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]

Bebo is in the basket of AOL for Internet Advertising

Internet advertising is the latest medium of advertising which is generating revenue and advertisers are utilizing social networking sites very often for this purpose.

Social networking sites are valuable locations for online advertising because members post information about themselves and can then be targeted with useful products and services.

For this purpose, media giants are looking for social networking sites and latest news is that Time Warner's AOL internet division is buying the social networking site Bebo for 850 million Dollar or 417 million pounds in cash. Bebo is the third-biggest social networking site in the US, behind MySpace and Facebook. According to AOL officials, Bebo has more than 40 million members worldwide who view an average of 78 pages per day each.

Internet analysis experts are saying that, ‘it comes as no great surprise to see another traditional publisher buying in to the power of the social networking phenomenon. Microsoft did it with Facebook and News Corp did it with MySpace.
Furthermore, Bebo has an incredibly strong brand identity with the teenage and young adult market, so AOL can make best use of this powerful Internet advertising tool.

Internet Explorer 8: Review

For the web developers, Microsoft MIX08 event was very significant. In this event, the Microsoft has released a web-browser which is very online marketing friendly. The name of this browser is Internet Explorer 8 or (IE 8).

On the first instance the IE 8 doesn’t seem much different from version 7. Most of the base features are the same and it looks like an Internet Explorer. However, this is packed with some new features. Let’s look at what these features are.

IE8 has some new and improved features which can be beneficial for the end-user. Some of these features are…

1. Activities: Previously, if you needed to get the address and map a route to a holiday spot, you would go to their website, copy the address and paste it into a map website such as Live Maps.

Now, with Activities, you simply highlight your selection and the activities button appears. This button gives you the option to map an address (a preview of activities is available without launching a whole new tab or page).

2. WebSlices: in IE8 some of the websites are enabled for WebSlices, like eBay and Facebook. You can simply click on the WebSlice button and add it to your favorites bar and from any webpage your updated content will appear with bold type.

3. Favorites bar: The Favorites bar replaces the links bar from IE 7 which provided one-click access to favorite sites.

4. Automatic Crash Recovery: this feature is designed to recover your web pages in case of a crash or hang in your web browser. ACR might help in minimizing disruptions and it can improve your productivity.

5. Improved Phishing Filter: IE 8 have a safety filter that does more than block sites that are used for phishing. It blocks sites that are known to contain malicious software that may harm your computer.

There are speculations that these improvements may make Internet browsing easier and more productive. With IE8, Microsoft may change the Web browsing experience.