Tencent Makes Investments to Rival Alibaba and Ebay

From ChinaKnowledge:

"Tencent Holdings Ltd., China’s biggest online chat-service provider, plans to invest RMB 100 million to develop internet services as it competes with Alibaba.com and eBay. It aims to increase revenue by selling more services to its QQ Internet messenger users, and hopes that the new technologies help it win market share from the two internet giants.

The firm will set up an Internet research institute, the first of its kind in China, with centers in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen that will work with universities to develop technologies."

Oak Buys China’s Facebook

From Red Herring:


"Consolidation on the highly fragmented Chinese Web 2.0 scene took a step forward when Oak Pacific Interactive (OPI), a Chinese Internet consortium, said Tuesday it had acquired Beijing-based Xiaonei.com China’s leading collegiate social-networking site.

Xiaonei, which means “on campus,” will merge with OPI’s own collegiate social network site, 5Q. The combined entity will take its place beside other OPI properties, including the entertainment portal Mop.com, news site DoNews.com, YouTube clone UUMe.com, and classified ads provider RenRen.com."

Compare Search Results: Yahoo China vs. Baidu

From China Web2.0 Review:

"Yahoo China vs. Baidu: Yahoo China launched an interesting campaign to promote its search service. Yahoo China presents both the search results from Yahoo China and Baidu in the same screen for users to choose which one is the results from Yahoo. Users are allowed to input any keyword for comparison. I tried it and I have to admit that it is not easy for me to differentiate their results."

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Baidu's Chief Technology Officer Resigns

From Reuters:

"Technology veteran Jerry Liu, who helped develop China's Internet search firm Baidu.com Inc. into a Nasdaq hot stock from a start-up, may be considering launching his own business.

Liu's resignation from the company dubbed "China's Google", effective Dec. 19, was "not a huge surprise", said Lesley Zhang, senior manager of Baidu's investor relations department."

" Baidu said in a statement late on Tuesday that Liu, who was Baidu's first employee and had been the company's vice president of engineering since January 2000 before becoming CTO at the beginning of 2006, resigned for "personal reasons"."

China Eases Ban On Wikipedia

From All Headline News:

"After a nearly yearlong ban, China has eased restrictions on the access to the English-language site of Wikipedia, the reader-edited online encyclopedia. However, the access to the Chinese version of the site remains "spotty," a Chinese-American researcher said in his blog this week.

Andrew Lih, who has worked at Columbia University and Hong Kong University, said that Beijing authorities began opening up access October 10, and that access "is not uniform across the country, and depends on specific municipality and ISP (Internet service provider)."

Citing two Chinese contributors, Wikipedia on its Website confirmed the news but said that Chinese version of the online encyclopedia remains inaccessible."

Lenovo Scores NBA Deal

From internetnews.com:

"Building on its sponsorship of the Olympics, Lenovo will trumpet another sports marketing link when it announces a major deal with the National Basketball Association.

The multi-year global marketing partnership is scheduled to be made official at an event in New York on Monday at the NBA Store, according to a Lenovo press release obtained by internetnews.com ahead of time."

3G Nears Reality in China

From Unstrung:

"China is nearing completion of trials of its homegrown 3G networking technology, and carrier licenses for "TD-SCDMA" networks could be issued as soon as the end of the year, according to reports this week.

That would be long-awaited news for Western telecom equipment makers who have placed big bets, in the form of partnerships with mainland operators and suppliers, on the 3G rollout in the People's Republic. It would also mean that, in some form, the new 3G services could still be ready in time for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, on August 8, 2008."

China Gears up for Mobile TV Bonanza

From IT Week:

"More than 22 million people in China will be watching TV broadcasts on mobile devices within four years, according to a new forecast published this week.

Mobile TV broadcasting in China is currently in its infancy, at fewer than one million viewers, Beijing-based research consultancy Analysys International reported."

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China's Internet Mess

From Newsweek:

"... the lawsuit underscores the murky nature of the Internet in China, where search-engine companies, in an effort to grab a slice of the Internet advertising pie, resort to tactics that would not be tolerated in the West. In particular, Baidu and Yahoo, two of the biggest search firms in China, are accused in lawsuits of routinely using spyware—a type of software that installs itself surreptitiously on users' PCs—as a way to drive users to their sites.

Although spyware is not illegal in China, its rampant use has turned Web surfing into a supremely frustrating experience. And because spyware is associated with illegal activities like identity theft in addition to the merely annoying pop-up ads, it may be undermining consumer confidence in the Web."

MTV, Baidu.com to Offer Videos in China

From New York Times:

"Viacom said on Tuesday that it had struck a deal to provide television and music video content to Baidu, one of China’s biggest and fastest-growing Internet companies.

The alliance between Viacom’s MTV Networks and Baidu.com, one of the world’s most heavily trafficked Web sites, is the biggest effort so far to introduce American television and entertainment content and programming into China."

Google China Ditches Guge Logo

From Search Engine Journal:

"Google China has ditched their Guge logo and retracted to their well known “Google” logo. ... Google launched Google.cn in April 2006 and called it Guge, meaning Harvest Song. The Chinese Google version is officially sanctioned by the Chinese government as can be seen by the ICP license it carries on the homepage. Searches on Google.cn are censored for terms deemed “sensitive”."

Related:
Google's China Problem
Google's Market Share Declining more than 10% in China
Google's China Office Unveiled

Huawei Signs Up Former BT Guru

From Light Reading:

"Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. has scored something of a coup by signing up former BT Group plc group technology officer Mick Reeve as an advisor and public representative.

Reeve, who retired from BT in May this year, was one of the British carrier's best known and most respected executives, with a wealth of knowledge and experience of network infrastructure and OSS. He has also been an influential mover and shaker in industry standards bodies such as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and TeleManagement Forum."