Major Chinese portal Sina has signed a partnership deal with Google, according to MarketWatch.com. Google will provide a search box on the Sina pages, while Sina will provide Chinese news to Google.

The partnership has been the topic of discussion for [...]]]> Major Chinese portal Sina has signed a partnership deal with Google, according to MarketWatch.com. Google will provide a search box on the Sina pages, while Sina will provide Chinese news to Google.

The partnership has been the topic of discussion for over a month, with BusinessWeek suggesting Google could be looking to buy Sina.

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I just found the Google multilingual search tool.

It is a good starting point, but remember to try a keyword suggestion tool to find the words that may actually be used. Looking at what the local sites are using for [...]]]> I just found the Google multilingual search tool.

It is a good starting point, but remember to try a keyword suggestion tool to find the words that may actually be used. Looking at what the local sites are using for keywords is a good start.

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Once again the fear of freedom has pushed the Chinese government to censorship. This time blogs are the target.

According to Reuters, “the director of China’s General Administration of Press and Publication, Long Xinmin, said the administration was forming rules [...]]]> Once again the fear of freedom has pushed the Chinese government to censorship. This time blogs are the target.

According to Reuters, “the director of China’s General Administration of Press and Publication, Long Xinmin, said the administration was forming rules to further regulate Internet publishing, including the country’s legions of bloggers.”

Over the past four years blogs in China have grown from just over a million to more than 34 million.

Funny how everyone thought it would be consumerism that would be the undoing of communism – and to a point that is true of Germany and the Berlin Wall – but in the case of China it looks like a true desire for freedom – especially freedom of expression – that could be the impetus for the downfall of last bastion of Marxist philosophy.

The bloggers are not writing about other cultures – they are talking about life, business and ideas in their own country.

I think Mao would have skipped the book and written the Little Red Blog.

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MSN China has announced it will roll out a job search engine.

Company spokesperson Richard Feng said “we are going to offer a job-hunting service in the next few months”.

The online job market in China last year was 1.15 billion yen, [...]]]> MSN China has announced it will roll out a job search engine.

Company spokesperson Richard Feng said “we are going to offer a job-hunting service in the next few months”.

The online job market in China last year was 1.15 billion yen, according to iResearch.

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Red Herring reports that Google is using Seedfund.com to spread start up funds to new tech companies in India.

The article can be found here.

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MSN has partnered with Chinese-based travel agency, ctrip.com. The two will market to the young and affluent Chinese market, according to a report at Adotas.com.

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Just four months after its redesign ByIndia.com has been recognised as the most used Indian search engine. Alexa noted a 700% increase in traffic since the redesign which incorporated many web 2.0 styles.

To continue the growth and viral impact [...]]]> Just four months after its redesign ByIndia.com has been recognised as the most used Indian search engine. Alexa noted a 700% increase in traffic since the redesign which incorporated many web 2.0 styles.

To continue the growth and viral impact the company plans a $5 million sweepstake promotion.

“We provide the Indian community with a one-stop shop that has all the functionality of a lot of other sites like MySpace.com, Blogger.com, YouTube.com, and eBay.com,” said Bill Mobley, CEO of Web2Corp that owns ByIndia.com.

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According to a report by Adotas, Rakuten – one of the largest Japanese online malls – plans to expand into the United Staes, Europe and China.

The company already owns US affiliate portal LinkShare which should help them in their [...]]]> According to a report by Adotas, Rakuten – one of the largest Japanese online malls – plans to expand into the United Staes, Europe and China.

The company already owns US affiliate portal LinkShare which should help them in their efforts.

Interestingly, Rakuten president Hiroshi Mikitani said one of the reasons for expansion was due to the shrinking Japanese market. He expects the number of online shoppers in Japan to begin decreasing due to the country’s low fertility rate, he told the Kyodo News.

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The Business Standard of India reported that Yahoo! was opening a research lab in Bangalore, India.

Yahoo is also starting their “Big Thinkers” lectures in India in January 2007.

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The Australian Federal Court ruled against a web site that provided links to illegal download sites and the ISP that provided hosting for the site.

The Associated Press reported the court’s ruling could have impact on search engines like Google, [...]]]> The Australian Federal Court ruled against a web site that provided links to illegal download sites and the ISP that provided hosting for the site.

The Associated Press reported the court’s ruling could have impact on search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

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Indian search engine Guruji announced it will now power India One.
India One is a news portal, while Guruji is an Indian search engine started in this past October.

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People’s Daily Online has reported that Baidu is launching a blog search engine.
Just under 20 million people use blogs in the Chinese language.

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Seems the Koreans do not like people making money from selling online gaming currencies to other gamers.

An IT Week article details this and says that as much as $900 million is being spent on this in Korea. That is [...]]]> Seems the Koreans do not like people making money from selling online gaming currencies to other gamers.

An IT Week article details this and says that as much as $900 million is being spent on this in Korea. That is one hell of a market! Makes one want to start playing pong again.

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An article on the ABC Australia website details Google’s view of the Australian market.
Basically they see a lot of growth potential as the media spend is below 10% of total ad spend.
Should be a major push to [...]]]> An article on the ABC Australia website details Google’s view of the Australian market.
Basically they see a lot of growth potential as the media spend is below 10% of total ad spend.
Should be a major push to develop Australian advertisers soon.

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Seems the Japanese are pushing copyright violations against YouTube in an effort to have them pull thousands of videos from the site. According to an article in Adotas, YouTube removed about 30,000 videos at the request of [...]]]> Seems the Japanese are pushing copyright violations against YouTube in an effort to have them pull thousands of videos from the site. According to an article in Adotas, YouTube removed about 30,000 videos at the request of the the Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC).

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An article in the TimesOnline suggested the EU was trying to start requiring video bloggers to be regualted just like any other broadcast media.

How they could police this will be the challenge. If the US cannot stop gambling sites [...]]]> An article in the TimesOnline suggested the EU was trying to start requiring video bloggers to be regualted just like any other broadcast media.

How they could police this will be the challenge. If the US cannot stop gambling sites I don’t see the EU stopping bloggers.

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According to the TimesOfIndia, Google is having problems finding the right employees in India.

Middle management seems to be an area Google has troubles finding suitable employees in the India area.

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It seems Rupert Murdoch – owner of Fox Media and MySpace – plans on launching a Chinese version of MySpace. If it is half as popular there then I think we will se MySpace as the number one visitied site [...]]]> It seems Rupert Murdoch – owner of Fox Media and MySpace – plans on launching a Chinese version of MySpace. If it is half as popular there then I think we will se MySpace as the number one visitied site on the web.

The growth of this site has been amazing.

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The newspapers in Australia are covering a developing story about laws being started to regulate adult content for mobile phones.

Though not strictly search, this restriction can have consequences to other industries on the web. Censorship needs to be regulated more [...]]]> The newspapers in Australia are covering a developing story about laws being started to regulate adult content for mobile phones.

Though not strictly search, this restriction can have consequences to other industries on the web. Censorship needs to be regulated more than the people they also seek to limit. Unfortunately Australia does not have a Bill of Rights so laws such as these have to be watched because they cannot be directly challenged.

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Seems the censorship problems in China have extended to the two largest Chinese portals: Sina and Sohu.

Adotas reports that the search engines at both have temporarily been suspended.

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