Yahoo China has announced today that its email service in the country will be shut next month. The Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) email homepage has already ceased new registrations and is now informing current users that, from now to August 19, they’ll be transferred over to Alibaba’s ‘Aliyun’ email service instead.

Yahoo owns a 20 percent stake in Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce titan that was first handed behind-the-scenes control of all Yahoo China operations backs in 2005, covering things like Yahoo email, search, and the news portal.

This Yahoo Mail shutdown could well signal the start of a total withdrawal from the country. While that hasn’t been confirmed, new CEO Marissa Mayer looks to be shaking up the (very many) failing parts of Yahoo, so the lackluster performance in China could well put the entire operation up for the chop.

Yahoo is China’s seventh largest search engine, with 0.28 percent market share of pageviews at the end of February of this year. That’s a fraction behind Microsoft’s struggling Bing, which has only 0.52 percent share. Baidu is the clear market leader. Aside from its woes in the search sector, Yahoo is also struggling up against the weight of local news and entertainment portals like Netease, Sina, Tencent, and even MSN.

Last December, Yahoo shut its rather dodgy music service in China, and also closed its blogging platform in Vietnam.

A few months before all that, Alibaba paid $7.6 billion to buy back about half of Yahoo’s previous stake in the e-commerce company.

UPDATE: The official statement from Yahoo! China:

As part of the agreement to buy back the Yahoo! stake, technological support for China Yahoo! Mail service will be suspended and we will begin the China Yahoo! Mail account migration process beginning April 18 (April 17 PST), 2013; we will offer several options to our users to make this transition as smooth as possible, and China Yahoo! users will have four months time to migrate their accounts to the Aliyun mail service, the Yahoo! Mail service in the United States, or another 3rd party e-mail provider of the user’s choice.

(Hat-tip to WantChinaTimes for spotting this)

Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, market leader Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) dropped by nearly the same amount in that period of time. Elsewhere in the new traffic pageviews numbers from CNZZ, Google continues its slide down while most of the other rivals are fairly stagnant.

To get a sense of the big impact of Qihoo’s search engine since it launched last August, let’s compare the new February numbers with ones from October last year:

Over that whole time, Baidu has gone down by almost the same as Qihoo has gone up. And don’t forgot that a chunk of Qihoo’s initial share upon arrival on the scene also came from Baidu.

Though Qihoo is currently facing serious charges over abuses of user privacy on its software apps – including the web browser that feeds so much traffic to its fledgling search service – the company posted a strong Q4 financial report earlier this week that caused its share price to hit an all-time high.

(Source: CNZZ data, via Marbridge Daily)

Yahoo Japan and GREE (TYO:3632) announced today what they had teased a few months back – the launch of a joint-venture company that will focus on developing and running social gaming titles for smartphones. After comitting ¥200 million (US$2.2 million) to this new gaming venture, a cat was then brought into the office and allowed to walk across a keyboard ¹, creating the joint-venture’s tentative name, GxYz.

GREE will hold 51 percent of the stake in GxYz, with the rest owned by Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO). Today’s announcement says that it’ll open for business on March 15th with GREE’s Tomoyuki Isaka as the CEO. The focus will be on Japanese gamers and doesn’t cover GREE’s overseas operations.

GREE is already Japan’s top social gaming platform, up against rivals as diverse as DeNA’s Mobage, Apple’s Game Center, and increasingly strong messaging apps with gaming integration, such as Line and KakaoTalk. The tie-up with Yahoo has already given GREE’s mobile titles greater exposure on Yahoo Japan, which is the country’s preferred search engine.

Today’s announcement summarizes:

Through the establishment of GxYz, the two companies aim to strengthen their smartphone social gaming business partnership, combining the user acquisition capabilities of Yahoo Japan with the social gaming development and operational expertise of GREE, while developing exceptional social games that will open up new possibilities in the game development business.

The two tech giants are already co-sponsoring Japan’s push to secure the 2020 Olympics.

As for Yahoo, we know that Yahoo Japan wants to be more social and mobile, so GREE seems like a good fit for the web portal company.

The GxYz name is not yet written in stone and could be replaced if a better one comes along – perhaps by picking letters at random from a bag of Scrabble tiles.

(Source: GREE, via TheNextWeb)

Korean-made messaging app KakaoTalk launched its Game Platform on Android in its home country last July – and today that social gaming system is rolling out on iOS and coming to Japan as well. It’s a major challenge to chief rival Line app, made by NHN Japan, as well as to other social gaming platforms from that country, such as GREE and DeNA’s Mobage.

For KakaoTalk users, it means that they now have six iOS apps by third-party developers that are tied to KakaoTalk’s social gaming network. As pointed out by Serkan Toto today, those titles are: Tap Tap Blitz, Puzzle Zoo Zoo, Sushi Panic (pictured above), Zoo Zoo Bubble, and Pocket Colony.

Mobile gamers in Japan will also have access to the KakaoTalk Game Platform in a bunch of supported Android games. Those include SundayToz’ Anipang, which was the first success story on the KakaoTalk platform as the messaging app’s users proved to be keen gamers who downloaded Anipang over two million times in a couple of weeks. That soon made it the second highest grossing game on Google Play in South Korea.

KakaoTalk is hoping to have 100 games on board by the end of the year.

Global ambitions

This push into Japan is supported by Yahoo Japan, which owns 50 percent of Kakao Japan, the messaging app’s subsidiary in that country.

In the huge battle for mobile messaging users, KakaoTalk has over 70 million users, up against Line’s crowd of 100 million. Line also incorporates social gaming, and has likewise spurred on some games to great popular success. It’s not quite so balanced in Japan, however. Serkan cites The Nikkei as saying that KakaoTalk has seven million users in Japan, while NHN’s Line has 41 million of its total user-base within Japan.

Interestingly, the Kakao company was founded by Beom-Soo Kim, the former CEO of Korea-based NHN Corporation, which later went on to spawn Line app from the NHN Japan subsidiary.

Both Line and KakaoTalk have global ambitions, with the two rivals looking to young and mobile-oriented Southeast Asian users at first. Countries like Taiwan and Indonesia have proved to be particularly strong battle grounds for the apps – though neither provide social gaming in those nations.

(Source: Serkan Toto)

Google had to get used to being in fourth place in China in 2012.

2012 was a year of disruption, frustration, and lost users for search engines operating in China – the emotion depends upon which of the five main players you’re talking about. Much of the frustration belonged to Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), whose services are so unfairly slowed and deliberately borked by China’s Great Firewall. There were quite a lot of lost users for Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU), not to mention a declining share price [1]; and Qihoo (NYSE:QIHU) was the disrupter.

New pageview and unique visitor stats for all the search engines in China reveal how the landscape looks at the end of the year. From Chinese traffic stats company CNZZ, the data for December 2012 shows Baidu slipping yet again in terms of traffic share to 71.76 percent – down from 72.97 percent of pageviews at the end of October. It’s perhaps no coincidence that Qihoo’s controversial new So.com, which only launched last summer, rose by about the same amount that Baidu lost. Google is long since resigned to fourth place, below Sohu’s (NASDAQ:SOHU) Sogou.com search engine.

Here’s the table, with green figures for December 2012 indicating a recently rising share of pageviews:

Those sceptical of Qihoo’s So.com speculate that it will be hard for it to build upon its initial tranche of web traffic, something that’s thanks to its long-standing AOL-like web portal and its IE-esque web browser. But Qihoo is defying the critics by edging up slightly in these latest stats from CNZZ. Its search offerings are a bit limited for now, but we can expect it to add new aspects in 2013. It has already recently added things like online maps (but not in a mobile app) in conjunction with Autonavi.

Lower down the order, things seem pretty static. Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) went up a fraction; perhaps the company can hunt down its one new user and give them a prize. Bing, too, is not seeing any apparent boost from its Windows Phone ecosystem.

Hopefully the new year will be about innovation, which will help win over China’s increasingly more discerning web users. Just last month, both Baidu and Sogou launched their own mobile voice assistant apps for Android, which look quite a bit like Google Now.

[Source: CNZZ data; via Marbridge Daily]

It comes just three months after Google closed its own China-only music streaming service.

The Yahoo Music site (see it here) differs from the Google one – and from Baidu’s recently revamped music streaming offering – in that it offers very dodgy deep-linking to probably pirated mp3 files, as shown here:

This is the kind of thing that Google stopped some time ago, and Baidu too has cleaned up its act and stopped its MP3 search engine portal that fished out deep links to pirated content. It’s not clear how Yahoo got away with this for so long.

In related news, even licensed MP3 downloads in China might be paid-for in 2013, with one or two companies thought to be keen to launch paid music subscriptions.

[Hat-tip to Marbridge Daily for spotting this]

Tomorrow is the wonderful date of the triple twelves – 12-12-2012 – and to make sure the day becomes even more special, seven Indonesian e-commerce stores are planning to hold online promotions and sales. Zalora is describing tomorrow’s sales bonanza as an “online revolution”.

The participating e-commerce stores are Zalora Indonesia, Lazada Indonesia, Plasa, Fimela, BerryBenka, PinkEmma, and DamnILoveIndonesia. This online event is supported by Yahoo and Indonesian operator Telkomsel.

[UPDATE: From a separate release we received from Lazada, there are three more e-commerce players joining tomorrow's sales bonanza, which are Fazzione, FoodPanda, and Bilna.]

Zalora Indonesia will stick to the numerical theme by offering discounts in multiples of 12, ranging from 12 percent to 84 percent discounts; plus, the Rocket Internet-owned site will give IDR 120,000 (US$12) shopping vouchers to 12 lucky winners tomorrow. The fashion e-commerce site will also offer zero percent interest payment installments for those who spend over IDR 500,000 ($52) all at once.

Users can keep track of the sales offered tomorrow on Twitter via the hashtag #1212Sale.

The End of an Era? | photo via http://blog.ineedhits.com/

Starting January 17th next year, bloggers on the Vietnamese version of the Yahoo Blog platform will not be able to login to their Yahoo blogs anymore as the whole thing is shut down. This is confirmed by a post on the official Yahoo Vietnam blog.

It will close one of Yahoo’s final chapters in Vietnam. Yahoo once dominated the Vietnamese social media scene with tens of millions of members on Yahoo 360 across the country in 2009. But by the end of that year, they shut down the service worldwide and asked users to migrate to the ridiculously-named Yahoo360plus, a move that most Vietnamese bloggers didn’t like. After the release of Yahoo360plus, a great many bloggers moved their blogs to Facebook and some moved over to WordPress and Tumblr. In 2011, Yahoo360plus was shut down to make way for Yahoo Blog – resulting in a further loss of users.

Many Vietnamese people still use Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Mail as their communication mediums, but in the past few years a lot of companies – and people in general – have slowly moved away from Yahoo. Instead, Skype, Facebook messenger, Whatsapp and Gmail have been chiseling away at Yahoo’s Vietnamese web empire. Yahoo is also set to shut down its public chat rooms in Vietnam. This leaves behind only Yahoo Search, Yahoo News VN, and email, as Vietnamese users’ final Yahoo territories.

It was just a few years ago that Microsoft and Yahoo were the only well-known web companies among the average Vietnamese netizen. But Yahoo’s gradual vanishing in Vietnam from 2008 to 2011 was no doubt connected to its crumbling management and the onslaught from the now-dominant social media and web giants of Facebook, Google, and Twitter. We’ve seen this happen in Indonesia too, where Yahoo shuttered the once very promising Koprol, a sort of Foursquare-like check-in service that the ailing giant acquired.

Despite Yahoo’s crumbling history, I suspect the latest moves here may be born out of a new-found focus under Yahoo’s new CEO, Marissa Mayer, whose leadership is said to have breathed new enthusiasm into Yahoo’s staff. How this will impact Yahoo’s future in Vietnam remains to be seen, as other companies are quickly developing loyal users while Yahoo steadily cedes its hold over Vietnamese keystrokes and eyeballs.

[Source: Yahoo! Blog Vietnam - article in Vietnamese]

Here are the new CNZZ stats in full:

Qihoo’s gains came from both Baidu and Google, which both dropped slightly since Qihoo’s 360 Search hit the scene in August. It’s no surprise that Qihoo has vaulted into second place, as several sources said it had done so in just its first week, but it’s good to have this data from CNZZ to paint a broad picture of how the landscape has changed.

But Qihoo will likely find it hard to grow more. Though it’s very clever in terms of making use of its web portal’s great volume of traffic, it’ll need to seriously innovate in search technology in order to dazzle new users. Qihoo’s CEO Zhou Hongyi has said that he’s aiming for 15 to 20 percent market share in this space in China. Baidu’s (NASDAQ:BIDU) shares have dropped in recent months as analysts worry about the threat from Qihoo.

As for Google, it’s a double-dose of gloomy China news for the search giant after we reported earlier today on how usage of its Google Maps app is in huge decline in the country.

[Source: CNZZ; via Marbridge Daily]

Ice House, an Indonesian software development startup for the mobile web, wanted to display the Silicon Valley ‘work hard play hard’ ethos yesterday, holding a launching event in the afternoon followed by a Halloween party in the evening. This startup was founded by Koprol’s Fajar Budiprasetyo and Daniel Armanto, who we talked about a few months ago. It’s owned by Pacific Technology Partners (PTP), a private investment firm based in Palo Alto, California.

Adriaan Ligtenberg, the CEO of Ice House, said that the company wants to nurture Indonesian talents to be among the best in the world. He believes that the best way to do this is by working first-hand on top quality projects as one of their members. The company will be accepting interns and aims to expand to 200 people within the next two years, with branch offices located in Indonesian cities like Bandung and Yogyakarta.

He believes that Ice House’s connection to Silicon Valley is the key for nurturing Indonesian talent. Ice House will be bringing in people from Silicon Valley not only to transfer their knowledge to locals, but to bring in connections to big projects from the California area.

In the short period since its founding a few months ago, Ice House has created several products, including micro-social networking app Go-Matic. The startup has also worked with several big international clients such as mapping app Lumatic, and First Bank of Rock, an intelligence network for the music industry based in London.

Behind Fajar’s Ice House Move

Koprol founders from the left – Daniel Armanto, Fajar Budiprasetyo, and Satya Witoelar

This is quite an interesting move made by both Fajar and Daniel, as they are well known as the founders of location-based social network Koprol. Some readers might be asking this question: “Rather than making a project for themselves, why are they now making projects for other people?”

Fajar answered by sharing the background story behind Koprol – he and Daniel had their own software house before Koprol, and the location-based social network was built only to become a portfolio for the software house. Long story short: once touted only as a side project, Koprol became a huge success and was acquired by Yahoo. And then axed by Yahoo. But in the end, Fajar shared that he equally enjoys the engineering process of building projects for other people, which explains this latest move.

Adriaan took some time to explain how important the ‘work hard play hard’ ethos is in any startup, as showcased by the Halloween party which took place after the company’s launch event. It is very important for people to have fun, to relax, he says, but they are also required to work really hard, to build a product that they will be very proud of.

Indonesia is the Next China?

During the launch, Adriaan also reiterated his belief that Indonesia is the next China. He believes that in order for the country to grow, it shouldn’t export only commodities, but also knowledge. If you export commodities, it’s gone, but when you export knowledge in the form of products, you will still keep the knowledge even if the product is sold. He said that this is what Indonesia should be doing.

But why not invest in China instead? Adriaan explained that though Indonesia still has bureaucratic and infrastructure problems here and there, Indonesia’s democracy is able to allow some protection to the businesses in the country. While in China, you cannot be sure if the government won’t intervene in your business there.

[Image sources: rodihrich.blogspot.com and pdk.or.id]

You know how painful it is to make a huge payment that seems to empty your pockets and your bank balance? Perhaps that’s how the folks at Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce company, feel today having just paid Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) “approximately US$7.6 billion” to buy back half of Yahoo’s formerly 40 percent stake in the firm. It’s been in the works since May of this year, and today it’s finally all wrapped up.

The announcement explains:

The initial repurchase of shares, which represented one-half of Yahoo’s 40 percent stake in Alibaba Group on a fully diluted basis, was valued at approximately US$7.1 billion. Of this, Yahoo received approximately US$6.3 billion in cash and US$800 million in preference shares in Alibaba Group. Concurrent with the initial repurchase, Alibaba Group paid Yahoo a one-time cash payment of US$550 million in connection with the amendment of their existing technology and intellectual property license agreement. Under the terms of the agreement with Yahoo, Alibaba Group has the right to repurchase one-half of Yahoo’s remaining stake upon a qualifying initial public offering in the future.

So there’s an incentive in there to go for a major Alibaba Group IPO – including all its sites, like China’s huge Taobao and Tmall online stores – which is rumored to actually be in the cards in a few years’ time.

Alibaba’s founder and CEO, Jack Ma, said:

The completion of this transaction begins a new chapter in our relationship with Yahoo. We are grateful for Yahoo’s support of our growth over the past seven years, and we are pleased to be able to deliver meaningful returns to our shareholders including Yahoo!. I look forward to working with Marissa Mayer and her team in our continued partnership.

Indeed, that’s a huge profit for Yahoo (which is now down to a 20 percent stake in Alibaba), which bought its huge slice in the fledgling e-tailer back in August 2005 for a mere $1 billion.

Alibaba “financed the transaction with a mixture of cash on hand, senior debt and the issuance of convertible preference and ordinary shares.” It’s believed that China Investment Corp (CIC) helped out to the tune of $2 billion. The company points out: “The new equity financing was completed at a valuation of approximately US$40 billion.”

Anuj Khanna Sohum, speaking at Startup Asia

For anyone who attended our Startup Asia Singapore event back in February, you will likely recall our informative chat with Anuj Khanna Sohum, the founder and chairman of Affle Group. Affle is a mobile company based in Singapore with a range of products including messaging, mobile ads, and mobile content.

The company recently announced a partnership with Yahoo India for mobile advertising in India, which will see Affle selling the latter’s mobile advertising inventory on smartphones, feature phones, and tablets. Yahoo is said to have over 70 percent reach over the internet audience in India.

Anuj Kumar, Affle’s co-founder and CEO [1], noted:

[G]iven the significant growing base of mobile internet users and smartphones in India we are really bullish that rich ad engagement on premium destinations like Yahoo! would be the key catalysts to drive rapid growth of the mobile ad market.

Similarly, it was just over a year ago that Affle landed a partnership with eBuddy [2] to gain exclusive rights to sell its mobile ad inventory in India.

Readers may remember that back in October, Affle raised $10 million from D2C, a Japanese mobile ad agency.

Yahoo and Public Affairs Asia have launched the Yahoo Gold Standard Internet for Good Awards, which recognizes excellence in internet usage by organizations or individuals in promoting a charity, encouraging community involvement, and having a positive impact on the world. Public Affairs Asia is a regional coalition of professionals involved in policy making and legislation. With this event, Yahoo believes that the internet has become an important tool for positive social change.

Before this Internet for Good campaign, Yahoo already engaged in similar campaigns throughout Asia, such as Yahoo Buka Dunia (Yahoo Open World) in Indonesia, PC for Life in Vietnam, and Purple Hope in Singapore.

The head of public affairs for Yahoo Asia Pacific, Kuek Yu Chuang, said that this campaign will expand Yahoo’s brand value to make it more humane, innovative, relevant, and fun.

Trustworthy products from Yahoo such as Yahoo Mail, Messenger, Flickr, Yahoo Blogs, and other products, and property news, and entertainment has become an integral part of the online community in Asia, which enables users to read the news, connect and communicate with friends and family to discover new things they did not know before.

The Yahoo Gold Standard “Internet for Good” Awards is open for the community, workers, charities, consultants, business groups, embassies, government organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the general public in the Asia Pacific region. To enter, you can visit the Public Affairs Asia website. No registration fee is needed for NGOs, communities, and charitable organizations. Other groups need to pay $200 for each submission. Entries must be lodged by September 28, 2012.

To be considered, you have to submit an essay of 1,000 words at most, to explain how your project has succeeded by using the internet or social media. Business and government leaders will be the jury, led by chairman of the Gold Standard Award and director of Public Affairs at KKR Asia Pacific, Steven R. Okun.

China’s biggest e-commerce company, Alibaba Group, which runs sites like Taobao and Tmall, has revealed in a filing to the US SEC (see here) that its revenue rose 64 percent from last year to $805.9 million at the end of 2012 Q1.

Alibaba Group, Reuters points out, has now moved up to be China’s second-biggest web company by revenue. It’s behind the social and gaming efforts of Tencent (HKG:0700), but now ahead of Chinese search engine Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) which has been pushed down to third-largest.

Being a private company it doesn’t usually release quarterly figures, so these stats come via a filing by Yahoo, which owns 41.7 percent of Alibaba Group. The Chinese firm’s net profit for the same period jumped by a factor of six to $220.5 million. Nothing else related to the Hangzhou company was revealed.

Alibaba is currently raising as much as $8 billion so that it can go through with the Yahoo stake repurchase deal that it finally hammered out earlier this year. That’ll see Yahoo – now being steered by Marissa Mayer, formerly of Google – lose half its stake in Alibaba Group, being reduced to about 20 percent.

Many suspect that Alibaba Group, having recently privatized its Alibaba.com subsidiary, is aiming for the web’s biggest-ever IPO in a few years’ time.

[Source: Reuters]

"Oh, you silly cat. That's not how you spell 'cheeseburger'!"

Asia now has more than one billion internet users – or 1.016 billion, to be precise – who amount to 46 percent of the world’s total number of web users. More than half of those are in China. In addition, 623 million access the web via mobile phones. That’s the overview of the Asia-Pacific web scene depicted in a new report by the Asia Digital Marketing Association (ADMA), a non-profit organisation backed by corporate donors such as Google, Microsoft, and CNN.

For that fast-growing regional audience, ADMA cautions brands to think carefully before engaging in social marketing – “Although 60 percent of social networkers say that social networks are a good place to learn about brands, 50 percent also say they don’t want to be bothered by brands” – and to take care to note the “fragmentation of online activities” between different nations. Here are five eye-watering biz and marketing stats from ADMA’s David Ketchum:

• Online advertising spend in Asia-Pacific reached US$24.8 billion in 2011, making the region second only to the US, with $34.5 billion.
• Every marketing dollar spent online returns $1.78, exceeding the returns of all other marketing media including TV, print, out of home and trade (according to Nielsen).
• By 2015, Asia Pacific is expected to account for a third of all global mobile ad spend, reaching $6.92 billion.
• India, China, Australia and Japan are expected to generate $258 billion in commerce sales in 2012 between them, and mobile commerce is on the rise with 34 percent of mobile internet users in China and Korea transacting via handheld devices.
• Mobile app downloads reached five billion in 2011, generating $871 million.

Here are some of the key demographic tables from desktop internet users in Asia as a whole. It focuses on who’s online, Asia’s most trafficked sites (note Chinese web giants Tencent and Baidu), and where folks go for social media, online gaming, and e-commerce:

And here are three of the demographical highlights of mobile web users in Asia in the ADMA report. It’s interesting to note just how much more likely Asian mobile users are to do serious, practical stuff on their smartphones or feature-phones:

If you’re more into the consumer attitudes and marketing aspect of this and want to see ADMA’s report in full, grab it at the source link below.

[Source: ADMA’s Digital Marketing Yearbook report for 2012 (requires sign-in)]

After months of rumours floating around, finally the news is out: Yahoo is shutting down its social network Koprol effective August 28, 2012. Most people saw this coming after it laid off thousands of people, including most of the Yahoo Koprol team back in April. Once hailed by Indonesia’s president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Koprol now is being retired by the internet giant.

Koprol is an Indonesian location-based social network founded by Satya Witoelar, Fajar Budiprasetyo, and Daniel Armanto. It was bought by Yahoo back in May of 2010. It was one of the few success stories here in the Indonesia startup scene and is often mentioned when discussing the tech scene here. But even with recent new features, millions of total users, and business pages to create revenue, they are being thrown into the deadpool. Yahoo’s official statement explained:

In line with Yahoo!’s focus on more quickly innovating with our core products and properties, over the coming quarters, we are shutting down or transitioning a number of products that did not meaningfully drive revenue or engagement. After carefully reviewing its product portfolio, Yahoo! has decided to discontinue Koprol effective 28th August, 2012. Users will be notified of the shut-down and the process of retrieving their online data starting June 29th, 2012.

I guess this is the way startup life goes, right? It’s a roller coaster ride with ups and downs, and for every startup that closes down, more than a few new startups are born. I’m definitely expecting a lot from the Koprol alumni in the near future. As for Yahoo Koprol users that are still active and want their data (posts, check-ins, images, and reviews), they can export the information through m.koprol.com/export.

[Photo: Digital Trends]

Yahoo (NASQAQ:YHOO) working together with TNS Net Index, has just released its annual study about internet user behavior in Indonesia. Hansal Savla, the Technical Advisor of TNS Indonesia, said that there are four significant trends they found in the study.

First, mobile phone usage has led internet growth in the past two years. Hansal said:

Mobile phones have become the second most used informational media (55 percent) after television (100 percent).

This is bad news for internet cafes as more and more people have grown out of their dependency on cafes to access the internet. Admittedly, study from Yahoo also shows that internet cafes have recently lost 34 percent of their customer base. Another study by InMobi earlier this month that revealed the significant growth numbers of mobile devices in Indonesia may be one of the reasons behind this trend.

Second, there has been a slight shift in internet user demographics. No longer do net users come from just the young demographic, but they also come from an older age group too, including those 30 to 50 years old. The trend is said to be attributed due to the growth of internet mobile access.

The demographic user age of 15 to 19 years old dominates the internet user population focusing on entertainment news, city guide, and games. While users between 30 to 39 years old are the biggest information explorers on the internet. Those 40 and above represent the least number of internet users focusing on news and financial information.

Third, Indonesia’s internet users prefer entertainment to other online contents. Jhoni Tuerah, associate client advisor of TNS Indonesia said:

Some of the most visited sites include social networks, search engines, celebrity issues, news portals, and online music file-sharing sites.

The top growing entertainment channels are celebrity and entertainment news (40 percent) and online music file-sharing activities (39 percent). You can see additional info regarding Indonesians’ behavior when accessing the internet entertainment channel in the findings of research company Ipsos.

Last but not least is that search engine usage growth that has increased by 75 percent compared to last year’s also-outstanding growth of 70 percent. Most people search for pictures, music, and videos.

Savla explained that the study was conducted among 3,365 respondents located in different cities in Indonesia, such as Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi, Surabaya, Bandung, Medan, Semarang, Palembang, Makassar, Yogyakarta, and Denpasar between December 2011 and January 2012.

[Source: Yahoo.com and marketing.co.id - both in Indonesian language]

[Picture Source: infotekno.co.id]

At an event this afternoon in Singapore, Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) has rolled out a whole bunch of advertising platform products for the first time in Southeast Asia. The mobile-oriented ads are, says Yahoo, multimedia, interactive and well-targeted. They launch immediately in Singapore, and will come to Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam “in the coming months.”

Yahoo reaches over 200 million folks across Asia as a huge publisher of content, and it’s that kind of captive audience that it’s offering up to brands today. And so, for the first time in the region, the somewhat beleaguered U.S. web company is making available three of its key ad products:

1. Clickable mobile video ads – These tap-to-video ads can take over an entire screen or expand to certain sizes, working within phones and tablets. Yahoo claims they they “encourage consumers to interact” and “outperform traditional video ads by 3:1.”

2. Smart ads – These can be optimized for each user, and could include something like hyper-targeted local offers. These initially launched way back in 2007.

3. Targeting ads – Lastly, Yahoo’s targeted ads can reach select groups or demographics “based on interest and content consumed within Yahoo.”

The focus on mobile by Yahoo is understandable since home internet penetration across Asia as a whole stands at a fairly low 24 percent, compared to mobile penetration of 74 percent – with many of those phones being used online.

China Investment Corp (CIC), the sovereign wealth fund that has over US$410 billion in assets, is reportedly on the verge of buying up a $2 billion stake in local e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. This opportunity comes due to the imminent Alibaba repurchase of 20 percent of Yahoo’s stake, which was agreed upon earlier this week.

Reported by Reuters this afternoon as being at the stage of “advanced talks” between CIC and Alibaba, the major new slice of action could be crucial in helping Alibaba with its Yahoo deal. To raise the requisite $7 billion to buy back its own milkshake, Alibaba – which runs popular online shopping sites such as Taobao – is raising $4.6 billion of that from issues of preferred shares, some bank loans, and also offering larger stakes to existing shareholders. Chief among those are Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, and DST Global. The rest it can pay off from splashing some of its cash reserves.

While the Yahoo-Alibaba deal over this portion of its stake is expected to take six months to complete, in the interim we can expect to see a lot of cash and equity changing hands among Alibaba, CIC, Temasek, and DST. Reportedly, some private equity firms have been contacted by the Hangzhou-based e-commerce company to assist with some of the remaining funding that won’t come from shareholders or loans. Among those is Bain Capital, the vulture venture capital firm co-founded by Mitt Romney, the US presidential challenger to Barack Obama this year.

We’ll update if this CIC stake is confirmed officially.

[Source: Reuters]

Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), which currently owns 41.7 percent of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, has come to a formal agreement with Alibaba to allow it to buy back 20 percent of that stake. With Alibaba worth just over US$35 billion, the repurchase will see Yahoo net approximately $7.1 billion.

Ross Levinsohn, the interim CEO of Yahoo, said in a joint press release that, “Today’s agreement provides clarity for our shareholders on a substantial component of Yahoo’s value and reaffirms the significance of our relationship with Alibaba.” It’s not clear how long this deal has been in the works, or how much it might’ve been delayed by the troubled search engine being on its third CEO so far this year. Levinsohn also thanked Alibaba CEO and founder Jack Ma and the other key players in “this successful outcome.”

The deal also outlines how Yahoo can monetize its ongoing stake in Alibaba – which runs online shopping sites such as Taobao and Tmall – in the future. It includes a framework for the event of Alibaba Group opting to IPO, in which case “Alibaba will be required either to repurchase one-quarter of Yahoo’s current stake at the IPO price or allow Yahoo to sell those shares in the IPO.” But a listing isn’t an apparent plan for the group. Indeed, its sole listed entity, the business-to-business trading site Alibaba.com, is hoping to delist from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange this summer in a privatization move.

[UPDATE: A shareholder vote later in the week decided, with a 95 percent approval rate, that the privatization will go ahead in mid-June].

How will Alibaba raise all that cash? The joint statement notes: “Alibaba intends to finance the repurchase through a combination of its own cash resources, debt, equity and equity-linked financing. The transaction is expected to close within approximately six months.”

[UPDATE: A couple of days later we heard that sovereign wealth fund CIC might be wanting to plough in $2 billion in such "equity-linked financing."]

Also today, Alibaba’s contract to run Yahoo China has been extended for another four years. The Chinese version of the web portal and search engine is not popular in the country, its online search market share never even troubling the statisticians in a market dominated by Baidu, Google, and Sogou.

From Yahoo Japan's financial report, Yahoo Japan News pages accessed compared to other domestic news sites

It seems there’s lots of news surrounding Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689) today. Perhaps most notable is that the company announced its financial results for year to March 31, 2012, in which it saw sales and profit gains for the 15th straight year since its inception.

Do check out the entire financial presentation here, as it gives a great graphical overview (with lots of fun charts) of where the company excels, and why things are going well.

The company has a wide range of services, which it says are used by 84 percent of all internet users in Japan. It’s still number one in search, number one among auction sites (beating out Rakuten), and number one in e-mail (over Gmail and Microsoft’s Live Mail).

And it’s number one in news. As you can see in the chart from Yahoo in the upper right, Yahoo Japan News is accesses by more people than the news powerhouses of the Yomiuri, Mainichi, and Asahi.

Facebook comments, coincidentally, at the end of a Yahoo Japan News article (from CNet) about Facebook comments

Today, this is especially good news for Facebook, as Yahoo Japan News has introduced Facebook into its comment system. If you see the screenshot below, you can see that Facebook comments are now a tabbed option, right between native comments and real-time Twitter search [1].

The folks over at Asiajin point out that the company’s increased emphasis on social was a target area of focus noted by ex-CEO Masahiro Inoue on his departure. The company is also finding a surge in access from smartphones, and hopes to continue to serve more mobile content to capitalize on that trend.

One final pieces of news regarding Yahoo Japan today, as the company’s talks with Yahoo Inc on a share buyback (for Yahoo’s stake in Yahoo Japan) have concluded without agreement, due to a “valuation gap.”

Managing director of Skype Asia Pacific, Turochas “T” Fuad, is leaving to pursue a new startup, Travelmob.

In a casual chat held at NUS Overseas Colleges’ N-House last night, Turochas revealed to the students [1] that he is currently serving his last month with Skype. You guys might think this guy is out of his mind to leave a job where he enjoys a high salary and broad benefits to switch to the startup life where he’ll face uncertainty – but it’s crazy admirable, we reckon.

T is not shy to tell us what he is currently dabbling in. Travelmob, aims to be the Airbnb of the Asia-Pacific, and hopes to connect global travellers with hosts across the region who have listed their places for short stays or short-term rental. In fact, the startup has been around for the past couple of months and currently has on board a couple of power-packed individuals with a wealth of experience, hailing from backgrounds at large tech companies. I guess that is one of the perks of having experience and connections before starting up, especially after holding positions such as managing director of Skype Asia Pacific, and head of mobile of Yahoo SEA.

According to T (pictured right), there is huge potential within the Asia Pacfic online travel accommodation booking industry. In fact, according to this article, hotel booking revenue in the Asia Pacific area will reach more than US$94 billion by 2012.

This sounds very much like another cloning story, but T highlighted that the idea of the homestay has been around for a long time. It is only in recent years that Airbnb has revolutionized the idea [Ed: and CouchSurfing before that, though users did that for free] to make homestay booking a whole lot easier. Since there is huge potential within the market, why not seize the opportunity, execute, and localize fast? He also identified China and India as huge spenders within the Asia Pacific travel market.

When asked about his strategy on tackling the Asia Pacfic market, T declined to comment. He did tell us that as much as it is important to have strategic planning, startups often do not work out the way entrepreneurs planned. Instead, he advises not to think and plan too hard, but to go with the flow.

Now, instead of having a secretary to deal with the minor issues within the company, T informs us that he personally makes purchases. And assembles his own IKEA furniture! He misses the startup life he used to have prior to joining Yahoo and Skype. In fact, T used to serve as the president and co-founder of WUF Networks, a convergence software company in the U.S. which Yahoo acquired in 2005.

T, who is an Indonesian, admits that going back to startup life would also mean a lot of uncertainty. As an entrepreneur, you would think about your company a lot and it gets stressful sometimes. You would even argue with your loved ones, especially when undertaking a huge move like this; but ultimately, T says that nothing beats having your own startup. Holding high positions are awesome, but at the end of the day, you’re still working for someone, even if it is a $25 million deal.

Besides facing a future of uncertainty, T tells us that starting up would also mean you have to put your ego aside. You need to acknowledge that there are people out there who are better than you and hire people who know more than you do. He also pointed out that when dealing with co-founders and partners, it is always important to be clear and fair at the early stages of starting up. Should there be a slight hint of uncertainty or unfairness, they should iron it out before it becomes worse.

Apart from venturing out with Travelmob, he also owns a bike retail shop called TokyoBike, which is located on Singapore’s Haji Lane.

His advice to aspiring entrepreneurs?

Be the king of something; not a prince of everything.

Know your strengths as well as your weaknesses, and play them to your advantage.

ThoughtBuzz is expanding its presence to both the Philippines and Indonesia. The Singapore-based startup, which makes a web app for monitoring, analytics, and intelligence about your social media networks, has revealed the news on its site.

The startup says it offers “the technology and the expertise for brands to make sense of all the conversations happening on social media on one simple platform” – but that’s a crowded marketplace already. We talked to the company’s country managers for the Philippines and Indonesia, Jonas De Los Reyes and Abang Edwin respectively, who are both former Yahoo employees, regarding the expansion.

1. What makes ThoughtBuzz different from any other social media analyzing platforms?

Edwin:

Thoughtbuzz is fast, user-friendly and very accurate; we localize our reporting requirements as our clients need. It offers a complete package from the dashboard to the reporting system with crisis management alerts too.

Jonas:

What defines ThoughtBuzz is its end-to-end solutions. ThoughtBuzz is not only offering a tool for companies to monitor social media, neither is it only offering social media analytics. It can offer both. The company is also focused on providing local support in the countries where it is present. This definitely sets us apart from other players.

2. I saw that you have lots of clients already, especially in Singapore. But how do you measure your success?

Jonas:

ThoughtBuzz was founded in Singapore in 2009 so it just follows that the majority of the clients will be from there. The number of clients is definitely one indicator of success but it’s not the only thing we measure. I think for us, the bottom line is how our services have enabled our clients to connect their social media initiatives to their business goals and helped them reach it.

3. So ThoughtBuzz is expanding to the Philippines – any specific reasons why there before, say, Indonesia?

Jonas:

ThoughtBuzz has no where else to go but expand! From Singapore, it expanded to Malaysia then India. It only makes sense that it also expand to the fastest growing and most active social media markets in Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines and Indonesia. In terms of prioritization, both are priorities, it just so happens that expanding to other markets are very reliant to finding the right people and the right partners, and the Philippines just happens to be the first to be set up, but closely followed by Indonesia

Photo from Thomas Arie, OrangeScale on Flickr

4. Social media has a very broad meaning today. Are you restricted to only Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, or do you measure Tumblr or even the recent craze, Pinterest?

Edwin:

What we can do is monitor anything or anyone with a social presence on the internet. Our platform covers blogs, forums, and websites within the region and on an international scale. That includes, of course, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and other social media sites.

5. Both of you are former Yahoo guys. How does this help ThoughtBuzz?

Edwin:

Yes, both of us used to be in the same team in Yahoo, handling social media and community management. Since we [were] at the front-line to users, we know the their characters, so it has helped me a lot – especially to get clients to understand the importance of monitoring social media for their business. Jonas is a great colleague to work with, he is always full of ideas and is also very forward-looking in developing innovative tactics and strategies, and adapting them to cater for each country’s specific needs.

Jonas:

Edwin and I have been colleagues since 2008 when I joined Yahoo (he joined Yahoo in 2007) and our work there was both in social media and community management. So there’s definitely a huge advantage in coming on board ThoughtBuzz and bringing our experience to the table and helping win our respective markets for ThoughtBuzz.

Edwin has been a fun and awesome team mate at Yahoo so I’m excited that we get to continue working here at ThoughtBuzz. We may not be sitting in opposite cubicles anymore, but we still have fun working together and collaborating in what we do via Facebook, Twitter, Kik, and so many other platforms.

6. What is the target in 2012 for ThoughtBuzz?

Edwin:

To be a thought leader in the social media monitoring industry in our respective countries, and to help companies achieve their business goals. To get all that, we’ll play a great part in their strategizing and monitoring.

Jonas:

The main target of ThoughtBuzz this year is to win our respective markets. We believe 2012 is the year of social media measurement. Companies and brands are seeing the need to connect their social media efforts to business goals, to actual ROI. To do that, social media monitoring and analysis will play a crucial role in their strategies and efforts. That’s why we’re here, to provide them with the services they need to be able to do that.

Here’s a sentence we’ve never uttered before: Good news for Groupon in Asia! Yes, the American group-buying service Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN) has extended its lead even further in the Taiwanese daily deals sector, and now commands over half of the market share on the island.

The last time we looked at the situation in Taiwan back in July 2011, we saw Groupon had 47.7 percent market share there as the entire group-buying industry grew by 8.3 percent. The very latest data, once again from Goodlife.tw, for December shows that the entire sector shrank by a minuscule 0.9 percent, and that Groupon Taiwan has grown in that time-span to now have an even firmer grasp – a full 52.37 percent in market share.

Gomaji and 17Life remain a consistent second and third place. The latter half of 2011 was good news not just for Groupon, but also for 17Life (gaining 5 percent), and for the mainland contenders Lashou, and Nuomi. That last one is partly owned by the Chinese social networking site Renren (NYSE:RENN). Meanwhile, both Gomaji and Yahoo’s (NASDAQ:YHOO) Taiwan deals portal remained stagnant. JiGoCity – which also operates in mainland China – is not shown in the graph but is another riser, ending the year in sixth place with a 4.1 percent share.

We’ve taken some of the raw data and made a chart to show how things have changed in Taiwan from July to December last year (click to enlarge):

Much of the top eight deals websites in Taiwan remain stable as the whole market shows less volatility than the ferocious scene in daily deals in mainland China.

Groupon entered Taiwan by acquiring the already successful local deals site Atlaspost exactly a year ago. At the time, Gomaji and 17Life were still its main competitors.

Meanwhile, the US site LivingSocial still hasn’t entered Taiwan, despite an aggressive push into Asia last summer. Perhaps it could jump-start its move into the stable Taiwanese group-buy market by buying up either Gomaji or 17Life.

[Source: Goodlife.tw - article in Chinese]

In support of Indonesia, Yahoo Indonesia launched an activity called Yahoo! Buka Dunia that started together with the SEA Games 2011 Torch Relay. The goal was to to give a first hand experience of the Internet to students, teachers, and others in 20 cities across Java and Sumatra.

With attention on the SEA Games, Yahoo Search Trends did some deep tracking to see what topics were most searched by Indonesian people after the games began. Through that tracking we can see Indonesian love soccer and they really wanted to see their athletes to get the most medals.

These are 10 most-searched topics related to the SEA Games, according to Yahoo Indonesia:

• Wim Rijsbergen – Indonesia national soccer team head coach. This search went up as much as 88 percent.
• Perolehan medali SEA Games 2011 – Or translated as ‘2011 SEA Games medal tally.’ People wanted to know how many medals Indonesia had so far (Indonesia earned 182 gold medals, 151 silver medals and 142 bronze medals in the final count). This search went up 56 percent
• Indonesia vs Singapura – The Group A has been called the death group because it consists of 4 great teams in South East Asia. Indonesia beaten Singapore 2-0 and the search for that matchup went up to 38 percent.
• Indonesia vs Thailand – After winning two games against Cambodia and Singapore, the game has became an important match to win for Indonesia to confirm a place in the semi-final. The “Indonesia vs Thailand” search went 32.7 percent.
• Renang indah Indonesia – Translated as ‘Indonesia synchronous swimming’, this year’s team was so promising that they were predicted to get two gold medals in the sport, but they only achieved one silver and one bronze. This search went up by 32 percent.
• Pembukaan SEA Games – On November 11, 2011 the opening attracted a lot of attention and people wanted to watch the ceremonies. This search went up 27 percent.
• Bonus medali emas – a bonus for medals winner has been promised by Andy Malarangeng.
• Obor api SEA Games – the SEA Games torch, which was kept lit for 12 days straight, used up 43 tons of liquid petroleum gas (LPG). Perhaps not the most eco-friendly, but interesting nonetheless…
• Klasemen SEA Games 2011 – Indonesians were actively monitoring the SEA Games 2011 medal standings
• Atlet Anggar – Even though the fencing athletes were inexperienced they put on a good showing in the match

Other trends included result predictions, poems for the national team, SEA Games effects, prayers before the match and the Games’ mascot. We also saw searches for Agnes Monica, who was there at the opening ceremony.

Yahoo Indonesia is an official online media partner for SEA Games 2011 and has been updating its SEA Games 2011 page and has been rallying support for Indonesian athletes with a photo competition on Flickr.

Last week, Yahoo launched a program named Yahoo Buka Dunia (which literally translates to ‘Open World’) in Indonesia. Using a bus covered with its corporate purple (pictured above), some Yahoo staffers will travel about 5,000km to 20 cities across the islands of Java and Sumatera, visiting 40 schools.

Yahoo will be showing some of the islands’ people how to use the Internet in a positive and safe way. The emphasis is on guiding youth and students, as well as teachers, who are novice Internet users.

The bus will travel for a month, starting in Jakarta, then moving on to Palembang, Jambi, Lampung, Bandung, Semarang, Yogyakarta, and finishing in Surabaya. The distinctive purple bus will not only visit big cities (such as the capital cities of each province), but also small towns and rural areas, spreading new knowledge about the Internet and its potential benefits.

According to a Yahoo Net Index Study last July, the rate of Internet consumption of Indonesian people is ranked second, below TV. The number of Internet users in Indonesia is fairly low, at almost 40 million. But those engaged users are massive social media fans, and are effectively number two in terms of Facebook users world-wide, and possess the ability to create often-meaningless Twitter trending topics. “That’s why it’s very important to look out for the [Internet-based] issues that can influence young minds,” Yahoo Indonesia’s country manager, Pontus Sonnerstedt, said in a statement.

By the way, regular readers might recall that this is not the first time a huge web company has used a bus to out-reach in this way. This past September, we wrote about the Google Internet Bus in India, a program quite similar to this one. Back in April, RIM introduced the Playbook in Indonesia on a bus. It seems that using huge, branded buses to go out to consumers is a new trend in some parts of Asia.

[Source: JagatReview - article in Indonesian]

Purple Hope: sg.news.yahoo.com/purplehope

Purple Hope, a charity initiative by Yahoo Singapore, has raised more than SGD $50,000 for the Children’s Cancer Foundation (CCF) through a campaign entitled “Hair For Hope.” Interestingly, ten employees went the extra mile to shave their heads, showing their dedication to the cause. The campaign, though small scale, is graced by Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo (NASQAQ:YHOO).

This is Yahoo’s first project under the Purple Hope initiative. CCF was chosen after a Yahoo staff member made a personal pledge during the Hair for Hope campaign earlier this year.

We reached out to one of the “shavees” who shared her thoughts with us below:

I feel swell to say the least. I was reading about the six year old girl Charmaine who passed away last Friday from cancer and can’t imagine what her parents must be going through. You see cancer affects people indiscriminately – young or old, rich or poor. It is painful to watch children suffer; there is no justification in the world for something like this. Shaving my head is a symbolic gesture of support for those undergoing chemotherapy. Here at Yahoo I have received tremendous support from my colleagues for being the only girl shavee. They tell me that I am brave but it is not me who is brave; brave are those battling cancer. I would do anything to beat cancer and show support to those who are suffering from this dreadful illness.

$50,000 isn’t a huge amount when you consider the size of Yahoo. Nonetheless, it’s still admirable work for the better of the community.

Jack Ma being interviewed this morning at AsiaD in Hong Kong. (Image source: AllThingsD)

Jack Ma’s onstage interview at the AsiaD conference in Hong Kong has just come to an end, which gave the Alibaba Group founder and CEO a chance to air some of his views on recent issues, such as the prospective purchase of Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), and the virtual protest by some small businesses on his Tmall.com B2C platform.

In effect, Mr Ma didn’t say too much that was new, but it was good to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

Here’s what Ma had to say this morning on a number of key issues (to use the actual quotes from AllThingsD):

On Yahoo…

If the board is willing to sell [Yahoo], I’m interested. They’ve just got to let us know.

We’ve been working with Yahoo for years to buy a portion of them or buy them out. Money is not the problem. The problem is what Yahoo wants to do.

But Jack Ma conceded that they’re just waiting for the board to say something, and that his own mind is set on this issue. He went on to say that he doesn’t know what the Yahoo board is pondering. On why Yahoo is so important to the industry…

Without Yahoo, I wouldn’t have started my Internet business.

Ma said that he’d bring in new management if he were in charge of Yahoo, but declined to name a sort of dream team for the job.

As a final word on the speculation, Ma initially joked, “I didn’t know we were so important;” before then saying, “Definitely, we are the main driving force.”

On China and business…

I think censorship is an issue, but it’s not that big of an issue. … I think the Chinese government is getting more and more open.

When I started the company, I wasn’t looking out a year or two, I was looking ahead 10 to 15 years.

Everywhere I go, people are talking about IPOs, no one is talking about creating value. That’s a problem.

No mention was made of a potential IPO for Alibaba Group or its two consumer-oriented e-commerce sites. So far, only its B2B platform Alibaba.com (HKG:1688) has listed.

On the subject of copyright and copycats, Mr Ma said he didn’t agree with the view that Chinese sites tended to copy others, and said the point is to make your customers happy in whatever way you can – even if that entails following in someone else’s footsteps. That sounds a bit like our editorial, “Screw the Idea, It’s the Execution That Really Matters.”

But he maintained a harder stance on copyright, saying:

We will never step back from our stance on intellectual property problems … This problem can’t be solved by Alibaba alone, it has to be solved by Alibaba working with its merchants.

On the Tmall.com virtual protests…

Sometimes the people that love you most are the people that hurt you most.

That was Ma’s phlegmatic comment on the week-long virtual protests by smaller businesses over greatly increased user deposits for a store on Tmall. The issue was resolved this Monday when Alibaba promised to invest 1.8 billion RMB to help smaller vendors use the platform.

For a somewhat divergent perspective, none other than Yahoo’s Jerry Yang – co-founder and former CEO – spoke earlier at AsiaD and said:

The intent going in is not to put ourselves for sale. The intent is to look at all the options.

[Source: AllThingsD]

Alibaba CEO Jack Ma at Stanford

Stanford Business has put the footage of Jack Ma’s recent speech online. The Alibaba CEO raised eyebrows on both sides of the ocean when he says – very deliberately – that he was “very interested in Yahoo” during the talk.

But the entire talk is worth a watch if you have an hour to spare. He talks with a lot of passion about the success of Alibaba, but also alludes their many mistakes and difficulties, including Taobao’s intellectual property challenges.

If you don’t have time to check the whole talk, you can skip to his Yahoo comments here and here. He also made an fun quip about Chinese censorship that I found amusing as well. You might also check our previous comments from last week about Jack’s interest in Yahoo.

On a related note, there are reports today that Yahoo could soon sell its 35 percent stake in Yahoo Japan (Softbank owns about 40 percent). According to a Financial Times report, the company is “moving closer to shedding its stake … as it waits for US tax authorities to give guidance on a structure through which the embattled internet company could cash in on its holding.” The article adds that the sale of the Yahoo Japan stake could help with the sale of Yahoo as a whole.

I’m very interested in Yahoo. The Alibaba Group is very important to Yahoo, and Yahoo is very important to us.

Of course, Yahoo is not officially for sale. The company is floundering and it did just fire its CEO — over the phone — but Yahoo founder Jerry Yang reportedly said after the firing that the company is not for sale. Still, there’s plenty of speculation.

Even if Ma doesn’t get the chance to buy Yahoo wholesale, he has right-of-refusal to buy back Yahoo’s 40 percent stake in Alibaba should the company be sold to someone else. But it seems increasingly clear that Ma is looking to buy the whole enchilada himself, should the opportunity arise.

That news, of course, has led to some consternation in the United States. Privacy activists have expressed concerns that Yahoo’s data on American users might be surrendered to the Chinese government if the company were to be purchased by Alibaba.

Alibaba has rejected these assertions, saying that data from outside China would stay there, and thus would not be under the jurisdiction of Chinese authorities.

Needless to say, concerns remain. Still, could Alibaba be any worse to Yahoo users than Yahoo itself? Skeptics of Alibaba may do well to remember that Jerry Yang’s Yahoo surrendered the private emails of Shi Tao and other Yahoo users to Chinese government, resulting in multiple arrests and, in some cases, long prison sentences. In 2006 Congressional hearings, when other net companies promised to keep China user data outside of the mainland to protect user privacy from government incursions, Yahoo stated they could not protect the privacy of Chinese users.

Anyway, Ma may well be up to something. He’s said he plans to spend the next year in the US learning more about the country and the market. Perhaps Alibaba is planning to expand stateside regardless of what happens with Yahoo? We’ll keep an eye on it.

Alibaba CEO Jack Ma, whose termination of the Alipay-Yahoo VIE brought the legal mechanism into the global spotlight.

There are fears in the international investment community that foreign investment will be squeezed out of Chinese web companies if authorities in Beijing clamp down on variable interest entity (VIEs). The structure is essentially an agreement between a foreign investor and an internet company in China, allowing the overseas company to generate payment from its holdings here.

While VIEs have been ratified and used for years in China, the recent Yahoo, Alibaba, and Alipay kerfuffle put this legal device in the global spotlight, showing that it was actually of dubious legality and sustainability.

On the weekend, Reuters reported that China’s securities regulator is asking the government to clamp down on this virtual ownership mechanism. If such a tightening on foreign investment policy occurs, it could seriously impact Chinese web companies who utilise it, such as Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU), Sina (NASDAQ:SINA), and Alibaba (HKG:1688). It also risks crippling any upcoming Chinese web US IPOs, which would become damn near impossible in the face of ministry-level approval for each VIE, or possible abolishment of all VIEs.

Reuters notes of the changing mood:

New rules from the Ministry of Commerce that took effect on September 1st bar foreign investors from using arcane investment structures to evade China’s security review process, but didn’t directly address VIEs. The CSRC report, if genuine, suggests the matter is more serious since regulators are indeed pushing to restrict the structure.

To get a better sense of its implications, let’s look at what three respected China observers – who bridge political, legal and business areas of expertise – say on this issue.

Web = Media = Dangerous

First up, David Wolf, a Beijing-based analyst, who has followed the emerging controversy all year, and divined a possible clampdown from a state-run news-agency (Xinhua) editorial back in July. Tweeting this weekend, he said, “Enough soothsaying: time for the VIEs and bankers to batten down.”

Recently, David wrote that the change is happening now because “the way China’s regulators look at and understand internet companies has changed.” One key aspect is that authorities now realise that the web is not just about buying books – it’s also a powerful form of media, and media is something that China controls very tightly, rarely allowing any foreign ownership or intervention. Undeniably, Sina’s Weibo platform is a more powerful news portal for young netizens than state-run TV, so there’s that element of authorities implementing control.

“Technically illegal”

Digicha’s Bill Bishop, an experienced entrepreneur based in Beijing, is sounding a cautious note, despite also seeing this coming from miles off. In a new post today, Bill pointed to a Weibo post by a senior Chinese executive at various Internet companies, suggesting that existing VIE agreements will be honored and renewed.

Nonethless, he has often highlighted how China seems to be seeing foreign ownership of web firms as something of a national security hazard, and that VIEs are, fundamentally speaking, technically illegal.

How widespread is this mechanism in China? From a Financial Times article:

“As of April 2011, 42 percent of Chinese companies listed in the US have used the VIE structure and thousands of unlisted companies continue to operate through the use of the VIE structure,” said Cadwallader, the law firm, in a note to clients.

But on a final note, Bill observes:

I have heard it is increasingly hard to find a Chinese law firm (it has to be a Chinese firm) to bless the VIE structure as required by the underwriters and the SEC.

Making an example

Lastly, Business Insider contributor Paul Denlinger, playing devil’s advocate, suggests that authorities feel the time is right to shut this down, and shut out foreign investment. In two consecutive tweets, he says:

China shutting down VIE structure would make complete sense; it doesn’t need foreign investment money anymore. In fact, foreign investment money in China contributes to inflation, local corruption. Beijing may be ready to make an example of VIEs.

For now, the world needs to wait to see what actual policy change might be coming. In fairness, this could well be just about eliminating grey areas, so that regulators have proper jurisdiction in this area, and to avoid the kind of accounting scandal that tainted Chinese tech IPOs this summer. Also, mounting scrutiny does not necessarily equate with a clampdown. But for now, foreign investors in the Chinese web scene would be wise to examine their own set-ups in China.

Google Search Stories are fun to watch. Many of you would probably remember the Parisian love story video which later became a Super Bowl commercial last year. The search engine even came out with a search story creator for users to create their own Google journey.

And now there’s one for Taiwan too. I stumbled upon a Google Search Stories site built especially for Taiwanese in traditional Chinese. Google Taiwan is apparently trying to get local netizens to give its video search stories a shot, in the hope that it might convince them to be loyal Google searchers.

Here are some interesting Search Story videos I saw there:

My First Valentine Day

Brief: This video is similar to Parisan Love. YouTuber MrHenryLin prepares for his first Valentine’s Day date and uses Google to find a restaurant, create a surprise, and find a gift.

Ceremony Under Water

Brief: YouTuber Yingfu613 created this video in English using the Google Taiwan search engine. She is searching for ways to make her underwater wedding a success.

Google is huge in Taiwan but Yahoo is still number one

Taiwanese tend to use “Google” as a verb to search. But the actual search engine that most Taiwanese use isn’t Google. It’s Yahoo.

Some time ago, I had a conversation with a group of friends from the computer science department of NCKU (one of the top five universities in Taiwan) about Yahoo and Google in Taiwan. To them, Google was cool but Yahoo’s search capability in traditional Chinese was far superior.

Back in 2000, when Yahoo the mighty global market leader, the search engine acquired Kimo, a powerful search tool used by Taiwanese. That gave Yahoo an edge over Google and it has lasted even until now. Yahoo also made several good moves in the country, including its acquisition of Wretch, a popular blogging platform in Taiwan.

For search and blogging, Yahoo is still considered number one there, but Google isn’t too far behind though. It has a lot of products that have won the hearts of Taiwanese, including Google Docs, Android, and YouTube.

Google Story is a smart marketing campaign to show how the search engine can benefit regular people in Taiwan. The company is pushing hard and is already considered a cool brand in the minds of many locals. I fear that Yahoo’s leadership in Taiwan might not last for the next five years if things continue on their current path.

Softbank will still hold a 0.002 percent stake in Yahoo, not to be confused with Yahoo Japan which is jointly owned by the two companies (Softbank at 42 percent, Yahoo at 35 percent).

According to a Reuters report, analyst Yoshisugu Sasaki explained today’s announcement saying “This just looks like Softbank’s attempt to improve its finances.” The company says its net profit for the fiscal year is likely to be boosted 44.7 billion yen (or about $581 million).

Softbank and Yahoo also shared headlines over the course of this year as players in the very messy Alibaba/Alipay controversy, which was only just settled last month.

To learn more about the initiative, I spoke with Dellawati Wijaya, the community manager at Yahoo Indonesia.

1. What is #Indonesia17?

Yahoo has launched ID 17 – the first such campaign for Yahoo Indonesia that will recognize the valuable contributions of eight distinguished Indonesians in various fields across eight categories: language and journalism, art and culture, sports, business, green, internet, science, and education.

Inspired by and in reference to August 17, Indonesia’s National Day, the campaign is aimed at nurturing the pride of Indonesians and fellow residents by acknowledging the tireless service each of the leaders in the respective categories in the country over the last year.

Tied to the theme of nationalism and Ramadan, we are celebrating our Independence Day together with our audience and breaking fast along with them for Ramadan – we will do this on the night before (August 16) as this year we are celebrating together with Ramadan. We are planning to do community offline meet-ups (breaking fast) together in 30 different locations, and 25 different cities (17+). We are picking places with wifi Internet connections so that we can do Yahoo Messenger conference/video chat. We are confident that we can do this again, [building on] last year’s success story (celebrating breaking fast together with 500+ Koprollers , in 16 different cities). Coverage of that can be found here.

2. After the successful Kopfest (Koprol Festival), what is your expectation this time? What is the definition of success for this event?

Yahoo Indonesia expects to engage our community in different cities, not only those in big cities like Jakarta, Bandung, or Surabaya; we are trying to reach out to second tier cities and our audience in the smaller cities and remote areas across the nation. We want to integrate communities across Indonesia, to be a part of the overall Indonesian fabric.

The definition of the success is the participation of the audiences, their commitment and willingness to organize a set of activities in their city.

The willingness to meet [and interact with] peers offline showcases the level of engagement by various communities and marks the success of the event for Yahoo.

3. In a short span of time, Yahoo Indonesia has gained people’s attention again and again. Is there some ‘secret’ to engaging the community?

There is no single recipe for the success behind this; support from our editorial, audience and social community team – as well as good collaboration with the product team – has made this happen.

4. How can Yahoo Indonesia benefit from the attention the country is getting these days?

Yahoo is investing in growth in emerging markets and capturing the next wave of new-to-net users during a time of rapid expansion. [We] will continue to invest in leading technologies and the Indonesian community to deliver the best value proposition to our customers and be at the forefront of innovation. This is part of the Yahoo vision . . . with a focus on comprehensive and personally relevant internet experiences. The investments are in content, communities and the Yahoo brand in Indonesia.

Finally. We just received word from Alibaba that the long-standing dispute over Alipay, its online payment system, between Yahoo, Alibaba, and Softbank has finally settled.

Alibaba’s head Jack Ma had spoken at AllThingD conference two months ago where he briefly discussed the Alipay issue. Nonetheless rumors arose on a number of occasions that the issue between Yahoo and Alibaba had been resolved, but requiring the approval of Softbank, no agreement came about until now.

The agreement breaks down as follows, as per Alibaba’s announcement:

The agreement preserves the existing relationship between Taobao and Alipay. Alipay will continue to provide payment processing services to Alibaba Group and its subsidiaries (including Taobao) on preferential terms.

Alibaba Group will license to Alipay certain intellectual property and technology and provide certain software technology services to Alipay and its subsidiaries. Alipay will pay to Alibaba Group, prior to a liquidity event, a royalty and software technology services fee, which consists of an expense reimbursement and a 49.9% share of the consolidated pre-tax income of Alipay and its subsidiaries.

Alibaba Group will receive no less than $2 billion and no more than $6 billion in proceeds from an IPO of Alipay or other liquidity event. The exact proceeds to Alibaba Group will be determined by multiplying the total equity value of Alipay by 37.5 percent, subject to the foregoing floor and ceiling amounts.

The agreement states that “Alibaba Group will continue to participate in Alipay’s future financial performance” which could mean anywhere from two to six billion dollars for the company if there is a future IPO or ‘liquidity event.’

Yahoo hosted a conference call with both Alibaba Group and Softbank at 8:45am EST today (just starting as we publish this). Neither Jack Ma, Carol Bartz, nor Masayoshi Son were present on the call, but for those who want to listen the live webcast can be viewed via Yahoo’s Investor Relations website. Instructions on how to hear an audio replay can be found here.

Despite being embroiled in the controversy, Alibaba has managed to keep busy of late. Last month we reported that Jack Ma had decided to divide Taobao up into three subsidiaries, Taobao Marketplace, Taobao Mall, and eTao. And just this month the company brought mobile bar code payments to its Alipay apps, a feature that will likely come in handy in its new mobile operating system Aliyun which was confirmed just yesterday.

[With contributions from Willis Wee, Steven Millward]

The smartphone boom (such as what we see with the Blackberry in the country) and availability of low-cost Internet access on mobiles has definitely contributed to this shift. The now-pervasive use of social media and people’s quick adoptation to new ways of buying things through e-commerce have also played a part.

Television, still in almost every home, remains at the top of the media ranking. Nevertheless people are rushing to switch to Internet TVs, such as recent offerings from IniTV and Bakrie Telecom). The Jakarta Globe explains Yahoo’s methodology as follows:

The study’s results were based on interviews with roughly 1,000 male and female Internet users ranging in age from 15 to 50. The annual study focuses on Indonesia’s urban population in places like Jakarta, Bogor, Surabaya, Medan and Makassar.

With 89 percent of people visiting social networking sites (such as the ever-popular Facebook and Twitter) this is the most popular online activity. Also, according to 61 percent of respondents, they regularly visit news websites too.

As for myself, I find my habits are in line with the study’s findings. With the Internet we can access a great range of music and news very quickly. And we can even view events unfold in real-time on Twitter. Even though there are still loyal radio listeners and readers for print newspapers, they really must prepare for the change.

Let us know how you feel about this in the comment section.

The announcement claims that the Yahoo! India network reaches over 80 percent of all Indian internet users, citing a Comscore report from May. This partnership effort with Dinamalar will help Yahoo maintain its lead as one of the largest content providers in India.

Yahoo has had a lot of partnerships with content providers but a co-branded news site is certainly something out of the norm. In my opinion, it is a huge deal for Dinamalar as it leverages on Yahoo’s wide reach.

Adimoolam Lakshmipathy, Director at Dinamalar said in the statement:

“Our partnership with Yahoo! will increase the reach and availability of our premium content. It will also help us to connect with Tamil audiences across the globe.”

Google Translate supports Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu

Apparently more companies are looking to localize their services to engage Indian users better. Last month, Google included five local Indian languages to Google Translate for India, namely Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu.

Like China, India is now experiencing huge growth in its Internet and tech industry. Vijay Anand, founder of the Startup Centre in India, recently told us that more Indians are now returning from the U.S to start their own ventures at home. Among the most notable Indian start-up successes are DeskAway and FusionCharts.

[UPDATE: July 8th, AM - We've been contacted by Alibaba Group representatives who claim that there are "factual errors and bad underlying info" in the source, the China Entrepreneurs Magazine (CEM) interview. On the understanding that CEM will amend and correct its post shortly, we're amending some aspects of the first-person quotes attributed to Jack Ma.]

[UPDATE 2: July 8th, AM - Also, we've be contacted by CEM's English Editor who admits grave errors in their transcript, saying, "We found some mistakes that may cause people's misunderstanding." CEM's official notice and apology is here. So, we've removed the PDF transcript that had been embedded at the bottom of the post, and also deleted the offending passages from CEM's inaccurate initial transcript. A corrected transcript will be issued shortly. Apologies to our readers for running with the source's inaccurate text.]

Jack Ma, the Alibaba founder and CEO, has finally spoken up and revealed the thought-processes behind his controversial and cavalier transference of Alipay away from the Alibaba Group – a move that left Yahoo (which owns 39% of the Group) embarrassed, and exposed just how in the dark the American firm is about Alibaba’s inner workings.

In a tough-talking, exclusive interview today with the Chinese-language China Entrepreneur Magazine, Ma admits to unilaterally shifting its online payment platform Alipay away from the Group, with full consent from neither the board of directors nor Softbank or Yahoo.

Mr. Ma paints it as a necessary move – and, importantly, a fully legal ploy – for Alipay to get a crucial government-mandated online payments license, where the Group’s majority foreign ownership (Japan’s Softbank owns 29.3% too) would have been an issue at state-level.

Jack Ma vigorously defends himself and emphasizes what a difficult, time-sensitive position he was in, saying:

I’m standing here with the Central Bank of China on one side, and they’ve [Softbank and Yahoo] squeezed me out and made me out to be the bad guy ….. I’ll tell you, this matter wouldn’t have even been approved with ten times the time. Why? Sun [Zhengi; of Softbank] has countless investments. If Alibaba were to die, sure, he’d be sore, but to him it’s one of many. To us, it’s everything. Yahoo is in a similar situation.

As part of his bold move, Ma terminated the “variable interest entity” (VIE) that usually safeguards the assets of foreign owners in a firm, as he realised at the start of the year that he was in this bind – facing three options to move forward, or risk seeing Alipay being shut down by authorities for the lack of proper paperwork. The interview makes clear that Ma favored termination of VIE and organizing compensation later; Softbank’s Sun Zhengyi preferred to maintain the VIE but lie about its existence to the State Council (which is technically illegal); while the third option was to keep VIE and go through due process, with a heightened risk of Alipay failing to get its license. In Jack Ma’s own words, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang “was sitting on the fence”. And so Ma unilaterally made his move.

“I don’t like politics, I don’t play at it”

Jack Ma’s actions this year have made him into something of a hate figure in tech circles in China, with some accusing him of worsening an awful June for Chinese tech IPOs by heightening uncertainty and making Chinese tech firms look risky. As for Yahoo, they’re now facing a class-action lawsuit by some shareholders accusing Yahoo of not being sufficiently in control – and those claims might be strengthened by Ma’s words in this interview.

Yahoo’s Jerry Yang comes out badly from this, for sitting on the fence for so long over the license process issue. Jack Ma also believes that Yang made the wrong move in how he handled the news, adding, “he should have immediately told the Yahoo shareholders, but he waited until May to tell them.”

[Source: China Entrepreneur Magazine]

Baidu Japan actually opened in 2007, but required a relaunch in ’08 after a shaky start. Those accumulated losses seem to have been sunk into general running and admin costs.

The Japanese search engine market is dominated by Yahoo, although Yahoo search is now powered by Google in Japan. This graphic, from SearchEngineWatch.com, reveals that Yahoo Japan holds 56.2% of the marketshare in the country, with Google.co.jp on second with 31.3%. Baidu Japan squeezes into the small purple slice that’s badged ‘others’:

Image source: SearchEngineWatch.com - Showing search engine market share in Japan in mid-2010

Baidu’s filings, made at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), reveal that Baidu is only generating profit in its homeland. That’s in contrast to Google, which makes almost half of its profits – across search, advertising, and numerous other products – overseas.

Japan is the world’s third-biggest search market, behind the US and China. When Baidu.jp opened up in 2007, Baidu’s CEO Robin Li remarked:

We believe that with our proven strength in Chinese language search and our focus on delivering the best user experience, we will be able to provide Japanese users with a quality alternative to existing search engines.

But it has proved tougher than expected. Baidu Japan’s losses aren’t narrowing, and in fact have slowly inflated over the last three years, to 2010′s annual losses of RMB 260 million.

[Source of stats: Sina Tech news - article in Chinese]

It can be difficult to understand the history and milestones of giant corporations. The same applies to Alibaba Group, which runs Alibaba.com, Alipay.com, Alibaba Cloud Computing, Taobao, Tmall.com, and eTao. (Wow, that’s quite a long list of services huh?)

In the past decade, a lot has happened within the Alibaba Group. We decided that the best way to tell the story of the Alibaba would be to create this timeline infographic that boils down the progression of the company into the most important steps in its history.

[Get embed code]

Embed code:
<a href="http://www.techinasia.com/2011/06/22/alibaba-infographic/" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.techinasia.com/techinasia/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/alibaba-group-infographic.jpg" title="Penn Olson | The History & Milestone of Alibaba Group" alt="Penn Olson | The History & Milestone of Alibaba Group" width="639" height="2692"></a>

Three parts! (photo from manageria.gazeta.pl)

After suggesting at the recent All Things D conference that Yahoo might solve some of its problems by splitting into smaller pieces, Jack Ma has applied this same strategy to his own company. We received a note from Alibaba today alerting us of the move, one that will see e-commerce giant Taobao form three separate companies.

The (Three) Tao of Jack

We’re told that as of today, these three Alibaba subsidiaries will begin operations as follows:

• Taobao Marketplace – “China’s leading consumer-to-consumer (C2C) platform”
• Taobao Mall – “China’s leading business-to-consumer (B2C) shopping site”
• etao – “a product search engine designed to make it easier for consumers to find goods and services offered by all e-tailers”

On its Alizila news site, an Alibaba official explains the move:

You can’t be all things to all people as one big Taobao.com website. This will allow us to expand consumer traffic because we now have three entry points (for online shopping) instead of one entry point.

While I’m not convinced that it will necessarily expand consumer traffic, it should make things a little easier for managers to focus on these fragmented silos.

Jack Ma explained the move in greater detail in a letter to the company’s employees. Alibaba has kindly provided us with a copy, which we have included below.

Photo: manageria

Today, we are excited to announce that Tweets will be integrated into various services on Yahoo! Japan, beginning with real-time search results (see: realtime.search.yahoo.co.jp). This partnership will allow Twitter content to reach even more users in Japan, one of our biggest international markets. [Note: Link and parenthesis mine]

This comes hot on the heels of last month’s announcement that Twitter had struck a similar deal with service provider NTT Docomo to integrate content into search results. That partnership will enable mobile users (for both smartphones and feature phones) to view the microblog’s content via built-in Docomo services.

According to comScore, Japan is one of the top five countries in the world for Twitter penetration, with 16.8% reach dwarfing the global average of 7.4%. This figure will likely increase even more as a result of these two partnerships. The increasing popularity of smartphones in Japan (including Apple’s iPhone) should also help Twitter reach a wider audience in the nation.

The deal is believed to be a transfer of Yahoo’s 35 percent stake in Yahoo Japan to Softbank. Softbank currently holds 42 percent and if the transfer were to materialize, it would give Softbank major control over Yahoo Japan. A spokesman for Softbank declined the claim but refused to comment whether a talk is currently ongoing.

So, why quit Japan? The reason is believed to be China. Yahoo plans to focus its attention to the 40 percent share it owns in Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba Group. As Yahoo loses ground to Google and Facebook in the U.S, it is only rational to turn its attention to China, where something positive is already brewing. Alibaba Group currently owns more than 50 percent of e-commerce market share in China. It wasn’t revealed what Yahoo plans to do in China. A Chinese search engine doesn’t seem feasible with Baidu dominating the market. But one thing for sure, Yahoo has to stick closely with Alibaba Group to grow in China.

The deal wouldn’t be finalized soon as Softbank also owns a stake in Alibaba. The triangular relationship between the three parties complicates the deal. Tax is also another problem that hinders the deal. A straight sale of Yahoo’s stake would cost a 38 percent of tax bill.

It’s an interesting move from Yahoo. So far this year, many technology companies including Facebook, Google, Groupon and now Yahoo have wooed China. I wonder how Alibaba would think about this deal, though.

The site helps build thought leadership for Yahoo and especially P&G. It’s another “connection first, sales later tactic” employed by the brand agency. Last year, we shared how P&G marketed tampons through a site that was catered for teenage girls. There wasn’t any hard selling as the site was fully dedicated to engage and help teenage girls with problems. Only a small sales message was placed at the end of each webpage. Amazingly, the return was 4 times as effective per dollar spent than the usual advertising.

Pontus Sonnerstedt, Country Manager of Yahoo! Indonesia said in a statement, “Yahoo! Style Factor is about inspiration, helping Indonesia’s women find the celebrity looks they like and to provide tips on how they can make it their own. The demand for lifestyle content continues to grow in Indonesia and we’ve seen great traffic to our entertainment and lifestyle websites such as Yahoo! omg and Yahoo! Travel. Indonesians like to be entertained with locally relevant content, and Style Factor is the perfect platform to connect our readers to brands and trends that matter to them the most.”

Rafael Scislowski, Brand Manager, Haircare from P&G said, “P&G has collaborated with Yahoo! in the United States for Shine and we have seen tremendous success in how custom branded experience can engage with potential customers. Through the launch of Style Factor, we can now extend the success we’ve had in our partnership with Yahoo! to Indonesia.”

Realising that commuters waiting at bus stops are usually bored waiting for buses that never seem to arrive, they installed 20 interactive screens at Yahoo! themed bus stops around the neighbourhoods in San Fran.

Hit the jump for the next advance in advertising. Isn’t that the coolest idea ever? If only we had something like that at our own bus stop.

Dubbed the Bus Stop Derby, it pits the 20 neighbourhoods against each other in 4 different games, ranging from sports trivia to picture sorting. Commuters at one bus stop can challenge a fellow commuter at a different bus stop in real time. At the end of 2 months, the neighbourhood with the highest score will be treated to a block party by OK Go. In this campaign, Yahoo! brands such as Flickr are sneaked into the mix nicely.

The value of a new idea like this cannot be understated. Not only is it refreshing, I predict it will usher in a number of imitators, looking to cash in on the viability of this innovation. I can see ads on the Internet effortlessly being replicated on this digital medium.

At the same time, kudos to Yahoo! and their agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, who were willing to brave new waters with this. It will take a lot to overhaul Google, but this is a step in the right direction. At least in advertising terms.

Remember Abby’s Lemonade? 8-year-old Abby Enck runs lemonade stands during the summer and turn it into a charitable franchises that help sick kids. Her 6-year-old brother, Cameron, who was born with Cerebral Palsy has inspired her to go the extra mile.

Under Sports, The FIFA World Cup has been a total sensation. ‘World Cup’ is ranked second in Yahoo’s 2010 most searched terms, only falling behind ‘BP Oil Spill’. The World Cup theme song by Shakira is also currently the most watched World Cup video on YouTube.

On Natural Disaster, Haiti is one painful experience the world wishes to forget. But at the least it proves that love is still around.

More on Yahoo’s 2010 year in review below:

Let me first establish that I started a Yahoo! account back when I was like, nine. That was when Yahoo! games were still in vogue, auctions were still up, before Hotmail came into my life, and before I abandoned everything and migrated to Gmail.

So it was great seeing how Yahoo! was reinventing itself to stay relevant with today’s technology. I would liken it to meeting an old friend that now looks very attractive. You feel compelled to get back in touch. Here’s a teaser video.

What’s new?

• Communicate faster and do more – Designed from the ground up to provide blazing fast performance, this new version will be at least twice as fast for most people around the world. Yahoo! Mail Beta also speeds up tools that allow people to be more productive with the time they have, by more easily finding messages from contacts or using third-party applications directly within the inbox.
• Stay connected to social networks – As a central destination for social experiences from across the Web, Yahoo! Mail Beta lets people view and share updates from Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo!, and beyond. Additional features include enhanced IM and SMS capabilities for seamless chatting and texting within Yahoo! Mail Beta.
• View photos and videos right from your inbox – Automatic slideshow features mean people can easily see photos and videos from sites like Flickr, Picasa, and YouTube from right within their email messages.
• Search through mail with ease – A new mail search tool leverages Yahoo!’s wealth of search science and technology to help people quickly find the right emails. New search refinement features allow users to easily navigate, sort, and narrow search results by sender, attachment file, date, or folder location.
• Stay protected from spam – Independently verified as the world’s #1 email provider in protecting users from spam, Yahoo! Mail Beta uses Yahoo!’s global cloud computing infrastructure to further Yahoo!’s anti-spam efforts and provide an even safer mail experience. According to Yahoo!, studies have shown that their spam protection is 55% better that that offered by Gmail / Hotmail.
  
• Another useful point to note that isn’t new is that Yahoo! offers users unlimited storage.

It’s great to see that Yahoo! is engaging in a much needed facelift, and staying relevant by recognizing that social media has become an integral part of our lives.

While trying it, we found that it provided seamless integration and an intuitive user interface. Note that it’s still in it’s Beta version, so there are still kinks to be ironed out. If you find any, feel free to send some feedback over.

To get the new version, search on Yahoo.com for “Yahoo! Mail Beta” or visit http://features.mail.yahoo.com and click “Try It Now”.

Find out more at the Yahoo! Mail Blog.

According to ComScore, Yahoo and AOL are the two largest digital ad networks in U.S. Google lies in third position. If the acquisition were to take place, it would put the two companies in a very strong position against Google.

However, Google isn’t resting on its laurels. If Google TV were to be a big hit, it would open up a whole new reach of audience. But that remains to be seen, especially when price and pornography content are some factors to be considered.

All these ad networks usually target users based on cookies but what’s most impressive is Facebook’s ad network. It might not have the largest reach but its accuracy in targeting specific audience is unmatched so far. Given time, Facebook could possibly be the largest and most effective ad network in the next decade.

So, what do you think? Would you place your bet on Google or Facebook?

“Silver Lake Partners and Blackstone Group LP are among the firms that have expressed interest in teaming up with AOL to buy Yahoo or trying to take it private on their own,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

Both AOL and Yahoo are facing an uphill battle to maintain their momentum as online giants and the merger could be beneficial for both.

The marriage between AOL and Yahoo is highly rational. A combined AOL and Yahoo effort would provide a larger scale in online advertising, both in search and prominent blogs like TechCrunch (recently acquired by AOL).

The stock market reacted favorably with this piece of news. Yahoo’s share jumped by 13% on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

When questioned about the deal, both Yahoo and AOL declined to comment.

Take the news with a pinch salt. The merger is still at its preliminary stage and might not materialized given the complexities in structuring a proposal. If it were to happen, I wonder how would Google react. Is this merger even a threat to the search giant? Let us know your thoughts below.

Besides Facebook’s growing popularity, another reason why Facebook could top Yahoo (131.6) and Microsoft (60.2) is because the data don’t include ads that were delivered to other Web sites through their networks.

Although this statistic looks impressive, by revenue, Facebook has a long way to go before catching up with Yahoo. In 2009, the number 2 search engine earned $6.5 billion in revenue while Facebook is only half-way through the billion dollar mark.

comScore Chief Marketing Officer Linda Abraham also pointed out “that the data partially reflected the impact of a Facebook redesign that allowed the company to squeeze more ads on some pages. She said Facebook’s decision to take over a small amount of advertising it outsourced to Microsoft earlier this year didn’t appear to be a major driver of market share. A Facebook spokesman said it could have been a minor factor.”

Whether Facebook’s growth is coming at the expense of rivals “remains to be seen,” Ms. Abraham said. “The data has to play out over the next couple of months to definitely say that.”

Source: WSJ

According to Hitwise’s data, Facebook has overtaken Google as the most visited website in the U.S for the week ending March 13, 2010. Facebook was responsible for 7.07% of the entire U.S web visits while Google was just a little behind with 7.03%.

It seems like Google’s Super Bowl ad didn’t manage to prevent the inevitable.

Meanwhile, the latest Compete statistics revealed that Facebook is still some 14 million visits away in terms of worldwide visits from Google. Evidently, there is still some catching up to do before Facebook is able to clinch the world’s most visited website title.

The Microsoft-Yahoo deal is expected to complete by 2012. Having cleared the Australia, Brazil and Canada regulators, the U.S and European regulators are the remaining obstacles before this partnership takes effect. The delay is of course most welcomed in Google’s perspective, giving it ample time to prepare for this epic search battle.

Global Dominance but still…

According to comScore’s statistics, it was revealed that Google is responsible for over 90 percent of the global searches, while Microsoft and Yahoo have a combined share of 7.4 percent. Despite Google’s global dominance, it is essential to take precautionary steps towards this potential threat.

Local Search Share Showing Shaky Signs

In fact, the threat became apparent when we study the local search market shares. Microsoft and Yahoo both handle a combined 28.3 percent of the U.S searches, while Google has 65.4 percent.  Since Bing’s first launched in May 2009, Microsoft’s search share had surged from 8.2 percent to 11.3 percent, a 37.7% improvement within 9 months.

Besides the huge advertising budget Microsoft has, its new features, typically Bing Maps has gained much appraisal from users. Microsoft was also reported to be in talks with Apple to replace Google as the default iPhone search engine. The iPhone is rumored to have at least 40 million users by the end of 2010, making it an attractive platform for gaining search share.

This Microsoft-Apple partnership could materialize given that Google and Apple’s relationship had soured over business product conflicts such as its new Chrome browser, NexusOne phone and its upcoming Chrome Operating System (OS).

The American market plays a big part in Google’s business model. If Microsoft and Yahoo’s partnership were to take place, Google’s local search share and revenue could be badly affected.

Time for Google to Redefine the Search Experience?

Google is known to be an innovative company. Back in the early search days, Google was second to Yahoo and only through continual innovation and relentless pursue in providing the best user experience did Google become successful today. Its advanced algorithmic search has been the spearhead for its search share dominance. While algorithmic search method still plays a big role in the Internet, Google should continue to innovate and redefine how the Internet users search for information.

The aim here is not to improve on the already great algorithm method but to create a whole new dimension that widens Google’s gap ahead of its competitors. What will it be and can social results be the answer to that?

Let us know your thoughts below.

Today, we checked with Compete’s data and found that Facebook has overtaken Yahoo to become the world’s second most visited site.  All it took was a slight improvement and a slight dip from Facebook and Yahoo respectively.

In any case, Yahoo has only itself to blame for not capitalizing the early head start it had over its competitors. And for Facebook, a combination of smart business decisions, user friendly features (mostly) and strong supporters has made the giant what it is today.

Watch out Google, you are next!

(Click image to enlarge)

Google Buzz to the Rescue?

Google’s search engine is doing so well that further growth is difficult. That could explain Google’s Parisian Love ad during the recent Super Bowl to convert offline audience to its site.

With money and talent, Google would naturally grow to want a piece of everything related to the web. Google Buzz for one is an initiative to gain a piece of the now trending social media space. Would it be able to rescue Google from Facebook’s invasion?

Within 24 hours of the launch of Google Buzz, Microsoft and Yahoo both gave Google a slap on the face. Here’s Microsoft’s blatant statement in response to this service.

“Busy people don’t want another social network, what they want is the convenience of aggregation. We’ve done that. Hotmail customers have benefited from Microsoft working with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and 75 other partners since 2008.”

Yahoo did it through a tweet stating that the idea was implemented two years ago. Too little too late? Nonetheless, the big Google reputation surely gives users some sort of confidence.

Image via TechCrunch:

Will it actually work? It depends on the possible future upgrades that Google Buzz could provide. At its current state, I don’t see it as an innovation. It simply doesn’t provide additional value. For most, I believe Twitter or even FriendFeed is preferred over Google Buzz.

Google is a company that struggles with social network; the failure of Orkut is a good example. But on a fair note, Blogger and YouTube are both doing fairly well, despite the absence of revenue stream. It’s unfair to write off Google Buzz just a day after its launch. Be patient and hope Google would work its magic.

Or perhaps we’re getting impatient towards new social sites that require us to build our network from scratch.

Let us know your thoughts on Google Buzz via comments.

]]> http://www.techinasia.com/nobody-likes-google-buzz/feed/ 10 http://placehold.it/350x150 http://www.techinasia.com/facebook-touches-yahoo-google-shivers/ http://www.techinasia.com/facebook-touches-yahoo-google-shivers/#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:56:19 +0000 Sarah Chong http://www.techinasia.com/?p=11885 Read more »]]> Social media is on the rise, or is it just Facebook?

We have been tracking Facebook’s performance in terms of unique traffic for quite some time now. Each month, Facebook grows by at least a couple of percentages and in absolute terms, 2 to 4 million unique visitors.

This month’s Compete graph (of the top 3 websites) looks a little hopeless for Yahoo. At least in graphical context, Facebook (132.1 mil) is all ready to overtake Yahoo (133.4 mil) to claim no.2 position.

Facebook’s growth is unwavering, but Google and Yahoo aren’t showing any sign of improvement. Would the day Facebook overtake Google come sooner than later?

What should Google and Yahoo do? Should they even be concerned with this ranking? Let us know your thought via comments.

Rumors started circulating around the webosphere that Yahoo! was going to turn the plug on MyBlogLog in January.

MyBlogLog is a blog communities service that Yahoo! acquired in 2007 for $10 million.  The acquisition allowed users to log in to MyBlog using their Yahoo login information, but it didn’t change much of the interface.  It was one of the services that allowed bloggers to connect with other bloggers, and put faces to the people visiting your blog.

Chris Yeh, the Head of YDN, responded on the Yahoo! Developer Network blog that the rumors were not entirely true.

“Yesterday, rumors surfaced around Yahoo!’s imminent shutdown of its MyBlogLog service. Frankly, it’s no secret within Yahoo! that we’re actively discussing the future of MyBlogLog. However, it’s also true that we have not made any final decisions at this point.”

MyBlogLog allows users to display their feeds from all of their social networking sites and share it with other MyBlogLog users.  In return, you are able to view their feeds as well.

Users can add their blog to MyBlogLog, which goes to a review/approval process before it can show up in MyBlogLog.  When it is approved, MyBlogLog creates a community for your blog. In your blog community page, MyBlogLog shows a screenshot of your blog, author(s), related content, members, and newest members.  You can also add as many tags as you want to help others find it.  MyBlogLog also offers statistics to let you know know where your users are coming from, what content they are viewing, and where they want after leaving your site.

Personally, I love MyBlogLog and will be sad if Yahoo! decides to pull the plug.  Even though Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect have gained more popularity, I still have the MyBlogLog widgets to show my MyBlogLog visitors.  It is a shame that Yahoo! didn’t do more to the service being that it had so much potential. I hope that instead of killing MyBlogLog, Yahoo! considers revamping it now that they are trying to compete more with Google on other services.

What do you think? Should Yahoo! kill MyBlogLog? Or try to give the service a face lift?

Yahoo announced that it has signed a five-year agreement with Facebook to allow its users to share content on its site using their Facebook account.

Yahoo users will start seeing the Facebook integration in early 2010. According to the agreement, users will be able to use their Facebook login information to send any comments they leave on Yahoo sites. Being that Flickr is one of Yahoo’s site, users will also be able to share Flickr images with their Facebook friends.

Yahoo-Facebook

There is no money that was exchanged between the two companies, but it doesn’t mean that they aren’t both achieving something from this partnership. According to comScore, 52% of Yahoo users are also on Facebook. Yahoo Senior Director of product management Cody Simms says, “Making Yahoo stickier and helping syndicate content.”

Yahoo has great sites that many people don’t know they have because their comment system and sharing options are not up to par with other sites. With Facebook behind it, Yahoo can finally get these up to par quickly, and be able to appeal to its users and potential future users.

Google-Twitter

Now, Google has announced that it will be integrating its Friend Connect with Twitter. This will allow users to login using their Twitter identity, and be able to share content from the sites you join using Google Friend Connect. Users of both service will start seeing the Twitter integration. This will help Google to get more involved with social networking and real-time streaming, which is an area that they have been behind on.

Open-ID

This puts Google/Twitter and Yahoo/Facebook in direct competition with OpenID, the popular single-sign on service. OpenID is being widely used, but there really isn’t much use for it, other than not having to remember different user ID/password combinations. We’ll see how these partnerships affect OpenID In 2010.

Looking at last month’s statistics, Yahoo should already hear the footsteps of Facebook drawing near.

Would Facebook finally break into the top 2 soon? From the Compete chart below, it seems like it would.

Facebook is just behind Yahoo by 6 million unique visits. If Yahoo continues to dip while Facebook maintains its steady growth, a replacement of the no. 2 position is inevitable. We are living in an interesting time as we witness how Facebook could possibly overtake the search engines.

Following Facebook’s success and with more people embracing social media, social sites might just dominate the top spots one day. But will that really happen? Only time will tell.

The experience for us has been refreshing but incomplete.

Understandably, it takes time for new social media platforms to perfect their system and we’re glad that Yahoo is open about it.

There are 3 major problems that we feel Yahoo meme should resolve immediately.

1. Not made for conversations

It seems like one to one communication was not considered when meme was planned. We have hardly talked to anyone despite using it for a week. Many users are just dumping their content hoping that it will get reposted. I mean, what else do you expect them to do on meme? Yes, you can comment on an update but it is not properly threaded and doesn’t alert anyone. The comment comes out like any other update and it looks silly.

Commented meme (Unexpanded)

Commented meme (Expanded)

Solution: Introduce @mentions on meme. Facebook adopted it and there’s nothing wrong with that. Make sure comments are threaded and notify users involved of any new comments.

2. We want more popular posts

The “popular” section displays 10 posts that have some of the most reposts. There must be more great posts in meme worth sharing!

Solution: Have 3 popular post sections (featuring more posts): Text, Picture, Video to help users consume information more effectively. A featured meme section would also motivate users to improve their post quality and encourage conversations. However, these popular posts seem to have no meaning unless they are categorized into different topics. Maybe meme should start looking into why Twitter is so successful.

3. Where is our Direct Message?

This is a basic feature for private communication, but why is it not there?

Solution: Enable connected friends to send DMs.

An unhappy meme user. Do you feel the same?

For those who are using meme, share your thoughts with us!

comScore released their monthly report on global online search, and unsurprisingly, number of searches has grown to an amazing size. As Internet penetration deepens, search engines has become more people’s common information resource.

Online searches hit 113 billion in July, which was a 41% increase from a year ago.

This would naturally put some pressure on the Microhoo! search deal, even if it has managed to grab some search share from Google.

What about Bing, product of Google’s rival? Well, the Redmond giant held 4th position with 41% increase over a year. I must say, it’s a really good start for a new search engine.

Meme is currently available through invites only. It obviously has the ambition to grab a share in the micro-blogging market; with Twitter currently at the top of the league.

Meme’s Goals

As revealed on its site, Yahoo has a few goals for meme and they translate to what we can expect from this micro-blogging site!

- Things have to be quick, easy and simple to do

- You should be able to share whatever kind of content you publish or find in the web

- Your posts should get around without you having to be a part of any specific social network

- You keep the credit for your discoveries and creations

- You should easily find what’s drawing everyone else’s attention

Functions in Brief

Besides the norm, meme has a re-post counter that helps track your post popularity. It also threads conversations for easy commenting.

Unlike Twitter, its display updates are not just limited to text. Images and videos can be viewed without the need to click on links. This is probably something new to look forward to.

It seems like the people behind meme has been studying the strengths of each social networking site and integrated them into it. Speaking of which, we should also expect to see other critical functions such as trending topics and real-time searches on this new site.

Screenshots

Images shown on site

Videos played on site

No character limit?

Unlike Yahoo’s home page, meme has a pretty clean and slick feel and we hope its functions would live up to its package!

All searches increased by 5% in July but while all major search engines grew, Yahoo experienced the highest growth of 11%. It now takes up 17.1% of search share, up from 16.2% in June.

While the growth could be explained with the recent Yahoo buzz but what we want to know is, in whose expense?

Who else but Google? Its search share dropped by 1.3% to 64.8% in July. Bing’s share increased by 0.2% to hit 9% and together with Yahoo, takes up 26.1% of total search share.

Even with a loss of share, Google is still holding most of the search pie. Moreover, if it were the spotlight that is bringing Yahoo growth, how long would it last?

Google would soon be launching its new search engine, codenamed Caffeine. The spotlight would definitely move and we would expect the landscape to change once again. There never seem to be a day when the search world rests and that’s exciting for us.

2009 looks like a good year for Facebook.

Last month, we saw how Facebook successfully converted its traffic to revenue along with a good forecasted valuation.

More recently, it acquired FriendFeed and its talented team and introduced real-time search and Facebook Lite, which aims to penetrate into more countries.

To top that all off, July traffic statistic from Compete has been more than just great for Facebook. It shows signs that Facebook could be catching up with Google and Yahoo, possibly very soon.

Though overtaking these 2 giants could still take some time, it certainly has cemented Facebook’s leadership in the social media horizon. With Facebook Lite coming its way, Facebook would probably experience faster growth as it breaks into the densely populated China, India and Russia.

How about Twitter?

Though its growth has been remarkable this year, occasionally stealing limelight from Facebook, it is still pretty far behind the giants. After battling last week’s DDoS attack and facing the possible effect of Facebook’s acquisition of FriendFeed, CEO Evan Williams and his team are dealing with more challenges than ever.

What is more worrying is it has yet to convert its traffic to solid returns. So what now, Twitter?

Microsoft is probably the only hope left for Yahoo in terms of its losing search. By leveraging on Bing’s technology expertise and capital, Yahoo! will cut $200 million on its technology developments costs and on top of that, bring in $500 million annual operating income through search revenue sharing. This all makes sense as Bing will also enjoy 30% of the US search market share while playing to Yahoo!’s strength in selling advertising on both Yahoo! sites and Bing, through Microsoft’s AdCenter platform. This marriage is a win-win and best of all, gives Microsoft a better chance of taking Google down. It seems like Microsoft will never rest until it is rid of the thorn in its flesh.

It all comes down to one thing – Is Microsoft able to Bing Google down?

Even with Bing being number 2 in the search market, Google is still dominating with 65% share. Will Bing be able to nibble off Google’s big piece of pie? This all lies in the hands of the consumers. Wherever the consumers go, advertisers would follow. Bing can only win if consumers search their way from Google to Bing.

Steve Ballmer on the Deal

Carol Bartz on the Deal

Besides a new design and some rearrangements, new features were added. “My Favorites” section can be customized with a variety of widgets. With a little personalization, you can choose to view your Facebook activity from the Yahoo homepage or get timely news from your favorite news website such as New York Times.

Personally, I feel that Yahoo has gotten itself a cleaner and better design. It is also making efforts to integrate social media and email into the homepage; with the goal that it would be the only page you’d need to start the day. However, when you hover over the “My Favorites” tabs, it will result in distracting pop-ups that might frustrate some people. Moreover, I am also not sure if users would welcome some of the rearrangements, such as the new position found by “Popular Searches”.

From the feedback of many test users, the new Yahoo homepage is just a waste of time and many are asking for the old homepage back. I think users just got to adapt with changes because I do see some improvements from the old page and it’s definitely going to be more engaging and dynamic than before.

Users from other countries can preview and try out the new homepage here.