Baidu Starts Innovative News Service

When you search on Baidu about a company, one special box appears on top of the news listings. This one box of news collections of focused reports is very innovative and intuitive to read.

The newly started service collects all the hot search keywords listed on the left side followed by a list of all the related web sites of the company.

For example, if you search Google on Baidu, you will see a list of hot search keywords listed as :
1. SP500
2. Baidu
3. 5%
...
It is followed by related websites
1. Google Earth
2. Google Map
3. Google Talk
...

On the main content, all the news and reports are categorized by each hot search keyword. You see a list of reports on Google's entry into SP500 index. Then a list of reports on Baidu since almost every report on Baidu has a Google connection and vise versa.

That is followed by "5%" on all the reports about Google's purchase of 5% of AOL.

Another section follows on image related news followed by another section of updated news.

Last section of the contents are selected reports with pictures.

Google Joins the Frey for Sina

According to unnamed government sources, Google is joining the frey for acquisition of Sina by Tom.com.

Yesterday, Tom.com issued a public release which stated "no current agreement has reached" on acquisition of Sina.com. The non-admittal, non-denial annoucement is further ramping up the speculations.

The quoted sources said that Google is negotiating on acquiring 5% of Sina.com as part of the whole acquisition by Tom.com. Google's investment is intended for speeding up the localization effort headed by Kai-Fu Lee.

Chinese link from tech.163.com

Number of large online advertisers up 6.5 fold

Mar. 7, 2006 from iResearch:

Updated data from iResearch showes that, there are 474 online advertisers with spending over one million yuan. It is at historical high. Comparing with year 2001 when the online advertisement started to take off, the number of large online advertisers has grown by 6.5 fold over the five years.

The huge number of online citizens has supported the rapid growth of the online advertising market. According to CNNIC data, the number of Chinese online has grown 140 times over the last 7 years. It has reached 110 million by the end of 2005 and become the second largest online population after the US. As the number of online users growing rapidly, the online advertising market is also taking off. iResearch data indicated that, in year 2001, the online advertising market was only 410 million yuan. By year of 2005, the market has reached 3.13 billion yuan. The size of the market has gone up 7 fold in the last five years.

The iReseach figure shows the number of online advertisers
with spending over one million yuan for the last five years

The high growth of the Chinese advertising market is attracting more advertisers with more money. According to iResearch, the number of main stream media advertisers was 3418 in year 2005, an increase of 213 over year of 2004, or 6.6% year over year. The number of large advertisers with spending over one million yuan was 474, a dramatic increase of 57.5% over last year's 301. Businesses have clearly increased their online budget. Online advertisements have taken more important roles for business marketing.

It is predicted, as the continuous development of the online market growth in China, Businesses will continue to increase their online marketing budget.

Chinese Link to iResearch report

ChinaBBS Gains Google's Backing

ChinaBBS, a similar services as "Myspace", has obtained venture investment fund of $30 million from Google. The investment signals the new wave of community based web services.

Another Chinese firm Tianya with similar community based web services has obtained venture investment funding recently.

reported by sina.tech from China