the Web Chef's e-Bytes

Global Tastes - Chinese Internet Use

The Wall Street Journal reported on official estimates from the China Internet Network Information Center that the number of Chinese Internet users now exceeds that in the United States.  The US is estimated to have 217.1 million users, while the CINIC data shows that China now has 225 million Internet users.  This data is supported by other research from BDA China, Ltd, that found 228.5 million Internet users in China.  While the absolute number is now reportedly higher, as a percentage of the total Chinese poplulation it is only 19.1% according to CINIC.  BDA also reported that only 5% of advertising spending in China is on the Internet.

In other Chinese Internet news, Reuters reported on how Chinese bloggers have for the most part been very nationalistic in their coverage of the unrest in Tibet.  While the Chinese mainstream media has not covered this in much depth apparently the "freedom" in the blogosphere has precluded the shut down of opinions from bloggers.

Web Tidbits - global and hispanic blogs, e-cards

I've been catching up on my blog reading and doing some general Internet exploration.  As part of this effort, I've come across a few posts that offer information on some interesting developments in e-business and marketing.

Innovation.net references IdeaBlob, a social network for idea sharing where community members vote on the best idea of the month, resulting in a potential award of $10,000.

Curious about marketing developments around the world?  Take a look at GlobalThoughtz, a consortium of bloggers from ten countries around the world (Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, India, Japan, Russia, Scandinavia and the UK).

For a slice of the American demographic pie, you might want to take a look at Juan Guillermo Tornoe's Hispanic Trending blog.

Want to send a racier e-card?  Check out Someecards. (hat tip to Ad Freak)

Web Tidbits - Video Update

Real Player 11 Video Recorder - BusinessWeek author Stephen Wildstrom reports on how Real Networks soon to be launched RealPlayer 11 will offer a record feature to allow users to download YouTube and other video for later offline viewing.  This feature could be a very popular one for those seeking to view video clips and programs when they don't have ready Internet access.  The caveat is that the video must not be copy-protected to allow for the downloading and replaying of the video and you must be prepared to view the pre-roll or post-roll ads that are often being attached to the uploaded video.  The interface is such that a button labelled "Download this video" will show up in both Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers according to the article.  Another problem the author reports on is the file naming convention is not the best given that the tags and file names attached to the video online do not transfer with the download.

YouTube Global Launch - In other video news, YouTube announced the launch of nine global sites in Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK according to CIO Today magazine.  The initial sites will offer translated content with future efforts designed to localize content and encourage local video uploads.  YouTube also entered into major content deals with content providers including broadcasters and football clubs to create some immediate local content.  There is some concern that YouTube could find the different standards of acceptable online content difficult to monitor given some of the experiences they've had with global content that has offended local sensibilities.

Thought you'd enjoy this cute and popular video of otters holding hands...

Video Growth - The amazing thing about the online video revolution is how quickly it has happened.  According to Business Week, fully one third of Internet traffic today is video, a jump start from almost nothing in 2000.  Among the winners has been Videoegg, a service that is provided to social networking sites that has grown to serve up over 15 million videos across 70 sites daily according to the article "Back from the Dead".  Video transmission takes up 1,000 as much bandwith as sound, a fact that has the telecommunications companies scrambling to add capacity and video players to add servers.

AT&T Video Share - The final video news was the launch of AT&T's new service Video Share that allows for video sharing between mobile phone subscribers.  The service will initially be available in Atlanta, San Antonio and Dallas according to CrunchGear and The Wall Street Journal with service expansions expected in July to other 3G (3rd Generation) mobile markets.

 

Global Tastes - Chinese e-Marketing

iResearch reports that China's e-marketing expenditures rose 44% with online advertising (game ad revenue, e-mail revenue, online advertising revenue, digital magazine ad revenue and misc) spending increasing to 4.66 billion RMB (renminbi) and search engine marketing increasing to 1.35 billion RMB in 2006.

Meanwhile the CNNIC reports that 144 million Chinese are now online with 77 million broadband subscribers among them as of the end of 2006 according to Internet World Stats.

Global Tastes - Internet Censorship

The BBC reports on a study by the Open Net Initiative ONI (a consortium of researchers from Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and University of Toronto) that found that 25 of 41 countries showed evidence of some sort of content filtering.  The filtering was reported to be for 3 reasons politics and power, security concerns and social norms.  The ONI identifies filtering into 4 buckets technical blocking, search result removals, site mandated takedowns and induced self censorship and that the locus of the filtering can be at four levels the Internet backbone, ISP, institutional and/or individual computer level.

Bad Baidu Beats Google in Beijing, Shanghai and China...

PC World reports on how Baidu has out-gunned and outmaneuvered Google to become the number one Chinese language site in the world and number one search engine in China with 62% of all searches on their site.  In a rare setback, Google the world's number one brand according to Millward Brown and number one visited site according to ComScore (reported at SFGate.com) has some lessons to learn to get China right. 

So what are the factors that have made Baidu successful?  One key to Baidu's success is reported to be their .mp3 search capabilities, a feature that due to copyright reasons has not been pursued by Western search engines.  Another success factor might be the simple user interface that Baidu seems to have borrowed from Google.  Yet another is reported to be that their search results are heavily weighted towards advertising rather than organic search results according to the New York Times.  A final reason is their willingness to allow search results to be heavily censored, a factor that leads to government support for the search engine.  

The Baidu IPO on August 5, 2005 was the "hottest" since Google according to Investor's Business Daily with an initial offer price of $27 a share that rose to $122 by the end of the day.  Today it is trading at $127.39 following first quarter results showing that advertising revenue had led to a profit jump of 143% in the first quarter of the year.

With only 10.7% or 137 million Chinese now online according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC), there are still immense opportunities for growth for Internet players in the world's most populous nation as Internet access continues to expand.  CINIC published their 17th survey on the status of the Interent in China in January.  You can download the 83 page report from their site.

Off Topic, but Interesting... U.S. Markets in Decline?

As an independent consultant, speaker, trainer and teacher I read a wide variety of publications both on- and offline.  One of the publications that is currently among my reading material is the Financial Times.  I find it interesting to read global business and marketiing perspectives from outside of the United States.

Today's issue of the Financial Times had a very interesting story (limited time free access) that grabbed my attention.  The sidebar story quotes Thompson Financial data in stating that last week was the first time since prior to World War I that the combined market capitalization of Europe's 24 stock markets (a somewhat broad definition including rapidly growing markets in Russia and Turkey) exceeded that of the United States.  The article states:

"European shares have outperformed the US, with their market capitalization rising 160 per cent since the start of 2003 in dollar terms, said Thompson Financial.  That compared with wa 70.5 per cent rise in for the US market."

In a further analysis in a later article in the paper, John Authers, comments that "The population of this "Europe" is about 2.5 times that of the U.S.   North America, including Canada and Mexico might be a better comparison."

If nothing else, this is interesting data and maybe a signal to start re-balancing your portfolio.

Global Tastes - Chinese Internet Bar Crackdown

China Daily reports that 14 ministries within the government have decided to clamp down on "Internet Bars".  No new bars will be allowed to open in 2007.  With the Ministry of Information Ministry reporting that there are about 113,000 bars, there is a concern that the facilities are leading to Internet addiction among China's 18 million Internet users under 18.  The laws state that the bars can not allow in anyone under 18 and that there will be consequences up to and including forced closings for those that are found not to be in compliance with the rules.

The report claims that a Beijing juvenile refrorm agency found that 33.5% of delinquency crimes (robberies, rapes) among youth were attributed to violent and erotic web sites. Meanwhile, the China National Children's Center claims that 13% of Internet users under 18 are Internet addicts.

Global Tastes - India Leads the Way

comScore World Metrix reports on the growth of global Internet usage.  Their research indicates that 747 million people 15+ years were now using the Internet.  Leading the pack in the % increase since their last report in May 2006, was India with a 33% increase to 21.1 million people, followed by the Russian Federation, growing at 21% to 12.7 million people and China at 20% to 87.7 million.  The United States grew at 2% to 153.4 million. 

In other research results they reported that Canada was number 1 in "Online Engagement" as measured by number of hours spent online/month, followed by Israel and South Korea.  The research found that Canadians spent 39.6 hours online/month, Israelis 37.4 and Koreans 34 hours online/month.  In the United States this number was reported to be 31.6 hours/month with an increase to 37.2 hours/month among broadband users.

Global Tidbits - Forbidden City Blog Attack

The Wall Street Journal (see video interview above) and Times online report on the growing strength of Chinese bloggers.  They site an example of a Chinese blogger who has attacked Starbuck's outlet in the Forbiden City.  The blogger Rui Chenggang posted about why the outlet was out of place and within days over half a million Chinese Internet users had agreed with his position.  This groundswell of citizen anti-marketer's could lead to a decision to close the small outlet.   

With the number two position in the number of Internet users (following the US) at 132 million, the 20 million estimated blogs are providing an important outlet for unhappy Chinese consumers to vent and complain according to The Wall Street Journal.  The nationalistic feelings and inherent conflict between the old and the new that are evident in this response could be an indicator of future problems for other multi-national companies.  In fact The WSJ reports that other companies that have faced consumer attacks include KFC, Dell and P&G.