China claiming to have 221 million internet users

China is claiming to be the worlds largest online market, with a total internet users 221 million as of the end of the February, reported by the state-run china Daily newspaer thursday.

China proclaim that it has overtake US in the number of internet users, as US has 216 million interne users. However, China seems to be far lagging behind from US in the percentage of the respective populations that use internet.

According to a report by China Internet Network Information Centre (CINIC), China had 221 million internet users at the end of February 2008, the largest in the world. The Nielsen/NetRatings data put the number of internet users in US at 216 million, or 69.7 per cent of the country’s total population. In contrast, China is believed to have only 16 per cent of its people on internet. The world average for all countries on internet is 19.1 per cent.

Interestingly, CINIC defines an internet user as anyone who accesses internet at least once a month. On the other hand, the Nielsen/NetRatings data for the number of internet users in US include only those people who access internet either from home or work leaving out many people who are online from other places than just home and work.

[Source: ComputerWorld, iTwire]

Google & Microsoft India Launching SMS Services in India

Vodafone, a mobile service provider join hands with Microsoft India to render SMS-based search service at a rate of 30 paisa per query to its user. This SMS search service helps vodafone mobile users to search online mobile contents such as ringtones, images, local directory information.

According to Vodafone, this service will be initially available in eight cities -- Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad -- and the 21 more cities expected to be join in the list soon.

In SMS-based search service they have incorporated some specific features like local results based on the user's city location, keep tracking of the user's search session for 24 hours and delivering formatted results according to the user's phone capabilities.


So take the benefits of this services and enjoy![Source: Economic Times]

Google is the Leading Brand World -Wide

Google is the world's leading brand this year. The top five brands of the year are Google followed by General Electric, Microsoft, Coca Cola and China Mobile. The brands are unchanged since last year. What is surprising is the growth, Google has elicited in the past two years, when it was ranking seventh to the leader then, Microsoft.

Google is said to have started to concentrate more on China for its ad sales. Ever since, the brand has begun marketing itself in China, its sales has experienced a high rise. The Expansion of its services in China has helped Google grow its international revenue account by more than half of the sales it calculated last quarter.

The Google search engine that trails in China by the name of Baidu.com is growing in popularity and its ad services are on an all time rise. As a matter of fact China has also been identified as the world's second largest internet user's bay.

The top position that Google has been enjoying since last year is reflective of its, revenue, the market space, consumer attitude and the overall brand value which stands at an exuberant $US86.1 billion ($91.4 billion).

Adobe Media Player – The Latest from Adobe

Adobe announced the release of Adobe Media Player (AMP) on April 9, 2008. The Adobe Media Player gives the facility of ‘a push to provide content to end users’. Apart from this it also creates a platform where one can monetize and track online video. The main goal of AMP is to enable content providers the facility to modify and sort the whole media player experience. Through this sorting, the content providers are provided many analytical tools that can help them track the videos and monetize them.

The technology that enables a person to do so much is the Adobe AIR. It is because of this that AMP can help some one to take the video content offline. The AMP can also become the default player for FLVs and one can watch a FLV file that is there inside of AMP.

AMP enables you to watch full screen and supports up to 1080p resolution. Currently, there are content from CBS, MTV Networks, Universal Music Group, PBS, CondéNet, and Scripps Networks, plus there are other content about Adobe products.

The Official Launch of AdSense Scrolling Text Ads

AdSense has made the official launch of scrolling text ads where a visitor can scroll through an ad to check out if he / she wants to click the ad to go to the website or the landing page of the advertiser.

The scrolling would not cost the advertiser anything, but what makes me wonder is how profitable would this be to the advertiser. Going by the typical consumer behavior, a person would want to know everything that he / she can, before making the purchase. Therefore, I think this scrolling would give a visitor more information about the advertiser or about what he offers. This can work in favor or against the advertiser also.

The scrolling facility is available to all the CPC text ads. Small arrows help the visitor to go forward or backward to see the ad completely or a part of it. This will surely benefit the end users.

Yahoo India Maps – In Your Language

Yahoo! India, for the first time in India, started their new service by enhancing the Yahoo! Maps to show results in different languages. The new strategy is to attract more Indian customers to use internet. With this service, Yahoo! wishes to penetrate the local markets and influence varied target customers.

Some of the salient features in the enhanced Yahoo! Map are:

1) Use of local languages and user friendly features

2) Proper walking directions displayed

3) Flexibility to access via SMS, email, and web

4) Well-known landmarks displayed

5) Location of ATMs, Hospitals, restaurants, Malls etc are mentioned


Yahoo selected 9 different languages like Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam to start with the Yahoo India Map. They may add more languages later.

The users of Yahoo! India can search for different destination across 179 cities, 4,767 towns, and 226,114 villages. Also there is a facility for users to search for over 3 million points of interest. It’s really a good strategy to penetrate the market.

As India is the second largest country in world regarding population with an economic growth that is maintaining good pace, therefore it would be a good idea to penetrate into more local and niche markets to reap more benefits. This is perhaps what Yahoo! is now trying to do by influencing the general people and habituating them with Internet and the web.

It’s a good strategy to compete with the world’s leading search engine service provider Google. But will the Yahoo Map be able to compete with Google maps. Think about it.

Reviews on Google's App Engine from Software Pioneers

There is a round of buzz going on with Google's latest application for software developers. It has been named "Google App Engine" and it provides a platform to the developers in running their web applications.

After this development, the software pioneers have started analyzing it. There will be an environment of reviews and feedbacks for this latest technology innovation from Google.

Dave Wineris one of the software pioneer, knows about disruptive technology. Here is a small para what Dave had to say about google App Engine,

"Now, what Google announced is really exciting! I'm not kidding. It's even better than I hoped. Yes, it's only Python, but IBM's PC-DOS was only BASIC and Pascal when it first came out, and it didn't matter. Yeah, I preferred C, but I coded in Pascal because that's what you had to do to get an app running. What you're going to see here that you've never seen before is shrinkwrap net apps that scale that can be deployed by civillians. That's a mouthful, but that's what's coming. Why? Because here is a standardized platform that can be stamped out in the billions of units. Maybe Google can't do it, but the perception is that they can. Who is willing to stand up and say Google hasn't nailed scaling? What PCs did in the 80s, Google is doing now. PCs took the black magic out of owning a computer. Now Google is taking the black magic out of operating a scalable web app. Python is the new BASIC. "

According to Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWrite :

"The point is, Google App Engine may be neither competitive nor monopolistic - it might just be trivial as Google Pages or Google Base. So far it seems pretty simple and useful, though. We'll have to take a deep breath, hope that Amazon and others step up their offerings a notch or two in response, and see what the future brings.


However, the applications developed by Google have been well accepted by the various industries till now. No matter what stir the responses would create but the software professionals are sure to get help from Google's App Engine.

Google New Application for Developers - Google App Engine

Google has launched a new application for software called Google App Engine. Here developers can run their web applications with the help of google's infrasture. It is as similar to that blogger made it easy to creat a blog. Google app engine is designed ti naje ut east ti create and run web application.


With the help of Google App Engine, developers can write web applications based on the same building blocks that Google uses, like GFS and Bigtable. Google App Engine packages those building blocks and provides access to scalable infrastructure, hope it will make it easier for developers to scale their applications automatically as they grow. Wih the help Google App Engine, software professional can spend less time dealing with system administration and maintenance, and more time building and improving their applications.

Google App Engine is free to use during the preview release, but the amount of computing resources any app can use is limited. Later, developers will be able to purchase additional computing resources as needed, but Google App Engine is free to get started.

To know more about google app engine click here

This preview of Google App Engine is available for the first 10,000 developers who sign up. so developer sign up download the SDK

All Quiet on the Yahoo Front

The Microsoft and Yahoo upheavals seem to have settled down, but is it the calm before the real storm?

Yahoo is taking more time than expected to respond to the proposal by Microsoft. Is it waiting for Microsoft to lift the bid and let the transactions close? Is Yahoo turning to Time Warner or not?

According to Mark Mahaney, Citigroup analyst, "We believe that a Yahoo sale to Microsoft -- at a price likely higher than the initial $31 [per share] bid -- is the most likely outcome. While we continue to see no other competing bidders, we believe Yahoo is aggressively pursuing strategic alternatives. One possibility is a tie-up with Time Warner, whereby Time Warner would contribute its online content assets to Yahoo in exchange for a stake. We believe this could serve as a forcing function to a higher Microsoft bid."

While some of the industry watchdogs are suggesting that this is just a gimmick by Yahoo to get a higher bid, the rest simply can not come to terms with the Microsoft & Yahoo marriage.

You Tube Now Brings Video Analytics Tool for its Users

You Tube is now releasing a video analytics tool which they are calling the ‘You Tube Insight’. ‘You Tube Insight’ is free to all the users of You Tube. This means that if you have an account in You Tube, you can view detailed statistics about the videos that you upload to the site.

What all information will ‘You Tube Insight’ provide an up-loader with? An up-loader can see the frequency or number of times the videos are watched, different geographic locations from where viewers come to the videos, the time of the day or the time period when the videos are usually played and how popular are they, especially when compared to other videos in the same market.

With You Tube Insight, you can also get down to further details like the lifecycle of a video, long soon is the video getting famous, what all places are reporting maximum views and what happens once the popularity of a video reaches its peak position.

The You Tube Insight can be very useful for you from business point of view. You can judge from the statistics – what kinds of people are taking more interest in your videos. You can evaluate the performance of your videos with those of your competitors and know exactly where you are. You can use the metrics to increase your videos’ view counts and improve popularity on the site.

You Tube promises its viewers more features and additional information and asks them to find currently available metrics by clicking under the "About this Video" button under "My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Videos."

Brand Building Factors: Build Your Brand Effectively

Suppose you are the owner of General Motors (GM) and you want to sell the company. How would you sell it? At first, you would calculate the worth of factories, patents, machines, staff and other related assets. What would come as most costly among these assets? According to me the most costly thing is not in the list.

Yes, the most costly things are those two letters G and M, why, because GM is the most recognized brand of cars worldwide. It is priceless. The value of a brand is huge compared to other physical assets.

A brand is that thing which you can own that nobody can take away from you. Everything else can be copied. Your trade secrets can be copies and eventually, your patents may expire. Your physical plant will depreciate. Technology will change. But your brand can live for ever and ever. This is the power of brand.

And making of a brand is very tough process, it takes time. According to the industry experts 7 factors can affect the building of a successful brand.

1. Product Quality: Is the product useful for the consumer? Do check, as what are the good and bad features/attributes of your brand (company, product, service).
2. Brand Positioning: A brand should be positioned not only in the market but also in the mind of the consumers. Strong brands have a clear position in the target market.
3. Brand Repositioning: Strong brands can perceive the changing taste of its consumers.
4. Brand communication: The brand awareness is a must. What you are going to provide must be known by your consumers.
5. Early bird advantage: Pioneers and innovators make a big brand but there may be exceptions like Alta vista and Google, where the former was the pioneer but the later rules.
6. Brand credibility: Sometimes investment in brands is required at the expense of short-term profitability. Long-term perspective is an important factor in brand building as it results in brand credibility.
7. Internal marketing: The whole business must understand the brand value and perhaps that is why my friend wears a T-shirt with Google written over it and he works with Google.
   

So, if you are going to launch a website or a product, don’t forget to do branding. Branding is tough but it is possible.

Yahoo! Supports Open Social Foundation

With the support that Yahoo! has provided, Google’s OpenSocial Foundation has gained a momentum and the backing of the most visited Website in USA. OpenSocial was introduced in October in an effort to cut time and cost of developer by letting them create a single application that works on multiple sites. The OpenSocial software is aimed to enable developers put their programs on more social networking sites.

The OpenSocial concept comes from the fact that the social media sites have gained immense popularity and are doing rather well with people across the globe. The OpenSocial foundation is formed by the 3 industry giants – Yahoo!, Google and News Corp.’s MySpace. This is a non profit organization that is formed to promote the OpenSocial technology.

The OpenSocial software can also be the silver lining for Yahoo! at a time when sales growth at Yahoo! has sloped down from 22% in 2006 to 8%. It is through the popularity of the social networking sites, Yahoo! can hope to gain a better foothold in the industry back again, especially because advertisers have found potential target audience in such sites.