June 26, 2008

Google Launches Latin American AdWords Blog

Multilingual search is one of the growth areas of our industry and Google has added its own help in the space by launching its Latin American AdWords Blog. Written in Spanish, the launch today introduces itself and gives an overview of its intentions and direction.

I used a machine translator to get the English version of the opening post - but its seems to be pretty good (guess the translators are improving). All the Team of AdWords of Google for Latin America welcomes you to our Blog: Inside AdWords for Latin America.

We are very happy to announce the launch of this new channel of communication that will permit us to share with you all our news. In it you will find counsels to improve your campaigns, information on the network of contents, launches of products and tools, dates for special training, strategies for attract clients in important dates, events of our region in which we been present and a lot more. Besides, the entrances will be in charge of the own Googlers and of some special collaborators of the industry of the marketing and the publicity.

But also we invite you to that participate, responding the surveys and sending us your comments, whether in the same blog or by mail to blog-adwords-latam@google.com

Posted by Frank Watson at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

March 19, 2007

AOL France Drops National Search Engine Exalead For Google

TelecomPaper.com reported today that AOL France will drop the national search engine, Exalead, for Google.

This loss of usage from a prominent French traffic supplier hurts the momentum the French search platform had developed.

Posted by Frank Watson at 1:13 PM | Permalink

November 24, 2006

Google Video France Sued For Copyright Infringement

Reuters reports Google France was sued by Flach Film, a French film producer, for copyright infringement. They claim their video, "The World According to Bush," was published on Google Video France, and viewed more 50,000 times, before Google removed the video. The French film producer estimates $648,700 in prejudice but Google said "our terms and conditions specify that users (Internet surfers) don't have permission to use videos which they don't own the rights to."

Google has put away $200M for copyright case legal issues with the YouTube acquisition.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:05 AM | Permalink

Google To Go To Belgium Court Finally

The AP reports that Google is finally going to show up in court to present their side of the case in the Belgium copyright suit. Google has never showed up to fight the publishers and papers in Belgium the first time the case was heard.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:58 AM | Permalink

November 21, 2006

Norway Upset With Google News Over Copyright Laws

Pandia reports that Google News is in trouble again over copyright laws overseas. Google News Norway was launched and publishers are upset that Google is placing copyrighted images in the Google News home page. Mediebedriftenes Landsforening, an association of Norwegian media companies, claims Google "cannot make use of photographs without a proper agreement." This form of syndication is in "violation with Norwegian copyright law," says Dagens Næringsliv.

Google is also in trouble over copyright issues in Belgium (also see here and in Australia.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:04 AM | Permalink

November 2, 2006

In UK, Google To Surpass Channel 4's Ad Dollars

The Independent reports that Google UK is expected to earn "£900m from the UK ad market in 2006." When compared to Channel 4's "£800m at the TV group" this year, Google is expected to beat this TV player in ad dollars. Channel 4's Andy Duncan said, "Some broadcasters have been very slow to realise this. The industry as a whole is frankly rather backward-looking and is perhaps underestimating the scale of change that is going on and the pace of change."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:59 AM | Permalink

Google Says Belgium Did Not Send $43.2M Fine

Elinor Mills reports that Google has denied a report last week that it was fined $43 million for not removing all Belgian publishers' content from the engine's index and cache. Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes, told Elinor Mills at News.com in an email, "Google has complied with the Copiepresse judgment and we are not aware of any fine. We believe this story to be completely untrue."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:17 AM | Permalink

October 31, 2006

Belgium Slaps Google With $43.2 Million Fine

Gary Price points to a Poynter.org report showing that Google has been fined €34 million (about $43,231,000 USD) for not removing all of the Belgian publisher's content based on a court ruling. Google claims they could not find all the publishers and asked the publishers for help in identifying the content that has to be removed.

Postscript: Google Says Belgium Did Not Receive $43.2M Fine.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:42 AM | Permalink

October 30, 2006

Google Appeals Federal Judge's Orkut Ruling

The International Herald Tribune reports that Google has appealed a federal judge's order to hand over the IP address information to Brazilian authorities. Google claims the "federal civil court did not have the proper authority" for such information. But Google spokesperson, Debbie Frost said Google will help Brazilian authorities identify individuals accused of illegal activities on Google's social networking platform, Orkut. This history goes way back, just start from here and keep clicking those links back to the previous stories. This amazes me that it is still going on since early this year.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:13 AM | Permalink

October 24, 2006

Google Gains Traction In Japan

InfoWorld reports that Google has "17.4 million users in September, up from 12.1 million in the same period a year earlier." This gives Google the 10th spot in the Japan's web property ranking. Google the 10th spot in the Japan's web property ranking. The NetRatings study shows Yahoo Japan holding 23.6 million visits during the month. Google has the 3rd most page views of the top 10, with 2 billion page views for the month.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:26 AM | Permalink

October 13, 2006

Google News Mobile In Japan

Reuters reports Google has launched a news portal for the Japanese mobile phone market. The news portal has about 30 news outlets including Asahi newspaper and state-run NHK.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:22 AM | Permalink

October 10, 2006

Google To Set Up R&D Office In South Korea

The Associated Press reports that Google is setting up a research and development center in South Korea. The details of the size of the office were not disclosed. Robert A. Eustace, Google's senior vice president, said "South Korean government's strong encouragement persuaded the company to make the investment." DNS India adds that Google also has research centers in Britain, Israel, Norway, Japan, Switzerland, India, Russia and the Americas.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:45 AM | Permalink

September 28, 2006

Google Not To Deliver Orkut Data To Brazil Authorities

Google won't hand data to Brazil judge from the Associated Press reports that Google will not be meeting the deadline to provide Brazilian authorities with the data they requested on specific Orkut users. This comes after Google saying they will hand over the data to Brazil. So the question is, will Google be fined $23,000 per day by the Brazilian judge until they comply? Google has promised to issue a court explanation as to why they cannot provide the data Brazil requested. The AP article also quotes Debbie Frost of Google saying, "We have and will continue to provide Brazilian authorities with information on users who abuse the Orkut service, if their requests are reasonable and follow an appropriate legal process."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:55 AM | Permalink

September 20, 2006

See Google Results As If You Are In Another Country

This morning at the Search Engine Roundtable, I reported that you can now easily Check Your Google Results in Any Country. How? Well, go to oy-oy.eu/google/world/ and then select the locations you want to compare side by side. Danny and I tested this out and it seems to be working well. Danny is in the UK and I am in the US, we searched on liar in Google.com, both not signed in to Google. I then compared the results Danny saw on his screen and I saw on my screen, with a side by side comparison of the US location and the UK location with the data center www.google.com. Our results matched the results at the tool.

US Results I saw at Google.com were: (1) www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page4.asp (2) emperors-clothes.com/indict/liar.htm (3) www.imdb.com/title/tt0119528 (4) www.liar.be (5) www.iep.utm.edu/p/par-liar.htm (6) www.lyingliar.com (7) www.queendom.com/tests/minitests/fx/liar.html (8) stylusmagazine.com/stypod/archives/513 (9) www.allmarketersareliars.com (10) www.bigfatliarmovie.com

UK Results Danny saw at Google.com were: (1) www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page4.asp (2) www.liar.be (3) www.imdb.com/title/tt0119528 (4) www.emperors-clothes.com/indict/liar.htm (5) www.iep.utm.edu/p/par-liar.htm (6) www.lyingliar.com (7) www.queendom.com/tests/minitests/fx/liar.html (8) www.met.police.uk/about/blair.htm (9) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox (10) www.allmarketersareliars.com/

Danny's number eight result is very specific to the UK, you see a UK police commission page (link bomb?).

So now we have a tool that you can check local organic result sets for in Google. We also have way to preview AdWords ads by geo specific criteria.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:55 AM | Permalink

September 18, 2006

Belgian Court Orders Google To Remove Content From Google News & Cache

Reuters reports the big news of the day that Google has been ordered by a Belgian court to remove all articles, photographs and graphics from French-speaking newspapers. Copiepresse issued the complaint and won the court ruling on September 5th. Not only does this require Google to remove content from Google News, the court order requires removing the content from the Google cache. ChillingEffects.org has a link to the full court order.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:23 AM | Permalink

September 7, 2006

Google Wants To Launch Google Video In Japan

Reuters reports that Google is eager to launch the Google Video product in Japan. Google Japan's President Norio Murakami said, "We haven't yet been able to introduce Google Video in Japan, and hope to do so soon. Going forward, Google's services can't work without cooperation from contents partners." But it appears Google Japan is serious about launching Google Video in Japan soon.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:39 AM | Permalink

September 4, 2006

Google Says They Will Give Brazil Orkut Data

The Washington Post reports that Google will give over the Orkut data of specific users including; IP addresses with time and date stamps that can help trace a specific user and registration information including names and e-mail addresses. This comes after Brazil gave Google 15 days to comply or else be fined $23,000 per day.

Why turn over data to Brazil when Google famous resisted the US government earlier this year for a data request? Reports the Post:

"What they're asking for is not billions of pages," said Nicole Wong, Google associate general counsel. "In most cases, it's relatively discrete -- small and narrow."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:16 AM | Permalink

September 1, 2006

Google Has 15 Days To Provide Data To Brazil Or Be Fined $23,000 Per Day

AFP reports that Brazil has given Google Brazil 15 days to turn over the data on the Orkut users they have been asking for. If Google Brazil does not comply, they will be fining them $23,000 per day. Google has said that they would work with Brazil to shut down Orkut some communities but according to the court filing in Sao Paulo yesterday, those requirements have been 'unsatisfactorily met.'

We have a good historical round down of this whole Google & Orkut & Brazil issue here. Business Week also has a nice write up on the issues named Google's Brazil Headache, highlighting why Google is saying they'll comply if only the requests were sent to Google in the US, rather than Google Brazil.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:20 AM | Permalink

August 23, 2006

Gmail In Japanese

Reuters reports that Google is releasing a localized Japanese-language version of Gmail in Japan today. I cannot find the URL to access it as of yet, but hopefully it will be announced shortly.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:06 AM | Permalink

August 22, 2006

Brazil To Close Google Brazil's Offices Over Orkut Issues?

A post in our SEW Forums and a report from Xinhau says that Brazil's federal prosecution service is moving to close Google's operations in Brazil. So far, there is no other news about this that we've seen. An injunction is apparently being requested ordering the release of information from Orkut, with a threat for closure of Google's Sao Paulo office if they don't comply.

Postscript From Danny: Reuters has a story up now here: Google refuses to hand over data to Brazilian authorities. It covers that prosecutors want permission to file a civil lawsuit against Google, with a $61 million fine and the threat of closure if it fails to comply with the information request.

Postscript From Barry: For an historical line up of these events over time, see the links below:

- Aug. 16, 2006 :: Orkut Causing Trouble In Brazil Again - Jul. 21, 2005 :: Drug Pushers Using Orkut Arrested In Brazil - May. 25, 2006 :: Google Works With Brazil To Shut Down Orkut Communities - May. 18, 2006 :: Google Faces Criminal Charges For Child Porn & Racial Material - May. 3, 2006 :: Google & Brazil Fight Over Orkut User Data Rights - Mar. 10, 2006 :: Brazil Asks Google To Help Orkut To Stop Organizing Organized Crime - Mar. 9, 2006 :: Al-Qaeda Likes Orkut

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 5:21 PM | Permalink

July 31, 2006

Google Trends Launched In China

Philipp Lenssen reports that Google Labs just posted a link to Google Trends China. Google Trends was launched on May 10th and gives users the ability to look at search volume over time by keyword and broken down by other variables, such as regions and language. I would suspect Google Trends in China applies the same or similar filters and censorship that Google China web search applies.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:12 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 17, 2006

Google Hiring Television Engineers & Wireless Software Engineer

Search Engine Watch Forums moderator evilgreenmonkey (brand new moderator) has informed me that Google posted two new interesting jobs for the London office for Software Engineer, Television Technology & Wireless Software Engineer in Test.

The television technology job does not say much;

We are hiring well-rounded Software Engineers with a proven track record in creating and deploying robust, high-volume applications for consumer devices.

Responsibilities: To develop robust, high-volume applications for consumer devices. To develop prototype applications and manage the evolution of these to scalable, shipping products.

Seems as if they are looking for ways to create mobile solutions and methods to distribute television programming over devices other than televisions.

The wireless engineer is for QA (quality assurance) work on wireless applications.

We are looking for software QA engineers to work with the testing team and the development team to investigate, report and track defects and expand our automated test suites. Your duties will focus on creating test plans, setting up test environments, developing automated tests, executing and maintaining automated test suites and the analysis of the results. They would also include leading test efforts and exploring new ways of UI test automation. If you love coding and testing, are a quick learner, a great team player and able to work independently, this is your chance to join us in our quest to make all the worlds information accessible from the palm of your hand.

Related? I dunno.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:34 AM | Permalink

July 12, 2006

Google Video Launches In UK & Other Countries

Silicon reports that Google Video has launched a localized version in the UK at http://video.google.co.uk/. There are also localized versions in Canada, Deutschland, España, France, Italia, Nederland, and Polska.

Google's Joanna Shields, said in a statement: "By launching Google Video in these new markets we will enable more people in more countries to search for, upload and share video content in more languages."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 12:43 PM | Permalink

July 5, 2006

Google To Launch Book Search Service In China

The People's Daily Online reports that Google will be launching an on-line book search service in China. Google signed agreements with publishing houses, instead of libraries (as Baidu has), including publishers named Tsinghua University Press and the Children's Publishing House. Google said that the books would be available on-line, "provide search links and grant free access to a segment of each work, but readers would have to pay to read the full content." Google plans on taking a 30 percent commission from the profit on selling books online.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:55 AM | Permalink

June 26, 2006

Google To Also Lobby In Europe

Pandia covers that Google is looking to hire a "senior European government affairs and public policy leader," to lobby in Europe. Google has hired a lobbying firm in the states a few months back. More details on the story at Pandia.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:37 AM | Permalink

June 23, 2006

Google To Have 1000 Employees In China By 2007

Pacific Epoch reports that Google expect to have over 1,000 employees in Google China by 2007. By the end of this year, Google hopes to have 200 employees based in China. Google will have three research and development centers in China, they will be based in Beijing, Shanghai and Taiwan according the article.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:59 AM | Permalink

June 19, 2006

Google To "Internationalize" All Products

InsideGoogle reports that Google has asked University of Limerick based in Ireland to help find an "experienced localization guru" to help localize and "internationalize" all of Google's products. The PC World article goes into more details about the job, describing that job calls for an "executive with 10 or more years of product management experience to serve as group product director of internationalization."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:31 AM | Permalink

June 7, 2006

Hitwise: Google Tops For UK Web Search But Weak With Other Offerings

Figures recently released from web monitoring firm Hitwise provide mixed messages from the UK for Google and their major competitors. The bare bones of the statistics show that Google (combining the .com and .co.uk sites) continues to dominate the search market in the UK, executing more than three quarters of British searches. MSN Search and Yahoo! Search each powered just over 7 percent each. Ask.com brings up the rear with a 5 percent share. So 96 percent of searches run in the UK are run by four companies when combining the .com and UK properties. Good news for Google one might think, but it all goes downhill from there, and the statistics show that while they are tops for search, they’re far behind in most other areas.

• Email: If we look at the Hitwise comparision of the Google, Yahoo and MSN UK portals, in the area of email, MSN Hotmail gets over 52% of visits, Yahoo Mail takes a combined total of just over 23% of visits, while Google Mail languishes in 8th place with just 2.2%.  
• News: In the area of news and media the BBC unsurprisingly dominates with almost 30% of the visits going to their main site or specifically to the news page. A combination of Yahoo! news resources manages to get almost 2.5% and a combination of Google news resources doesn’t quite reach 2%.  
• Finance: In the business area, Google Finance only manages to be the 201st most visited resource, while both Yahoo! UK and Ireland Finance and MSN Money UK are in 1st and 5th place respectively.  
• Maps: Google fairs a little better when it comes to Map information with Google Maps in 3rd position with 13.11%; Google UK Maps and Google Earth account for 5th and 6th place with a combined total of 8.47.%. In the Shopping and Classifieds area Froogle manages 7th place with 2.49% and MSN Shopping in 11th with 2.16%.

Now, having got the figures out of the way, what messages can the three players take from the UK market? Google is obviously the place that the average user will go to get information, but the highest volume of searches were navigational, for sites such as eBay, Hotmail and Yahoo! To be fair, the same thing could be said of the other search engines as well; this is not a specific criticism of Google.

Indeed, the Hitwise data also shows that visitors to Google perform multiple searches, and use it as a navigational point from which to go where they want to. Clearly, UK searchers understand the power that Google has to help them find things, yet the message hasn’t got through about their other resources, and I think there are a number of reasons for this.

Experienced internet commentators know how to find out what Google and the rest are up to and which sites to visit. However, the average person in the street, when they look at the Google UK page see the search box, and they know what to do with that. They type in their search and off they go – Google is there to help them navigate around the web.

But there’s no mention of their email offering, nothing about the calendar, or most of the other interesting things they are doing on the home page. True, there is the navigational bar above the search box, but what does that tell the inexperienced user? ‘Graphics’ is clear and ‘News’ makes sense, but ‘Groups’ or ‘Froogle’? Unless a user is curious enough to click on the links they’ll never know. Besides, there is no incentive for them to find out, because Google is very good at what it does – helps them navigate around the web. A searcher, particularly one who is new or unconfident really does need to be spoon fed; they need to know that if they click on something it will take them where they expect to go.

If we compare this to the Yahoo! UK & Ireland home page, there is a completely different feel. While I, as an experienced searcher might like the clear minimalist Google approach, the Yahoo! page is interesting, vibrant and it provides links that the user can follow. ‘Video’, ‘Audio’ ‘Business Finder’, ‘Games’, ‘Movies’ all clearly explain what the user will get if they click on the link. Yahoo! Answers and ‘In the News’ again project Yahoo! as a place to get information and content. ‘My Yahoo!’ is so much more compelling than ‘Personalised Home’. In short, the Yahoo! page is interesting, and pushes their visitors to other resources and content that they provide, and it’s no surprise to see that the logo in the top left leads to Finance where they are way out in front.

Now, it could be argued that the MSN UK home page does the same sort of thing as Yahoo! in providing links to different resources, but once again the feel of the page, from the searcher’s viewpoint, is entirely different. It’s quieter, more compact (or even dense), with an advert taking up a lot of the space above the fold. However, above that, and just below the search box are the options for ‘My MSN’, ‘Messenger’ and ‘Hotmail’. The names are reasonably intuitive for the novice user, and the link to ‘Hotmail’ is reassuring. Even the name is familiar; while we say ‘Google it’ when relating to search, everyone knows that ‘Hotmail’ refers to email.

Using an analogy to compare the three home pages, Google is a monastery – silent and contemplative, MSN UK is a sophisticated dinner party, very refined and conversational, and Yahoo! is a loud, friendly and welcoming party. It’s no wonder that Heather Hopkins, director of research for Hitwise UK is quoted as saying “Consumers are moving among these three Internet brands and seem to clearly distinguish the users of each. UK consumers use Google to navigate and search the web, MSN to communicate and Yahoo! for content.”

Is my analysis indepth and based on sound scientific principles? No, of course it isn’t; it’s based on being a searcher, watching and learning how other people search. People are not stupid, but equally will subconsciously take messages from the sites that they visit, and I think these statistics show quite clearly that all three companies are being very successful with the messages they are sending out. The question is, do they fully realize what those messages are?

Posted by Phil Bradley at 6:42 AM | Permalink

May 18, 2006

KDDI, Japan Mobile Phones, Signs Deal With Google To Provide Mobile Search

Gary Price spots that KDDI, a Japanese mobile operator, has signed a deal with Google to provide mobile search for au phones. The service is to begin as early as July 2006, and will enable not only mobile searches, but also be enhanced to provide search enabled services aimed at PCs.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:27 AM | Permalink

Google In Talks With China Mobile

BusinessWeek.com reports that Google and China Mobile are in talks about developing an Internet search engine for mobile devices in China. Wang Jianzhou, the chairman and chief executive of China Mobile (Hong Kong) told Business Week, "I recently met with Google's CEO for the second time. And we both share the same idea: how to turn cell phones into a new kind of Internet search engine." China Mobile is China's largest mobile carrier and is looking for ways to increase revenue per user.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:17 AM | Permalink

May 5, 2006

Google Zurich States Economic Reason For Entering China

Philipp Lenssen quotes Max Ibel, Site Lead of Google Zurich, as saying there were "economic reasons" for entering China. Philipp believes this may be the first time Google mentioned any economic reasons for entering China and complying with China's regulations. The German interview can be found here. I am not sure how significant this is, but I thought it would be nice to document here for later. :)

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:05 AM | Permalink

May 3, 2006

Google Not Tops In South Korea

Google fails to make inroads in South Korea from the Associated Press is a interesting look at how there's at least one country where Google is not tops or a major player: South Korea. Instead, the human-based Naver service remains far-and-away the most popular.

It's the one exception I know of where a question-answering model has succeeded and thrived, compared to those run by Google and Yahoo. The relatively small slice of the web in Korean, along with apparently poor automated search technology initially, has allowed Naver to succeed.

The story touches on Google's efforts in the country, including the promotional Google Bus that was sent around. You'll find more about Naver from us here: An Internet Search Company Hotter than Google? A Profile of Korea's NHN and Naver.com

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:25 AM | Permalink

May 2, 2006

Thousands Protest Google China's New Name

Google's new Chinese moniker GuGe is drawing criticism from many Chinese users who say it is "weird," "unsophisticated," and could damage the "cool" image of Google in China.

A new protest site, NoGuge.com has sprung up and has already collected thousands of signatures, as well as suggestions for alternative names. Good Morning Silicon Valley says the leader is:

Gougou (dog dog), which is how Google is already widely known in China. The company says those folks are barking up the wrong tree: "Names such as gougou (dog dog) could not reflect the responsibilities of a corporate, brand or product name, nor do they reflect fully our goals and mission." Other suggestions include Goule (enough), Gugu (auntie), Gugou (ancient dog), Gege (elder brother) and one that may strike a little too close to the bone, considering Google's concessions to the government -- Good Gou (good dog).

More from Dr. Murrell at GMSV here.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:44 PM | Permalink

April 25, 2006

Google Maps Europe Now With More Maps & Directions

Philipp Lenssen reports that Google Maps, the European version, now has detailed street outlines and driving directions. Reportedly, before today, you were not able to see a typical street level view, such as this view of London. I personally know nothing about driving around Europe, so this is the best entry I can do at this time.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 7:48 AM | Permalink

April 24, 2006

Google Alerts Now Available In Hebrew

Nathan Weinberg points to a Google Blogoscoped thread that shows that Google News Israel added the Google Alerts feature. Google Alerts is a way to subscribe to a news search, and be notified of new news results via email.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:46 AM | Permalink

April 12, 2006

Google's New Name In China; Corn Song

Philipp Lenssen informs us that Google renamed its Chinese name to which sounds like "Guge," according to Philipp. I asked my Chinese employee what it meant, he said "song" something, he said it really has no meaning; it's just a "cool thing." Philipp explains it means "corn song" or "valley song." Ummm... ok? So I just walked back over to my Chinese employee and he thinks the name is really cool, since it sounds like Google.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:04 AM | Permalink

April 11, 2006

More On Google's Japan Mobile Ads

Last Friday I reported that Google was testing mobile ads in Japan. I just noticed via RSS that Google issued a press release on this at http://www.google.com/press/annc/mobile_ads_jp.html. Google explains the ads as;

Similar to ads that display in search done on a PC, Google mobile ads are text based. Rather, than displaying on the side, however, mobile ads display on the top and bottom of the search result page. The user can jump to the advertiser's mobile webpage by clicking the link provided or can make a call directly to the advertiser just by clicking the "call" link in the ad.

You can also view pictures of the ads in action at http://mobile.google.co.jp/mobile_ads.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:08 AM | Permalink

April 6, 2006

Google Adds Other Languages Drop Down To Support Pages

I noticed a recent change to the Google Support page where on the top right of the page is a pull down menu for "Change Language:" To double check that this was fairly new, I checked the Google cache of that page, and it was not there. The available languages are Deutsch, English, Español, Français, Italiano, Nederlands, Polski, Português, Russian, Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean. Of course, Google had support pages in those languages, but not the pull down for US based users to select from.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:50 AM | Permalink

March 29, 2006

Google AdSense Launched German Language Support Blog

The Google AdSense blog informed us of the launch of the Inside AdSense German blog. I hear that German is an incredibly popular language for the AdSense product, and this will allow AdSense better support the German market.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:39 AM | Permalink

March 7, 2006

Google Gets New Spain & Portugal Chief, Catalan Domain

The new CEO of CEO for Google Spain and Portugal has been named today. Isabel Aguilera has been selected to run the Google offices in Spain and Portugal, according to Dirson. Aguilera is a well-respected businesswoman, who was the COO of NH Hotels and Business Unit Director for Dell in Spain, Italy and Portugal.

Google also registered the google.cat domain name on February 14th; no web site is currently live at google.cat.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:03 AM | Permalink

February 21, 2006

Google License To Operate In China Questioned; Will Disclosure Have To Go?

"Google has no license for China service: newspaper" from Reuters covers new questions on whether Google is able to operate legally in China. That seems absurd given the worldwide coverage of Google bending to the Chinese government's censorship demands last month. The fracas also raises questions on whether Google will find that it can no longer even disclose that censorship is happening, something that is the company's best defense against critics that say it shouldn't filter results.

The Reuters article covers a Beijing News report saying that Google doesn't have an Internet Content Provider license needed to operate in China. Google says it uses the ICP license of a local company Ganji.com, which Google says is common practice. It also says the ICP number is listed at the bottom of its search results on Google China.

I don't see the number on search results pages, but I do see one at the bottom of the Google China home page, like this:

京 ICP证050124号 

I don't recall seeing this number before on the page, but the cached copy of Google China shows it was in place at least as of Feb. 17, so it wasn't just slapped up in response to today's news. Checking further, I have a locally cached copy showing the number in place as of Jan. 25.

China's Ministry Of Information is said to be "concerned" and investigating the situation. It boggles the mind that the Ministry Of Information might not have realized that Google believed it was operating legally in China. There's simply no way anyone concerned about controlling the internet in China could have missed the worldwide publicity about Google new site. Heck, Google was rapped in US congressional hearings last week about bending to China laws.

If the Ministry Of Information really does find Google is unlicensed, then what on earth was it doing to police the Chinese internet over the past month? How could it miss something like that? And who exactly is giving Google its marching orders on stuff to censor?

As it turns out, according to this AP article, the ministry is aware that Google isn't using its own license. Whether that's legal or not is what's being investigated now, it appears.

In all likelihood, the entire thing will blow over into a non-issue. I doubt China's going to suddenly kick Google out. But in a longer version of the Reuters story, there's something that might be a bigger issue for Google, the idea that the disclosure it's doing of censorship might come under pressure to be ended. Says Reuters:

The China Business Times, a business paper with a sometimes nationalist slant, blasted Google for even telling users that links are censored.

"Does a business operating in China need to constantly tell customers that it's abiding by the laws of the land?" it said, adding that Google had "incited" a debate about censorship.

The paper likened Google to "an uninvited guest" telling a dinner host "the dishes don't suit his taste, but he's willing to eat them as a show of respect to the host".

It'll will be interesting to see if other papers and media outlets put pressure on Google to remove disclosure, which in turn could cause the Chinese government to declare that it has to go. If so, Google has a serious problem. Providing disclosure is a key element to it justifying the censorship it does for the Chinese government, as it explained once again in last week's congressional hearings.

For more on Google's controversial entry into China, see these past articles from us:

• Google Now Censoring In China
• BusinessWeek Article Offers Look at Net Censorship in China
• Brin Speaks On China & Looking At What's Filtered
• How Google Censors Itself For China & Paid Exclusion As Being Evil
• Google's Help Center Page About Censorship Back Online With New Text
• A Picture Says 1000 Words About Google's Censorship In China
• Google Created EvilRank Scale To Decide On Chinese Censorship
• Google, Microsoft Say No To US Congressional Briefing On Chinese Censorship
• Google, Microsoft and Yahoo Provide Statements to Congressional Caucus Regarding China Related Issues
• Report from U.S. Congress Briefing on Human Rights and the Internet and China
• Google Chinese Censorship Protested At Stanford, Berkeley
• Statements To US Congressional Hearing On Chinese Internet Censorship

Want to comment or discuss? Please visit the Google Agrees To Chinese Censorship thread at our Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:17 AM | Permalink

February 20, 2006

Google Formally Announced Israeli Office

Gary reported back in June 2005 that Israel Will Soon Say Shalom to Google, well, officially, we can say Shalom Google. The United Press International reports that Google announced this news at a conference on Monday. Much of the details are still unknown but Meir Brand of Google did say; "Israelis are chronic searchers. The search is the main use they make of Internet, while for Americans, the main use of Internet is e-mail. The Israeli surfer adopts technologies faster." Let's not forget Gary's report on Google's plans to open R&D office in Israel.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 1:14 PM | Permalink

February 14, 2006

Google Launched Google China Blog

Philipp Lenssen finds that Google launched the Google China Blog recently. I have a Chinese employee and asked him to tell me what the posts are about, he said both are basically about Valentine's Day. If you like a full automated translation of the Google China Blog, use the Google translation tool.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:18 AM | Permalink

February 8, 2006

Google Chinese Censorship Protested At Stanford, Berkeley

News.com points at a San Francisco Chronicle article covering protests at UC Berkeley and Google's alma mater Stanford University over its Chinese censorship policy. These came in response to head of Google China, Kai-Fu Lee, talking at the campuses on a recruiting drive.

That reminds me of something I've been meaning to post about, Lee's past statement about insisting on principles, something Google ironically is not doing in China. As I explained in our SEW Forums thread on the censorship issue:

Dr. Lee is the head of Google China. You might remember Google fought a big huge case to get Microsoft's non-compete claims off his back. In the midst of all this, Lee explained some of the reasons why he wanted to go to Google:

No matter how difficult, if you don't follow your heart and insist on principles, how can [you] suggest other people to do it. Therefore I made a very important choice. I have the right to make my choice. I choose Google, I choose China. I want to do influential things. In China, I can help the youth more and do more influential things. I want to make the best of my own efforts, and in Google I can learn the new creativity model and make myself better.

Look at that first sentence. The man heading Google China says if you don't follow and insist on principles (say "Don't Be Evil"), how can you expect others to do so. Then Google ends their post on the China mess this way:

To some people, a hard compromise may not feel as satisfying as a withdrawal on principle, but we believe it's the best way to work toward the results we all desire.

In other words, Google won't stick to its principles. And that's the heart of all this. It would be just another company (US, Danish, Argentinean, whatever) agreeing to Chinese demands and a non-issue except that Google itself very publicly set this entire "Do No Evil" thing in motion as a guiding principle.

Meanwhile, Boing Boing notes censorship might be happening in Google Azerbaijan. But I haven't tried testing this to see if that's for certain. Smaller result sets could be do to things completely unrelated to censorship.

Want to comment? Please visit our Search Engine Watch Forums thread, Google Agrees To Chinese Censorship.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:30 AM | 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.

See Also: Google and Microsoft turn up heat over China (via FT.com).

Posted by Gary Price at 12:38 AM | Permalink

January 30, 2006

Google Has Plans to Open R&D Office in Israel

In June, we blogged that Google planned to open a business office in Israel. Today, news that Google is in the process of also opening an R&D center there.

A story in The Marker Online (an Israeli business newspapers) says that's what Sergey Brin told the paper at the World Economic Development Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Israel has a very active IT seen.

For example, well-known vertical search company that's based Israel is Answers.com. Thank you (Todah robah, as they say in Hebrew) to Uri at the ICT blog for the tip.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:41 PM | Permalink

January 25, 2006

Google Now Censoring In China

Oh, the irony. Less than a week after we hear that Google is ready to fight the US government in part to defend its users, now comes news that Google will cave into the Chinese government's demands for its new Google China web site. However, the issues aren't directly comparable. Moreover, while I'm no fan of Chinese censorship, I like some of the way Google is reacting to the demands. Come along, and we'll explore the entire censorship situation in China, the US and some other places you rarely hear discussed, like France and Germany.

What's Google done? They've agreed to impose censorship on the Google China service that's reported to be rolling out. Actually, Google's had sites designed for those in China to use for some time. They did obtain the Chinese domain that this "new" site is using back in May, and you were able to search there uncensored by Google itself since that time. Now Google is stepping in to do the censorship directly, rather than the Chinese government doing it.

China was censoring Google without Google helping? Yes. It's been that way for years. It either began or really came to public attention back in 2002, when people in China were suddenly shocked to find that they had trouble doing certain types of searches.

That later stopped to some degree, which caused some to speculate that Google had cut some secret deal with China. But Google was always adamant this hadn't happened. Moreover, while the initial overbearing blocking stopped, other types of blocking still continued (something that wouldn't happen if some deal had been arranged).

Wired had a nice article last year that illustrated how those in China encountered such blocking as imposed by the Chinese government, rather than Google. Moreover, that blocking is one reason why Google seems to have dropped in popularity in China while Baidu rose, as the LA Times covered not too long ago.

The one exception until now has been with Google China News. In September 2004, Google decided to omit some news sources because the Chinese government itself was blocking access to them. As they blogged to explain:

For last week's launch of the Chinese-language edition of Google News, we had to decide whether sources that cannot be viewed in China should be included for Google News users inside the PRC. Naturally, we want to present as broad a range of news sources as possible. For every edition of Google News, in every language, we attempt to select news sources without regard to political viewpoint or ideology. For Internet users in China, we had to consider the fact that some sources are entirely blocked. Leaving aside the politics, that presents us with a serious user experience problem. Google News does not show news stories, but rather links to news stories. So links to stories published by blocked news sources would not work for users inside the PRC -- if they clicked on a headline from a blocked source, they would get an error page. It is possible that there would be some small user value to just seeing the headlines. However, simply showing these headlines would likely result in Google News being blocked altogether in China.

So was Google censoring or just acting to protect the user experience? Whatever you call it, the end result was the same. You simply couldn't find certain sites that might be relevant in Google.

Today's news is a fundamental shift. Google isn't running for the cover of protecting the user experience by omitting some news sites. It's flat out saying that the Chinese government wants it to do censoring in news search, web search and other areas and that Google will comply.

Google's complying for better access to the Chinese market, including being able to base servers in China and have access sped up because the Chinese government is not longer blocking them. Reuters provides more details on this plus an explanation from Google:

"In order to operate from China, we have removed some content from the search results available on Google.cn, in response to local law, regulation or policy," the company said.

Aware of the trade-offs it is making, Google executives said they believe the company can play a more positive role by participating in the Chinese market, despite restrictions, than by boycotting the country in order to avoid such compromises.

"While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission," the company stated.

Well censorship is just plain evil, right? So much for Google's "Don't Be Evil" motto! Not necessarily. Government imposed censorship is always worrying, because many people believe they should be able to decide what's good and bad, rather than their government doing this.

However, companies do have to follow the laws of the countries they operate in. For those in the US and elsewhere to say Google shouldn't follow Chinese laws is hypocritical if they are not forcefully demanding that Google not follow other laws.

To avoid this hypocrisy, I'd like everyone upset about the Google move in China to also start protesting that the governments of France and Germany should not require Google to remove Nazi or hate sites.

I've written about this and other types of country-specific censorship before. My Revisiting Google Censorship In Germany & France post provides a variety of references and tools that show this. But I'll do a quick illustration here.

Search on Google.com for nazi, and you get the American Nazi Party listed first. Ah, but those results are oriented toward America, right? Not necessarily. Over at Google UK, a search for nazi brings it up again. But Google France? A nazi search doesn't find it. Is that because I searched for just French pages? No, it was a worldwide search. Perhaps different ranking reasons? No. It's because that site has been omitted from Google France, as you can see here. Germany also censors sites. Google Blogoscoped did a big comparison last year that illustrates this, and Boing Boing today points to an example of a body modification site being banned.

If Google's not going to obey Chinese laws, then neither should it obey French and German ones. Nor perhaps should it follow US laws that require it to pull material, as I'll get to later in this piece.

Alternatively, Google could be selective and decide that some laws are simply unreasonable, repressive or so bad that it won't follow them. That means abandoning certain countries, of course.

Google could do that with China. It would be a far braver, less evil company if it said to the Chinese government that it won't do the widespread censorship that's being demanded. Keep your money, good luck with your suppression of knowledge and freedom, we'll do business in other places. See you when your policies change.

As for the actual censoring happening, if it's going to happen, at least Google's doing it in a way that I've suggested in my Got To Censor Search Listings? Why Not Disclose? piece from 2004. Do a search on something that's censored, and at least Google is telling Chinese searchers that their government has force a removal.

Here's an example. The Guardian has some examples of searches that might cause sites to be blocked, including [tiananmen square massacre]. So I tried that on Google China. Down at the bottom of the results is this:

据当地法律法规和政策，部分搜索结果未予显示。

I don't speak Chinese, but Google has a translation tool I used. It's the typical bad, broken machine translation you typically get, but the main point of what the Chinese are being told comes across:

According to the local law laws and regulations and the policy, partially searches the result does not demonstrate.

Good. At least if the results are censored, there's disclosure of this. That's far more than you'll see in any other country where censorship is happening other than the US. France and Germany? Multiple places are reporting that Google discloses removals there. It does NOT, to my knowledge.

How about the US? Disclosure is related specifically to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and started not long after Google came under fire for removing pages from an anti-Scientology web site because of a copyright infringement claim.

You can see this in action with a search for kazaa, where you get disclosure of two different pages that have been removed:

In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.

In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.

Click on the links, and you are taken over to the source of the complaint, documenting what was alleged.

The disclosure that Google is doing censorship in China could certainly be pumped up. Over on Michael Connolly's blog, in his explanation about MSN reacting to pull a Chinese blogger offline, I commented:

I can understand you wanting to follow the laws of another country that you operate in, despite the fact that I might not agree with those laws. But do the laws prevent you from informing others that you've done this. In other words, if you have to censor certain words, can't you insert something like "Content Censored In Accordance With National Laws." Or if you pull a blog the Chinese government deems abusive, can't you at least tell those in China still trying to go to the former address, "Blog removed because of Chinese censorship demands."

It seems that's both following the laws but at least also helping those in China understand exactly who to blame for the censorship.

So if Google's going to do a disclosure but really in its heart doesn't agree with the censorship -- as I imagine is the case -- then get some backbone in what you say. Use the charged word of "censorship." Say exactly what law is requiring the material to be pulled. Give people an area or a way to express their disagreement.

Finally, what about the entire hypocrisy of not bending to US law but doing so with China. That's not the case. In the action with the Department Of Justice, Google has not disobeyed a law. US law allows people or organizations to be subpoenaed. People also have the right to argue they shouldn't be forced to be a witness in a case. Google's following the law in arguing against being forced to provide information. It's perfectly legal to do that. Ultimately, the case will be decided. Google may be ordered to hand over material. If so, it will do so -- or it will face penalties under US law.

In China, it's unclear what exactly the "law" is that is being used to impose this censorship. It would sure be nice to hear more about that from Google itself, along with as many details as they are legally allowed to provide. BusinessWeek shed a little light on this recently:

Virtually all Net outfits on the mainland are given a confidential list of hundreds of banned terms they have to watch for. The list changes over time, based on events such as the recent police shootings in the southern town of Dongzhou.

The rules are even tougher for companies that host their sites on servers in China. This group, which has included Yahoo but not Google, are pressured to sign the government's "Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the Chinese Internet Industry," the U.S. State Dept. says. Under the agreement, they promise not to disseminate information that "breaks laws or spreads superstition or obscenity," or that "may jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability."

Translation: "If you own something, you're responsible for what's there," says Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong. That leads companies to "err on the side of caution and self-censorship."

But I assume that some way, some how, they have no ability to appeal the decision of what to censor. If they do have that ability -- and haven't tried to fight it through Chinese legal channels -- then sure, they deserve the taint of hypocrisy.

By the way, this shouldn't be a Google thing. Yahoo's sort of sidestepped the issue now by selling Yahoo China to Alibaba. As I wrote, this seems a handy way to run a service in China (Yahoo know owns 40 percent of Alibaba) but throw your hands up about censorship and say, "It's not us doing it." Maybe Alibaba now runs things, but Yahoo with a major stake should be pushing for at least disclosure of censorship to be provided. The same is true for MSN, which operates over there.

Nor should this be a China thing. If you're removing material from search results for various reasons -- spam, government censorship, whatever -- disclose that everywhere, not just in response to particular outrages.

In the end, I find myself struggling. I'm glad the disclosure is there. I wanted to see that type of disclosure, and it's welcomed. But I also want Google to say no to China, to argue that the censorship the country wants to impose is not based on reasonable, fair laws or in accordance with Google's supposed mission of organizing the world's information.

Ultimately, I want Google to pull out and fight back. I can see the argument for being engaged in a country, for trying to help promote change over time. But I feel like Google should be big enough and principled enough to be engaged by not being engaged. That might do far more good now than years down the line.

We've written before that US firms might be forced to do this type of thing. A US Congressional hearing is about to happen to consider whether US law might prevent US companies from obeying Chinese censorship demands.

Meanwhile, Rebeccca MacKinnon -- who is excellent to read on China and censorship issues -- points to a Wall Street Journal article on the Google move that some companies are looking to see if they can set up their own principles to force change:

Some U.S. tech companies are working behind the scenes to craft for the Internet in China an equivalent of the Sullivan Principles, guidelines formulated in the 1970s that helped mobilize U.S. corporate divestment to protest South African apartheid.

Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders has a petition going that might be applicable to the current Google move:

Search engines: Search engines would not be allowed to incorporate automatic filters that censor "protected" words. The list of "protected" keywords such as "democracy" or "human rights" should be appended to the law or code of conduct.

The problem is, this doesn't go far enough. I wrote to them earlier this month to say these cases seemed more about blocking sites that actually blocking queries. A minimum, a better solution is to require disclosure if sites are blocked in addition to protecting the ability to search itself.

A couple of last things. Google.com itself won't be subject to Google-imposed censorship, according to the International Herald Tribune:

A growing number of visitors from China to the uncensored Web address www.google.com will now be redirected to the self-censored www.google.cn, Google executives said Tuesday. Citing concerns for the safety of the fewer than 50 Google employees based in China, company executives spoke on the condition of anonymity and insisted that all quotations for this article come from a written statement.

What good is that if people are redirected? That's actually normal behavior. Google routinely redirects those outside the US to a country-specific version of Google. Those who want to reach Google.com can do so by selecting the "Google.com in English" link on the home page of these versions. The Google China site has exactly this type of link.

Also, it's not surprising if Google.com is uncensored. In my example with Google France, my understanding is that someone in France could still go to Google.com, do a search and see Nazi or hate sites come up. It kind of makes the French censorship laws a waste of time, but maybe down the line France will try to force further changes.

I'm sure the Chinese government itself will continue to block Google.com without Google's cooperation, of course. It's also possible that Google might change the ranking of what you see at Google.com if you come from China, just as they already do for other countries, as I've explained in the past. It's also a good argument for stopping that type of skewing, as I've argued for. Everyone going to Google.com should see the same thing, regardless of their country of origin.

Finally, so far user information itself isn't being raised as an issue. Some worry what Google might do about email or blogging, where demands for personal information or censorship have caused problems for Yahoo and MSN. The San Jose Mercury News touches on this and has a Google response:

Google will introduce other services in China, such as e-mail and blogging, "only when we are comfortable that we can do so in a way that strikes a proper balance among our commitments to satisfy users' interests, expand access to information, and respond to local conditions.''

Before you breathe a sigh of relief, consider this. Part of last week's worry involved Google handing over search records to the US government that many consider private. As I've explained, no personally identifiable information was asked for or would have been released. You couldn't link any private queries with any actual individuals.

That same type of information is about to be generated on computers based within China itself. It's likely we could see China made similar demands for private search data, complete with personally identifiable information. Of course, given the country's already notorious monitoring of internet activity, they'll likely to have all this information already.

Want to comment or discuss? Please visit the Google Agrees To Chinese Censorship thread at our Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:26 AM | Permalink

January 20, 2006

An Internet Search Company Hotter than Google? A Profile of Korea's NHN and Naver.com

NHN: The Little Search Engine That Could, from BusinessWeek offers a profile of NHN Corp/Naver.com a company that the article says is beating Google by one metric.

While the Silicon Valley sensation doubtless had a great year in 2005, shares of a Korean rival -- NHN Corp. -- have done far better. Google Inc.'s stock climbed an impressive 103% in 2005, to nearly $415, but that paled beside NHN's 218% gain to $267

+ "Google's 4-year-old Korean-language search service accounts for less than 2% of search page views and search-related ad revenues in Korea."

We know that Google is working to build share in Korea. For example, last year they ran a Google Bus Tour heading to several universities. Google Korea also debuted its own blog in '05.

+ The article says that NHN can offer more relevant answers than Google because their results pages place various types of content on results pages. I'm not so sure this is something that, at least on some Google sites, they aren't also doing with the OneBox. The same is also true at Yahoo, MSN, and Ask Jeeves where you might find news headlines, inline images (from their image databases), and factual answers listed on web results pages.

+ "Google has a superb search engine," says Choi Jae Hyeon, NHN's search chief. "We have, however, built up know how and a database by extracting knowledge from users' brains."

+ Extracting knowledge from users' brains is part of a three year initiative called "Knowledge-In" which in essence is a knowledgebase of asked, answered and rated (by users) questions.

This database now has some 37 million questions and answers that can get returned with search results. The article mentions that Yahoo Korea now offers a similar service. Don't forget that Yahoo just launched Yahoo Answers a few weeks ago and Google has Google Answers. Community oriented Q&A services like Wondir also have been around for some time.

Before any of these services existed Ask Jeeves offered (the now defunct) Answer Point. More Q&A and "virtual" answer services are listed here.

+ Some or several large web engine (take your pick) should leverage the content from expert driven databases that offer answers from an expert in a specific subject. Makes sense. Some of these services are listed here. One could also argue that Wikipedia is a place where a subject expert can share their knowledge.

+ The article mentions that NHN is also operating in Japan, China, and the US with online games site.

From the article: Already in Japan, NHN is the largest game portal, with 13 million subscribers, while in China it bought half of Ourgame.com, a portal with 170 million subscribers, in 2004. And in October it set up a subsidiary in the U.S. to launch online games. Later, NHN hopes to introduce community sites and search services in those markets. Google may still be far ahead, but it would do well to keep an eye out for this little Korean search engine.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:54 PM | Permalink

January 18, 2006

Report: Chinese Searchers Prefer Google Over Homegrown Baidu

Keynote Systems, a research firm that does annual studies of North American searchers and their satisfaction with search engines, has released its first report on the preferences of Chinese searchers. Looking at a number of different criteria the study ranked user satisfaction with four major search players in China: Alibaba/Yahoo!, Baidu, Google China and Sohu/Sogou, and concluded that Google was the favorite, despite trailing Baidu in market share. Today's SearchDay article, Study: Google #1 in China, has the details.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 11:02 AM | Permalink

November 16, 2005

France Majority Party Campaigns with AdWords

Over the weekend, running a search on Google France for the words "violence," "riots," "suburbs," "burned cars" or even "scum" pulled up Sponsored Links to France's majority party official UMP ("Union for a Popular Movement") Web site.

From the News.com story:

"Since the riots began, we've received many e-mails of support, with a number of activists and elected officials circulating as many as 17 petitions backing Nicolas Sarkozy," a party spokesperson told ZDNet France. "So we asked our technical contractor, L'Enchanteur des nouveaux médias, to channel such requests so that Internet users conducting searches surrounding the violence and the UMP come across an (official) document."

The response rate was apparently so high that the party pulled the ads after the web server hosting the landing pages crashed.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:26 PM | Permalink

November 6, 2005

Google's Personalized Home Page Now Available in China

A quick note in the state-run China People's Daily that Google's personalized home page service (that requires a Google login) is now available (at least for the moment) in China.

Posted by Gary Price at 6:45 PM | Permalink

October 13, 2005

Blogger and Google Cache Now Accessible in China

The Infoworld article: Google's Blogger service now accessible in China, reports that the Blogger service (at least for the time being) is back online and accessible in China after being blocked in 2002.

Also, the Google cache is also now accessible to Google users in China.

The opening of access to the cached Web sites on Google, which had previously been blocked by the company itself rather than government censors, appears to be a slightly different situation. In this case, the cache function may have been disabled by Google and was not blocked by the Chinese government, according to an observer familiar with the situation. Google executives were not immediately available to comment. The Chinese government does not acknowledge whether it takes actions to block specific Web sites, sometimes making it difficult to confirm whether a site has been blocked.

Thanks to eltelendro for the news tip.

Postscript: That was short lived. According to China-based Shak at Chinawhite.com, Blogspot blog are NO longer accessible. Shak also reports that the Google Cache is also not working.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:44 PM | Permalink

October 6, 2005

Google Merges Maps & Local, Brings North America Out of Beta

Google Local and Maps are now a single unified service, known as Google Local.

"Google maps has always integrated local listings, and I think this takes it to the level we always have seen it from the engineering level," said Brett Taylor, product manager of Google Local.

With the new integration, if you have a saved location in Google Local you will now see a map of that place when you start a search, rather than later in search results. You'll also be able to use the satellite imagery and hybrid map/satellite photo combination when viewing local search results.

Maps and Local have been unified in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Japan. Both the U.S. and Canada versions have also been moved out of beta and are now official Google services.

Google Maps will still be available at maps.google.com.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:00 AM | Permalink

September 28, 2005

Lots of Job Resumes Appear at Google China; Chef Position is Still Open

After Dr. Kai-Fu Lee officially began his job (at least for the time being) last week at the head of Google efforts in China, Google received more than 1000 resumes for 50 positions at their soon to be built research facility in .CN. In fact, all of the resumes were received in a five hour period. The InfoWorld article: Google gets 1,000 resumes for 50 jobs in China, has more including word that Lee is looking to hire employees for a variety of positions including product managers, software developers, wireless developers, and of course, a chef.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:09 PM | Permalink

September 22, 2005

Dr. Kai-Fu Lee Begins His Job as Head of Google China

Asia Pulse reports that Kai-Fu Lee has begun his job as the person in charge of Google's operations in China.

He begins his job after a Washington judge ruled nine days ago that Lee could recruit for Google and work on getting government permissions but cannot work on search or speech technology. A trial that begins in January will offer a final ruling.

Lee told Asia Pulse that Google will soon decide in which city (either Beijing or Shanghai) they'll build their China research enter.

The top Chinese scientist at Google said his job is to hire at least 50 college graduates by the end of this year, as the job-hunting season for graduate students starts this month. "We are here not to steal talent from other companies, but to train local people," he said. More in the article: Lee starts job as head of Google in China.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:47 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

September 2, 2005

Google Launches Google Local In China

I've been meaning to mention long-time search marketer Shakil Khan's new blog on life in China, Chinawhite, where he's going to be touching on search out there. I had it as part of a wrap-up on various China items for next week. But Threadwatch notes that Shak's spotted a Pacific Epoch story on a new Google Local China service in beta. I tried cars in Beijing in English, and have no idea what I got back -- but it does look like local listings for the area, along with a map.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:34 PM | Permalink

August 31, 2005

Google Brings Film Showtimes and Reviews Service to the UK

Google has just introduced their film showtime and review service on the Google UK site. It operates just like the U.S. film info service that went live in February.

Searchers can trigger the Google Film service on Google.co.uk, by entering the terms:

• Films
or
• Showtimes
or
• The title of a current film
A box will appear at the top of the results page where you can enter a city name or Postal Code.

Results pages contain showtimes and a link to find reviews from various sources. Pages are designed to the searcher to quickly identify positive and negative reviews, to search "within" the reviews, and more. Google Films also shows an "average rating" that's based on all of the reviews in their database.

Film showtimes along with basic info (running times, rating, etc.) is also now available via SMS in the UK. Details and directions here.

If you're looking for info about older films, enter, film: [title] or movie:[title] into a web search box to trigger the service.

The only thing that surprised me was after spot checking reviews for several popular films, I wasn't able to find many reviews published in the UK media. I would think that this content would also be relevant to Google UK users.

Others

• Ask Jeeves UK provides a "Smart Search" box at the top of web results pages with direct links to find reviews and showtimes at MyMovies.net.
• Yahoo UK and MSN don't provide movie showtime/info shortcuts but both do offer comprehensive film info sites.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:43 PM | Permalink

July 25, 2005

Google Korea Has Its Own Blog

Both Philipp and Nathan report that Google Korea now has its own blog. If you can't translate Korea you can use Google's translation software to get an "idea" of what's being discussed. One of the first posts includes photos of the Google Korea "Bus Tour" that we blogged about in May.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:36 PM | Permalink

July 20, 2005

Google Acquires Brazilian Search Tech Company

Nice work by Dirson spotting this press release (in Portuguese) from Google announcing their acquisition of Akwan Information Technologies, a Brazilian search tech provider. Google will use the acquistion to open an R&D center in Latin America.

Here's a mechanical translation of the announcement using Google's translation software, caveat emptor.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:52 PM | 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