would have local sales teams in place as well as current clients.

The new year could be an interesting time for the Yahoo International people.

Posted by Frank Watson at 1:14 PM | Permalink

February 6, 2007

Niched or Vertical Approach Popular in Chinese Search

The allure of 1.3 billion people has many international corporations adapting their marketing and product offerings to the Chinese market. The search industry seems to be following the same direction.

In the last 30 days, both Yahoo! and MSN have announced vertical initiatives into the Chinese market. Interestingly, though China is a Communist country, both service Chinese business interests.

MSN is launching a job search service - funny I always thought in Communist countries the government told you what your job was. Yahoo China, last month, announced its intention to develop as a business search engine for the China market.

Guess the capitalists of the world are being won over to the profits available from Communist customers.

Posted by Frank Watson at 11:16 AM | Permalink

January 24, 2007

Future of Search: The European View

Richard Firminger, Director of Northern European Sales for Yahoo Search Marketing emailled his version of the future of search today.

Interesting to see how others see where we will be moving this year. Below is a copy of the email.

Without a doubt, 2006 has been an exciting year within the realm of internet search. Not only has the number of internet searches per year hit record highs, consumers themselves are becoming more demanding and sophisticated in how they use search engines.

As a result 2007 will see advertisers and search companies reacting in kind. New platforms, technologies and trends that started to gain momentum towards the end of 2006 will soon become everyday.

The search engines themselves will evolve. From a single search we will soon be able to receive answers incorporating text (sponsored and algorithmic), video, images and even human knowledge – the latter coming from social search products like Yahoo! Answers, which was launched this year.

2006 saw a cautious approach by the industry to advertising on social media, with the fear of incurring a negative audience response to intrusive or irrelevant advertising, top of mind.

However, with some success already – the Sainsbury's and Thomson sponsorships on Yahoo! Answers, for example – advertisers and media owners alike will be looking to further monetise these highly-qualified and engaged audiences throughout 2007.

Additionally, natural language, or Semantic Search – which enables users to pose queries as a properly phrased question, not with a couple of words – may come to the fore.

This next generation search engine obviously poses as many opportunities for advertisers as it does for consumers. However, for advertisers to maximise the revenue potential of these new opportunities, search companies must, in turn, evolve their campaign management applications.

In early 2007, Yahoo! will do this with its new search advertising platform. Future-proofed to evolve with new and existing trends in online advertising, the new platform will provide advertisers with enhanced capabilities and tools such as Geo-targeting and advanced analytics.

This will enable search marketers to work more like traditional marketers – not simply keyword specialists – by providing them with the capabilities and insights that will truly help them be more strategic and efficient in how they drive results.

New advertising platforms will also play a key role in what will be a major trend in online advertising during 2007 – mobile.

As Yahoo!'s CEO & President, Terry Semel, said in his recent speech at IAB Engage, the sheer number of mobile devices – an estimated 2 billion compared to 900 million PCs – means the next big area of internet growth will be among users who have never connected to the Internet via a computer and maybe never will.

2007 will see more mobile operators lower their ‘walled gardens' and establish strategic partnerships in a similar vein to Yahoo! with Vodafone, 3, Nokia and Orange. These partnerships will enable mobile operators to maximise the all important revenue potential of their existing customer base through search and graphical advertising.

Once the pricing models, opt-in policies and ad formats have been finalised, 2007 will see mobile start realising Terry Semel's prediction.

Like the year just past, 2007 will be another big year in online advertising. But whilst it will be a year of maximising revenue opportunities, we should not forget about maintaining a positive user experience – as they, after all, are the cornerstone of our industry.

Posted by Frank Watson at 12:36 PM | Permalink

January 8, 2007

Yahoo! China To Become Business Search Engine

The International Herald Tribune announced Yahoo! China will develop into a search engine for the business vertical.

CEO Jack Ma of Alibaba Group - owners of Yahoo! China (though Yahoo! owns 40 percent of Alibaba Group).

This is an interesting move on the part of the second largest search engine in China. Is Yahoo! test driving a future move globally?

Thoughts? Share them here.

Posted by Frank Watson at 5:52 AM | Permalink

November 28, 2006

Yahoo China's President Xie Wen Resigns After Six Weeks

PC Advisor reports that Xie Wen, president of Yahoo China, has resigned after only six weeks on the job. Zeng Ming, senior vice-president of Alibaba, will replace Xie, who is resigning for "personal reasons." Xie will stay on as a consultant for Yahoo for an undisclosed time period. This follows on Google China's president apparently announcing he would be resigning earlier this month, though I can't find a more detailed story about that.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:00 AM | Permalink

October 23, 2006

Yahoo Japan's Profit & Sales Grow 20+ Percent

Market Watch reports that Yahoo Japan's net profit rose 22-percent in Q3 of this year. Net sales rose 36% to 21.20 billion yen from the previous quarter. Projected net profit is between 13.65 billion yen and 15.20 billion yen in the fiscal quarter through December.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:38 AM | Permalink

September 29, 2006

Yahoo China Sues Hongyi's Qihoo For Unfair Competition

Reuters reports that Yahoo China is suing Qihoo, claiming that 360safe spyware software is prompting users to uninstall the Yahoo Toolbar. The spyware software claims that Yahoo's Toolbar is "malware" and is a risk to their computers. Joseph Tsai, Alibaba's chief financial officer, said that this is unfair competition, alluding to a former Yahoo employee named Zhou Hongyi who now heads up Qihoo. It is important to note that Zhou Hongyi sued Yahoo last month for defamation.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:30 AM | Permalink

September 4, 2006

Yahoo Answers Launches In The UK

The Guardian Unlimited reports that Yahoo, today, launched the Yahoo Answers product in the UK. The UK version is now available at http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/ and is also available on the left hand navigation of Yahoo UK's home page. Reportedly, Yahoo will be launching a campaign around the Answers product in the that is the "largest advertising campaign in Britain since the dotcom boom."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:44 AM | Permalink

August 17, 2006

Former Yahoo China Head Sues Yahoo For Defamation

Reuters reports that Zhou Hongyi, the former head of Yahoo China, has sued Yahoo for defamation. Yahoo said they were about to sue Zhou Hongyi for "unethical business practices." Hongyi has a 40 percent stake in Alibaba.com, which was bought by Yahoo for $1 billion last year. To me, it seems like from the article, that Yahoo finds Hongyi to be a shady character, and Hongyi doesn't like Yahoo telling the public how they feel about him.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:20 AM | Permalink

July 27, 2006

Yahoo Partners With British Telecom For Yahoo Local UK

Revolution Magazine reports that Yahoo has partnered with British Telecom to share Yellow Pages data. Yahoo will add 120,000 businesses who advertise in The Phone Book from BT within the Yahoo Local UK platform. This helps BT offer an additional service to their Phone Book customers and gives Yahoo access to some more data and marketing opportunities they may have not had otherwise.

Post Script from Greg: Yell is the dominant yellow pages publisher in the UK and was previously owned by BT before it was sold a few years ago. Yell provides all its content to Google, as the basis for Google Local/Maps in the UK.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:29 AM | Permalink

July 20, 2006

Amnesty International Asking Users To Pressure Google, Yahoo & Microsoft Over China Policies

BBC News reports that Amnesty International is urging users of Google, Yahoo and MSN in the UK to email the search engines opposing the way each operates in China. Amnesty International says that the search engines are aiding the censorship. The search engines say that Chinese users are more well off then they were prior. More on the Amnesty campaign can be found here from the organization.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:24 AM | Permalink

July 13, 2006

Yahoo Reaches Out To U.S. Hispanics Via Deal With Hispanic Digital Network

ClickZ reports that Yahoo has reached a deal with Hispanic Digital Network (HDN) to supply web search and sponsored search listings for HDN's 70+ Spanish-language Web sites. Reportedly, this gives Yahoo access to 2.8 million U.S. Hispanic visitors per month. The ads will be both in Spanish and English, not based on geo-location but based on the language used in the query. Yahoo would like to see more Spanish content web sites developed in the future, according to Peter Celeste, regional general manager for the Americas for Yahoo Search and Search Marketing.

For more information on the Hispanic market, check out our coverage of SES Latino from Monday and Tuesday.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:02 AM | Permalink

July 5, 2006

Yahoo Launches New Home Page Design In UK & Ireland

Personal Computer World in the UK reports that Yahoo has finally released the new home page redesign that has been in beta since mid-February -- at least in the UK. The new design is visible for all at http://uk.yahoo.com/ and is described "as the biggest redesign in its history, and promised that the new homepages would focus on search, content, community and personalisation." Danny confirms that his Yahoo home page has switched to the beta version, and he is based in the UK, of course. I am based in New York, and my Yahoo home page has remained the same.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:02 AM | Permalink

July 3, 2006

Yahoo China To Be Sued For Linking To Sites Selling Pirated Music

Spotted via TechCrunch, Bloomberg reports that Yahoo China is to be sued for linking to sites that sell pirated music. The article claims "about 90 percent of all recordings in China are illegal, with sales of pirated music worth about $400 million annually," according to the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry. A new law in China that came into effect on July 1 "fines distributors of illegally copied music, movies and other material over the Internet as much as 100,000 yuan ($12,500)."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:47 AM | Permalink

June 16, 2006

Yahoo To Reduce Search Ad Minimum Bid In UK To 5p?

I reported this morning at the Search Engine Roundtable that Yahoo may be reducing the minimum bid price from 10p to 5p. A WebmasterWorld member claimed to read the news in Interactive magazine that Yahoo will be reducing the minimum bid due to competition from Microsoft.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:44 AM | Permalink

Yahoo China Highest Censorship Enforcing

Wired News reports that Yahoo China is the strictest at censoring out politically sensitive results when compared to Google China and MSN China. Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group, conducted tests by querying ten "politically-sensitive keywords" including press freedom or human rights." Editors & Publisher adds the group found Yahoo's censorship was shocking, for example, as when a keyword search on "subversive" brought back 97% pro-Beijing results. More from Reporters Without Borders is here, explaining how six keywords were tested and the first ten results analyzed.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:17 AM | Permalink

June 7, 2006

Presentations from the Future of Web Search, in Barcelona

When it was announced earlier this year that Dr. Ricardo Baeza-Yates would be joining Yahoo, part of the agreement involved him continuing to work with the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. An event sponsored by Yahoo and the Web Research Group of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, the Future of Web Search took place on May 19-20, 2006, and included a large cast of presenters on a wide variety of topics.

ResourceShelf's Gary Price noted yesterday that many of the slides from the workshop are now online. Here are a few of the presentations available:

Using Rank Propagation and Probabilistic Counting for Link-based Spam Detection

"Tuning": Error Optimisation in Ad-Hoc Retrieval

Current Approaches to Personalized Web Search

Applications of Mining Web Queries

Boosting Performance of Web Search Engines Using Query Logs

From Query Based Information Retrieval to Context Driven Information Supply

The presentation also included a symbolic opening of the Yahoo! Research Lab in Barcelona.

Javier Casares and Tomy Lorsch have a short interview with Andrei Broder, at ojobuscador, from the second day of workshops with transcriptions in both English and Spanish. The sound quality isn't great, but it provides a nice glimpse into the energy present during the two days of workshops.

Posted by Bill Slawski at 12:51 PM | Permalink

May 10, 2006

Yahoo En Español & Telemundo.com To Merge

The Wall Street Journal reports that Yahoo En Español and Telemundo.com will be merging companies. They will be merging the staff and sharing one advertising budget. If you visit http://espanol.yahoo.com/ now, you will find both logos at the top of the page, representing each company. The reason for the merger is because the online Hispanic market is growing extremely quickly and the two companies want to take advantage of "the incredible growth of the Hispanic marketplace," today. It appears that the two companies will fold under the Yahoo umbrella.

We have been reporting on the Hispanic market growth recently. You can find out more by reading here and here.

Postscript: PaidContent.org has some more details on the merger plans.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:45 AM | Permalink

May 1, 2006

Yahoo "Unaware" Of Chinese Dissident Case

Friday we reported that Yahoo was cited for helping to jail a Chinese dissident. Today I noticed that Forbes reports Yahoo's Mary Osako saying, "We are unaware of this case." Yahoo is basically saying, they know nothing about this case. Then Mary Osako starts explaining that this is a government-to-government issue, etc. I am not sure if Yahoo handled this the right way.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:50 AM | Permalink

April 28, 2006

Yahoo Cited In Chinese Dissident Verdict Case

CNN reports that Yahoo has actually been cited for helping to jail a Chinese dissident. We reported the rumors that Yahoo has given data to the Chinese in early February. It seems as if that data has actually been used in a Chinese court to jail the Chinese dissident. Information provided by Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. was used in the court case, specifically Wang's Yahoo Group account "aaabbbccc" and email address bxoguhúyahoo.com.cn. The information delivered to the courts was not confirmed if it provided Wang's identity or not.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:48 AM | Permalink

April 27, 2006

Yahoo To Create Better Portals Globally

Informatics Online reports Yahoo is going to make an international push with their Web portal properties. Currently, Yahoo has been focused on building out features for the US market. David Rice, vice president of product strategy at Yahoo International, said that he wants the global counterparts to be "comparable to the US site." Expect some more international Yahoo press releases in the next 12 months or so.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:50 AM | Permalink

March 17, 2006

Alibaba.com Uses $750M of the $1B (USD) Yahoo Paid

Alibaba.com, which acquired Yahoo China, used $750 million of the $1 billion dollars Yahoo injected into Alibaba.com as part of the acquisition. This has given Yahoo a 40%, majority, ownership in Alibaba.com. We learned this from Jack Ma Keynote Address today in China. The coverage at my blog says that Jack Ma said something to the affect of, "the truth is $750 million out of the $1 billion given to Alibaba was either spent or reinvested." You can read Forbes.com thoughts on this here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:38 AM | Permalink

March 9, 2006

Yahoo's Yang Says It's More Important To Be In China Than Risk Of Not Participating

News.com reports that Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang said, "It is more important for us to participate, not only for economic reasons, but to be able to help shape where the industry is going." Yang said that Yahoo has to balance the "risk of not participating" and overall, "we are seeing changes, on the whole, for the positive" in the Chinese market. Yang seems to take a different angle with his reasoning for operating in China, when compared to Barry Diller's Keynote where he commented that being in China is about being about to "stomach operating in a country" and that operating in China is more of a political decision then a business decision. Yang replied to giving up details of a Chinese dissident saying; "We feel horrible about that...We have no way of preventing that beforehand....If you want to do business there you have to comply." So can Yahoo! stomach it? Can Yahoo! influence the political gates?

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:31 AM | Permalink

February 9, 2006

Yahoo Launches Audio Search in UK

Netimperative reports Yahoo! debuts audio search in UK. You can view the Yahoo Audio Search for the UK & Ireland by clicking here. This enables the searching of "Popular and hard to find music", "Podcasts", "Interviews, speeches and newscasts", "Stand-up comedy", and "Sound Effects." More information at Yahoo Audio Search UK learn more page or the FAQs.

Gary covered the news when Yahoo first released Audio search for Yahoo.com on Aug. 4, 2005.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 2:34 PM | Permalink

February 2, 2006

Report from U.S. Congress Briefing on Human Rights and the Internet and China

The Congressional Human Rights Caucus held a briefing (not a formal hearing) on Wednesday about human rights issues and the Internet in China. The News.com article: Politicos attack tech firms over China, provides a look at what was said at the briefing.

"These massively successful high-tech companies, which couldn't bring themselves to send their representatives to this meeting today, should be ashamed," said Rep. Tom Lantos, the California Democrat who is co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which organized the briefing. With all their power and influence, wealth and high visibility, they neglected to commit to the kind of positive action that human rights activists in China take every day," Lantos went on. "They caved in to Beijing's demands for the sake of profits, or whatever else they choose to call it."

The full text of the opening statement by the Congressional Human Rights Caucus Chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos from California is available here. Lantos mentions Google, MS, and Yahoo by name in his comments. Look for more prepared statements by others at the briefing to be posted on this page soon.

Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo were all invited to appear before the caucus but did not send representatives. However, all three companies did provide statements to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus that can be accessed in this blog post.

Today's "briefing" will be followed with a formal congressional hearing by the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Global Human Rights. The hearing is set for February 16.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:38 AM | Permalink

December 8, 2005

Yahoo Releases International Web Search Services; Yahoo Switzerland Search Goes Live

Here's one for the developers out there. Yahoo's Toby Elliott points out that the comany has just released the Yahoo Web Search API for all regional and country sites. The blog post has all the specifics. Briefly, here's what you'll learn.

+ You can now use the Web Search API to access the Yahoo UK Search, Yahoo France Search, Yahoo Germany Search and all the other available country-specific engines.

+ Yahoo Japan has made a Web Search API available in Japanese.

+ Yahoo Switzerland Search has just launched. Web services available soon.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:27 PM | Permalink

November 17, 2005

Alibaba's Chief Vows to Beat Google in China

In a conversation with reporters, Jack Ma, the CEO of China's Alibaba (the same people who now runs Yahoo China) has, "vowed to defeat US giant Google" in the war for Chinese searchers.

"For the search engine, I think Google is very powerful. But it is not that powerful in China now," said Ma, who founded Alibaba.com in 1999 with 2,000 dollars of capital borrowed from relatives.

Asked to spell out Alibaba.com's strategy, Ma said: "We win e-Bay, buy Yahoo and stop Google. That is for fun. Competition is for fun."

He accepted that Google and Yahoo were the dominant Internet powers in Europe and the United States, but he said neither was that strong in Asia.

"I call them sharks in the ocean. We are crocodiles in the Yangtze River. If we fight in the Yangtze River, we have more chances than they have."

More comments from Mr. Ma in the AFP article: Chinese Internet star Alibaba.com vows to beat Google

Posted by Gary Price at 11:05 AM | Permalink

November 10, 2005

Yahoo China Relaunched With Pure Search Focus & New Majority Owner

Yahoo China has been acquired by Alibaba.com and relaunched as a pure search service. Here's the rundown on the changes and some reasons behind the handout, which still leaves Yahoo itself earning off the site.

Back in August, Yahoo invested $1 billion in Alibaba. That gave Yahoo a 40 percent stake in the company.

At the end of October, there was a UPI report that Alibaba bought up all the assets of Yahoo China for $1 billion. But I think that was reported backwards and working off the August announcement.

If you look at the release of the August deal, it talks of Yahoo "contributing" Yahoo China to Alibaba. So I think UPI had it wrong. This other report covers how the deal was concluded at the end of October.

Skipping ahead, via Shak's China White blog, Yahoo! China has 8 months to better Baidu or it's 'game over,' says Alibaba CEO covers the relaunch, as does Yahoo China back to search engine market found via Threadwatch.

The first article covers Alibaba feeling they've got about a year to have a chance in search in China and how the more pure search site will also focus on financial news, entertainment and sports. And political news?

I don't want to get into trouble with the government, so I don't do any political news," said Ma. China requires special certification to publish political news.

It's not all abandoning portal features, however. Email is also being kept, as that's seen as a key portal feature that can't go away.

Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny who is in Taiwan, heard about the move from his cab driver and was surprised to see that Yahoo China has gained an MP3 search tab.

No surprise, really. China's most popular search engine, Baidu, has built its popularity on music search -- or some would say illegal downloads -- as I covered in my Google's China Situation Better Than You Might Think -- And Other China Search News post. The question really is, will the new Yahoo China feature music content but not get into the same trouble Baidu's had with music companies.

I took a fast look to see if I could find any pirated songs, but needing to log into a Yahoo China account lost me, I'm afraid. If you have to log in, I'm guessing pirated music is less likely.

Finally, doesn't it seem odd for Yahoo to be handing over Yahoo China to another company when just this week, it bought out control of Yahoo UK, Germany, France and Korea from Softbank?

Nah. I'm guessing it's a handy way for Yahoo to profit off of China but get free of all those pesky complaints that Yahoo bends to China's will on political issues. Hey, we didn't hand that email over to the Chinese government. We didn't censor those news results. We didn't filter those search results. Alibaba did -- take it up with them! Yet by owning a stake in Alibaba, Yahoo can earn money of the search business.

As a reminder, Google owns a stake in four percent stake of Baidu. That gives it a bit of a hedge in case Google China doesn't work or the entire Yahoo keeping your distance situation -- if I'm reading that situation right -- looks worthwhile to follow.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:17 AM | Permalink

November 7, 2005

Yahoo Buying Full Ownership Of Yahoo UK, Germany, France & Korea

Yahoo buy stakes in European, Korean portals from the Associated Press covers Yahoo spending about $500 million to acquire full ownership of Yahoo sites in the UK, France, Germany and Korea. In these countries, Softbank currently holds a 30 to 33 percent share of each country-specific portal. Yahoo said the move shows the confidence it has in its international business activities. The deals are set to complete by the end of the year.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:34 PM | Permalink

October 21, 2005

China Says No To Wikipedia, Dislikes Taiwan Change On Google Maps & Chinese Activist Takes Yahoo's Yang To Task For Helping Maintain "Evil System"

Wikipedia is apparently no longer accessible to those in Shanghai and other parts of China, reports say, while Boing Boing reports a Chinese activist takes Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang to task in an open letter for turning over information about a journalist, seeing that as "helping the Communist party maintain an evil system of control over freedom of information and speech." And now that Taiwan's happy not to be a Chinese province on Google Maps, China's disappointed a the move.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:35 PM | Permalink

September 9, 2005

Yahoo Says It Must Follow Chinese Laws On Giving Info

Yahoo says it must abide China law from Reuters has Yahoo neither confirming or denying it provided email details that helped Chinese authorities jail a journalists, as we've covered earlier. However, the company did say that it has to operate within the laws of the countries where it operates. And spotted via Dan Gillmor, Rebecca MacKinnon notes that if Yahoo hosted its email servers outside China, it might not have comply with Chinese laws: Yahoo! e-mail in China: must be evil to be legal.

Postscript: Yahoo Founder Explains China E-Mail Move from the AP has Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang saying at a forum in China that the demand was a "legal order" that Yahoo had to comply with.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:01 PM | Permalink

September 7, 2005

Yahoo Accused Of Helping China Jail Journalist By Revealing Email Address

Rights group says Yahoo's cooperation helped China jail journalist from the Associated Press has Reporters Without Borders saying Yahoo gave the Chinese government information that helped them trace a Yahoo email address to Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who was jailed for in April for 10 years for illegally providing state secrets to foreigners. The Reporters Without Borders statement is here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:54 AM | Permalink

September 6, 2005

Google's China Situation Better Than You Might Think -- And Other China Search News

The China Internet Network Information Center has released a new China Online Search Market Survey Report (PDF file) outlining the search market in China that's well worth a read. And despite headlines you may have seen from this report that painted a gloomy picture for Google, actually reading the report makes me think Google's much better off than you might think.

Let's do some headlines first:

Google loses China market share (BBC)
Google losing ground in China (AP)

The conventional wisdom from limited research released previously on search in China has put home grown search engine Baidu as the category leader. However, when you drill down into this recent report, you find that in specific types of searches, Google probably has the healthier outlook. IE, Baidu may lead with those interested in downloading music, but for those seeking things like shopping and business information, Google is very strong.

Let's dive in with the report's breakdown of the Beijing market share:

Baidu: 51.5%
Google: 32.9%
Sohu: 4.6%
Sina: 4.0%
Yahoo: 3.7%
Others: 3.3%

Market shares for Shanghai and Guangzhou are also listed, but the figures aren't super radically different, so I didn't make a chart up showing all of them side-by-side. Mainly, Baidu slips below the 50 percent mark for these other cities but is still the leader. Google always holds at a healthy second. Yahoo (which can mean 3721, Yisou, Yahoo China or Yahoo anywhere) comes up into third place.

Some important caveats on the figures, however. The report says:

A search engine's market share is determined by the number of users who use that particular search engine as their only or primary one, divided by the number of total users.
"Baidu users" refers to those who use Baidu as their only or primary search engine, and so on.

In other words (as I read it), if someone said that "Baidu" was their primary search engine, then that person counts entirely toward Baidu regardless of whether they also use Google, Sohu or another service. That produces a skew to the data. You obviously want to be the first choice of users, but it could be that for particular types of searches, another search engine might rank better than for the overall totals.

To me, a better way of looking at search market share is to look at actual volume of searches. Our pages for stats from NetRatings, Hitwise and comScore all have figures using this type of basis along with explanations of why it is important.

In fact, the report notes later that Baidu/Google or Google/Baidu are the most popular combinations for searchers, making up 55 percent of those who use two or more search engines.

The report also has a chart showing popularity of search engine by those brand new to searching in the last 6 months. Baidu leads at 48.2 percent, followed by Sohu at 19.6 percent and then Google at 12.5 percent.

There's also a breakdown of what people search for, which is incredibly revealing. More people at Google search for web sites, shopping and business information and reference material than corresponding searchers at Baidu. What's big -- what's powering searches at Baidu? Apparently downloadable music.

In other words, perhaps Baidu is so popular in China because it has served as a type of Napster for the nation. If so, then Google has far less to worry about in the "race" for China, since if these are illegal downloads, it's not a business it wants or can be in. Indeed, just before Baidu went public, it had to act to remove links to pirated music to help sooth copyright concerns.

A chart showing those who use Baidu as their "primary" search engine and Google as "secondary" search engine is fascinating. Baidu "primary" users turn massively to Google for if they can't find their search need (outside of music search) or for undefined "alternative" uses. In contrast, what do those who use Google as their primary search engine depend on at Baidu for their secondary needs? Music search.

A later chart breaks down market share in across a particular vertical segments. In other words, what percentage of all music searchers go to Baidu? A big 74.6 percent. Baidu keeps the majority of searchers also for images and photos (67.8%) and online games (61.0%). After that, it still has more searchers in all but two categories, but the margin over Google is less.

Google wins in the share of those seeking maps, city guides and travel info -- 41.8 percent of searchers to Baidu's 38.8 percent. Google also ties with Baidu for those seeking shopping and business information, 42.5 percent.

There are other Google wins I think are significant. The more money you have, the more likely you are to search with Google. At the highest income level surveyed, those with 5,000 yuan per month (about US $600) or higher, Google has 58.1 percent of the searchers to Baidu's 25.7 percent.

The report summary says that Google's lost market share to Baidu and suggest the worry for Google is that a rising generation might not consider it "cool." But if that's "cool" in terms of downloading free music, Napster's coolness didn't help it thrive. It's not the type a cool that a business may want to be.

My other problem with this is the report showed no historic trends that I can see. Outside of the survey of those brand new to the web, there's no tracking of Google's "lost" share, though I have no reason to doubt Baidu growth in popularity. However, the aforementioned AP article does have some market share increases for Beijing (Baidu up 10 percent) and says Gogole was the largest in all three cities just six months ago, although it too says the report doesn't share figures on this.

Elsewhere in the report are nice overview demographics of searchers in China:

86 percent of Beijing's internet users have used online search
On any day, 38 percent are using search engines, along with frequency of searching
40 percent of searchers are students, nearly half of which are in secondary school
Non student searchers are mostly (62 percent) aged 25-40
66 percent of searchers use two or more brand name search engines
Male/female breakdown of searchers
Breakdown by education (Google has a whopping 75 percent of users with a doctorate and 50 percent of those with postgraduate degrees. Baidu is the industry leader in all other education categories starting from middle school and including those with 4 year degrees)

For more, the LA Times had an excellent article three weeks ago, "Baidu.com Went From Unknown to No. 1 Search Engine in China" from the LA Times. It was here and is still listed on Google News as if it is there, but now you have to buy here.

The article looked at how the Chinese governments blocking of Google has helped boost Baidu presence in China, suggesting even that Baidu employees might report things the Chinese government might want to block -- an accusation Baidu's CFO said he wasn't aware of. I'd been wondering if blocking like this, however it happened, could have helped with Baidu's rise. Apparently so.

Internet Search Giants Hurry Into Chinese Market from Dow Jones is another nice recent read looking at the growth of the Chinese search marketing and interest in it. A nice refresher, for those wanting to catch up on recent moves.

Meanwhile, Autonomy readies for content wars looks at how enterprise search company Autonomy has partnered with one of China's biggest internet companies to create a news and video search service for the country.

Finally, I mentioned last week the new Chinawhite blog where Shakil Khan -- known as Shak on to those of various search forums -- will be covering news of search out of China. Check it out. And if you want to learn more about Shak, China White from Matt Marshall over at SiliconBeat out today has a great profile of him.

Postscript: You'll find that LA Times article now available free to registered members at the San Jose Mecury News here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:44 PM | Permalink

August 11, 2005

Yahoo Invests $1 Billion in Chinese E-Commerce Site

Yahoo has confirmed that they're investing $1 Billion in China's, Ailbaba, an online e-commerce company. The investment will give Yahoo a 40% stake in Alibaba.

The average China city dweller spends the equivalent of only $1,000 a year, so it is little wonder Alibaba reports twice as many sales from businesses as from consumers. Currently, less than one-tenth of the Chinese population is online. "This is a great time to build brand for Yahoo," said [Yankee Group analyst Patrick] Mahoney.

Yahoo CEO Terry Semel talks with by Bambi Fransciso about the Alibaba investment here. They also touch on search.

Marketwatch.com: You mentioned making a bet on the greatest and fastest-growth company in China. Baidu sure looks like it was one to bet on. Are you sure you chose the right company? And did you ever have conversations to invest in Baidu?

Semel: Baidu is doing a good job. Yahoo search is No. 2 -- let's not forget that. We're very excited about our search. Alibaba brought [commerce] to the equation. Yahoo's going to bring communication and search. Technology in search will be a big factor down the road for the new entity.

Posted by Gary Price at 6:52 PM | Permalink

August 10, 2005

Yahoo Launches Pay-Per-Call in the UK and Ireland

Yahoo launches pay-per-call service Source: Netimperative

The service is already available in Yahoo Cars and will be introduced into Yahoos other e-commerce properties, Shopping and Travel following an initial introductory period beginning in early August on its shopping comparison portal Kelkoo.

A few more details in the news release.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:48 AM | Permalink

August 8, 2005

Yahoo Talking About Purchasing Chinese E-Commerce Company

China, the Internet, and search companies are sure hot topics these days. This time around word from Forbes.com that Yahoo is in talks to buy an approximately 35% stake in China's biggest home-grown e-commerce company's, Alibaba.com, for almost $1 billion. The article also points out that this would be the largest investment by a foreign company in China's Internet industry to date.

Alibaba operates two online business sites ---Taobao.com, an online auction site, and Alibaba.com, an online trading site.

In 2003, Yahoo acquired Hong Kong keyword software company 3721.com and also operate the "search only" Yisou.com in addition to Yahoo China.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:11 AM | Permalink

July 14, 2005

Yahoo Search Translator Released

The Yahoo Search Blog and a News.com article: Parlez vous Deutsche, provide a look at the new Yahoo Search Translator.

This new service takes search queries submitted in German, translates the query into English and French, and then allows the searcher to quickly find and read not only German language material but also English language content that has been mechanically translated into German.

Why are they doing this?

Via the Yahoo Search Blog: If you can't read English, you can't make use of more than half of the web's information. For example, a searcher in Germany can only access less than 10% of the web in German.

Technology from Systran powers the translation. Systran also powers Yahoo's Babelfish translation service.

If you don't speak German, YSB offers a couple of examples to see precisely how the service operates.

Yahoo's Eckart Walther told News.com that Yahoo Search Translator for French content is in the works with other languages becoming available within the next year.

Smart move by Yahoo pointing out on their blog that mechanical translation is good but far from perfect.

Nevertheless, it's an interesting and potentially very powerful idea.

Back in January I posted a brief item about Babelplex. This service leverages Google's translation software to translate queries from one language to another. Users can then click and translate entire web pages if necessary.

Btw, Yahoo Search also launched their new German language blog today.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:22 AM | Permalink

July 7, 2005

China News For Google, Baidu & Yahoo

Lots of news in terms of China and search, ranging from Google perhaps eyeing Baidu, Baidu saying it's happy staying independent and Yahoo China losing its president.

Google facing search engine China quandary from the San Jose Mercury News looks anew at reasons why Google might be interested in owning more of the homegrown and apparently popular Baidu search engine. Google has a 4 percent share now. Gaining more might give Google access to Baidu advertisers, or perhaps more distribution for its own existing ads or perhaps give it a way to reach more of China without having to impose censorship on its own web search results at Google.

Meanwhile, Baidu makes first response to Google purchase rumor from the People's Online Daily has Baidu saying that it "belives independent development is its best way out."

Yahoo China President offers sudden resignation, also from the People's Online Daily, covers the departure of Yahoo China's president.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:48 AM | Permalink

July 5, 2005

Japan: Mobile Version of Yahoo Shopping Now Available and Searching With Your Cameraphone

The InfoWorld news brief: Yahoo launches cell phone shopping in Japan lets us know that the service has just gone live.

Presently, the Yahoo Mobile service here in the U.S. doesn't offer an interface to Yahoo's shopping database. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see shopping added to this mobile platform in the future.

We've posted about a couple of SMS-based (text messaging) shopping services that are currently available in the U.S. They include:

UpSnap

See the SearchDay article: New Mobile Phone Search Service

Smarter.com

Froogle.

One of the most interesting mobile shopping tools that I learned about in 2004 comes from Amazon.com Japan. They're offering a service that allows the user to access comparison pricing info by simply pointing their mobile phone's camera at a UPC symbol.

This story also points out that if you have a Nokia 3650, you can use the camera to do some comparison pricing for books.

Boston-based Mobot, is also doing work in visual search via mobile phone cameras. Very cool!!! A demo is also available.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:47 PM | Permalink

June 6, 2005

US Search Players Moving More Into China

U.S. Web Giants Target China from BusinessWeek is a general overview with lots of stats on US search players moving further into the China market.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:49 PM | Permalink

May 17, 2005

Blair "Liar" Linkbomb Highlights Country-Specific Skewing

About a month ago, Google Blogoscoped wrote of a link bomb that pushed UK prime minister Tony Blair's official biography to number one in a search for liar on Google. That is, if you use Google UK. Do the same exact search on Google.com, and the biography currently ranks fifth.

What's going on? It's not a case of having used the "Pages From The UK" option at Google UK to get UK-oriented results. This difference happens when using the default search "The Web" option at Google UK. In short, a search across the entire web at Google UK is not equal to a search across the entire web at Google's flagship Google.com site.

This isn't a Google-specific issue. The liar query underscores a big change that's snuck up on search users of several major search engines over the past year. Search engines have straying more and more into showing different results at the various country-specific versions they operate, even if country-specific results were not requested.

For Search Engine Watch members, I've posted an extended version of this story that looks at how and why these changes have happened, ranging from mirroring and censorship issues to specific ranking differences that are done in hopes of bettering the user experience.

Overall, I understand and can even applaud the desire to try and help users in a particular country get better results. But I think better disclosure that skewing is happening should be done if a user is choosing to search the entire web, when at a country-specific edition of a major search engine.

I'd also like to see all the major search engines ensure that if you go to a particular country-specific edition, regardless of where you are at, you see the same thing.

In other words, everyone who goes to Google UK should see the same thing, regardless of whether they are in the UK or not. The same for those going to Google US (FYI, Google says that's currently the situation).

The above is terms of editorial results. In terms of ads, I also think the search engines should provide options. If you want to see ads targeted at those in particular countries, when at a particular search engine, you should be able to say so. As an American who lives outside the US, I still have an interest in US-targeted ads. I'm hardly the only expat of any country like this.

My extended article on this topics for Search Engine Watch members is here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:51 PM | Permalink

April 19, 2005

Looking At Yahoo's Latin America Move

Yahoo! Buys TeRespondo.com to gain market share in Latin America from Nacho Hernandez at Search Engine Roundtable revisits Yahoo's TeRespondo purchase last week to provide some stats to show why Latin America growth was of interest -- and why he feels it was easier for Yahoo to buy the company than try to steal its distribution partners. He also looks at Google hiring for Brazil and Mexico. Want to discuss? Join Nacho and others in our forum thread, Yahoo! Gains Market Share in Latin America with TeRespondo.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:08 PM | Permalink

April 12, 2005

Yahoo Acquires TeRespondo Latin American PPC Search Network

Yahoo has acquired TeRespondo, a Brazillan PPC search network that plays in the Latin American market.

Clickz's Kevin Newcomb writes in the article: Yahoo! Buys Brazilian PPC Search Network, that the terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Overture opened an office in Brazil in October 2004 and has built a distribution network that includes Yahoo, Cadê?, IBest and Bondfaro. It will now include all the sites in TeRespondo's network, including MSN Brazil, UOL, IG and Buscapé audience. The company provides each advertiser with a full-service account manager to translate and review client keywords and phrases to make sure they are relevant and effective for a Spanish-speaking audience.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:52 PM | Permalink

March 28, 2005

Building The Yahoo Brand Around the World

In the article: Yahoo-Uber Brand, BusinessWeek's Ben Elgin takes a look at what Yahoo is doing to build their brand outside of the U.S.

What's clear, though, is that Yahoo's efforts will revolve around extending its own core brand. To achieve this, Yahoo hopes to emanate the same wacky vibe that pervades its yodel-filled domestic ads. The key, says [Cammie] Dunaway, [Yahoo's chief marketing officer], is to do things nobody has done before, often with an edgy approach. In Taiwan, Yahoo launched an ad campaign where users gleaned clues off the Web and billboards to discover who got a fictional supermodel pregnant. And in France, Yahoo hosted late night evenings at supermarkets where singles could pick up a Yahoo purple basket to demonstrate their willingness to meet someone. "You have to work hard...to engage [customers] in your marketing," Dunaway says.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:37 PM | Permalink

March 7, 2005

A Busy Time for China's Web Search Companies

Several announcements from the major web search providers in China over the past couple of weeks. The Asia Pulse article: Search Engine Market To Consolidate In China, has an overview.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:35 AM | Permalink

February 21, 2005

Yahoo! Japan Will Launch Music Download Service

Several sources including Kyodo News and AFP are reporting that Yahoo Japan is planning to launch an music distrubution service called Yahoo! Music Download. The service will be provided via an alliance with Japan's Label Gate, a "joint venture of 18 firms, mainly music labels, which offers its own Net-based download service under the Mora brand..." Music labels include Toshiba-EMI Inc., Pony Canyon Inc., Yamaha Corp. and Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:01 PM | Permalink

February 17, 2005

Does Yahoo! Want A Piece of Indiatimes?

The Financial Times is reporting that Yahoo! is in talks with Indiatimes about acquiring a minority stake in the company.

A senior executive at privately-owned Bennett Coleman, whose newspapers such as the Times of India are among the country's best selling titles, confirmed that negotiations were taking place but added that the group was also talking to private equity funds... Yahoo is looking to strengthen its presence in India, having recently consolidated its position in China. It has a fledgling e-commerce partnership with Rediff.com and a small research and development unit in Bangalore.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:56 PM | Permalink

January 31, 2005

Revamped Yahoo! Malaysia Launches

According to the article: Yahoo! Launches All-New Yahoo! Malaysia Site, the revamped site was officially launched today. You can find Yahoo! Malaysia at http://www.yahoo.com.my.

The new Yahoo! Malaysia site is the first in Asia to feature the new look launched in the United States (http://www.yahoo.com) in September 2004.

The article also points out that Yahoo! Malaysia will launch a new contest called Y! 10 Search. Contestants can win prizes by guessing the most popular search terms each week for a theme selected by Yahoo!. The contest will run for three weeks beginning February 7.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:12 AM | Permalink

January 26, 2005

Gambling on Yahoo!

Both the BBC and ZDNetUK report that online betting will be available in March on the Yahoo UK and Ireland site via a joint venture with UK-based betting exchange BetFair. The service will be called Yahoo! Betting.

The exchange will be accessible through the sports and finance sections of Yahoo as well as from other areas across the portal.

Posted by Gary Price at 7:09 PM | Permalink

January 18, 2005

Yahoo Profits To Rise On International Advertising

Bloomberg looks at how Yahoo may announce higher profits due to international expansion, in Yahoo May Say Profit Doubled on International Advertising Sales. Exactly what's the primary driver is unclear. Overture expanded to Brazil, Canada and China in the fourth quarter, but most of its European activity happened last year. The article itself looks at display ads, the Yahoo purchase of the European Kelkoo shopping search engine and online auctions.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:01 AM | Permalink

October 20, 2004

Yahoo China Forms Alliances

The China Daily reports that Yahoo China has formed alliances with 12 Chinese companies and will provide them with e-mail, IM, and other services.

Yahoo! China said yesterday that it had formed an e-mail alliance with Chinese firms like NASDAQ-listed travel service company Ctrip, game websites including Haofang, e-commerce firm Dangdang, IT information portals Chinabyte, Enet and Donews, and software company Kingsoft.

The Chinese branch of the US Internet giant will first provide its free e-mail technology to the 12 companies and their users can register such accounts with a capacity of as much as one gigabyte.

Yahoo! China will then offer its search engine and instant messaging services to the 12 companies.

More in the aritcle: Yahoo! links up with 12 firms

Posted by Gary Price at 8:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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