Entries Tagged 'Google' ↓

According to 163 Tech, Google China is testing a new user interface internally as shown above. The current UI looks like the one below:

The new UI includes a product bar showing 7 products from Google which include blog search, video search, Google Docs, toolbar, Chinese pinyin input software, Chinese version of google zeitgeist, and Google directory. The new UI is pretty similar to Google Korea:

as the new UI is not yet launched in Google.cn, you can go to Google Korea to get a feel about it.

Google is very easy for most people to spell but this might not be true for Chinese. In contrast, China search engine market’s leader Baidu (Chinese pinyin) is much easier to remember and type.

Google has been using Google.cn for Chinese market for a while and it just launched a better domain yesterday: G.cn as shown in whois record:

Domain Name: g.cn
Created: 2003-03-10
Expires: 2012-08-24
Whois Server: whois.cnnic.net.cn
ROID: 20030310s10001s00019336-cn
Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited
Registrant Organization: Google Ireland Holdings
Registrant Name: Google Ireland Holdings
Sponsoring Registrar: MarkMonitor, Inc.
Name Server:dns7.hichina.com
Name Server:dns8.hichina.com
Registration Date: 2003-03-10 19:58
Expiration Date: 2012-08-24 17:48

However, I am not able to access either Google.cn or G.cn right now:

This would definitely be helpful for Google to increase its traffic as there were companies who did similar thing, which showed that single letter domain works better.

Google China just launched bus search in its Labs. So far, users can only search bus routes for Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and Nanjing including the subway routes as well.

I don’t think this feature is that helpful for Google to expand in China online market. Baidu has this feature some time ago in which you can search for both driving and bus routes. But, there is one thing I like in Google Maps which I didn’t find in Baidu Maps: send the map to mobile phone for free.

In case, you don’t know yet: Google China has a Zeitgeist too in its Lab, which they call rebang (Chinese Pinyin, like hot trend in English). Here is the translated version. They just released a category for travel in Google China Zeitgeist (translated here).

To me, it looks attractive with high quality beautiful pictures. It shows trends for both domestic and foreign travels. Besides, it also shows popular travel websites and travel agencies in China.

That’s not all. It shows 3 lists of  travel related articles (16, 8, 8). Paid? It doesn’t seem so.

Dai Zhikang (founder of Comsenz, biggest community software provider in China): advertising in community (what he means is forum or discussion board) is strongly targeted as people are inclined to talk to people with similar interests.

Zhou Wenbiao (online sales and operation manager of Google China): Google’s advertising sales have achieved 3.87 billion by Q2 this year and the profit is 925 million US dollars.

He also introduced some basics about AdSense and Google mobile advertising (very basic).

In addition, people from Baidu, Tom, Alibaba, and etc. spoke at the conference. To me, there aren’t much good stuff. Maybe it’s my busy schedule that made me unable to look into details. Have to stop here about this year’s China Internet Conference.

According to CNNIC’s recent report, 74.5% people take Baidu as their top choice search engine, here is a summary:

• Baidu: 74.5%
• Google: 14.3%
• Sogou.com: 2.8%
• Yahoo Search: 2.1%
• Sina search: 1.7%
• soso.com (Tencent): 0.7%
• YouDao.com (Netease 163): 0.6%

You probably don’t know most of them. I would introduce in details in future.

The mainland based market research company China IntelliConsulting Corporation (CIC) has published its semi-annual survey report on China search engine market.

The CIC report shows that Baidu has managed to increase its market shareover the last six months in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the three major cities surveyed. Google saw its market share bounced up slightly, whereas both Yahoo and Sogou have been further marginalized. Baidu and Google combined accounts for 92.4% of total search users.

Market Share Based on Primary Use

Frequently Visited Websites for Non-Search Purposes

Performance of Google V.S. Baidu

It looks like Google is doing pretty well in China. Here is a brief presentation file for the report.

Some Chinese news sites report that Google China is to announce partnership with Tianya Club tomorrow to launch a service like Baidu Zhidao (similar to Yahoo Answers). Google China offers search technologies while Tianya would be in charge of community management.

Tianya Club, founded on Feb 14 1999, is one of the most popular discussion forum in China. Give you one example, all my Chinese friends know Tianya; one of them told me that she could stay there for the whole day without going out. By the first half of 2007, Tianya has almost 20 million registered users, 80% of which are between 18 to 35 years old. 80% of its users have income of over 1000 yuan (US$125).

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According to Tom Online, Google China is about to buy US$5 million stakes in Comsenz, who is the popular discussion board software provider Discuz.

Comsenz got VC investment in 2006 from Sequoia Capital. Discuz! Board is Comsenz’ core product based on PHP technology with more than 5 years’ history. It is the most popular BBS software in China which is integrated with some interactive and rich community features. According to Comsenz, there are more than 400,000 forums powered by Discuz!.

The Discuz! software is not really cheap with tiered pricing structure. However, it is totally free for personal use. No doubt, the best benefit from this investment is to provide Google a large content network which could be implemented with AdSense.

Goolge China’s president Kaifu Li announced on Aug 15 that Google has already invested in 4 to 5 Chinese companies. But, the public only know their investment in Tianya and Xunlei.