The rise is online sales marks the recovery of the financial crisis, and the unpredicted high growth rate is the fastest it has been since 2007.

The travel sector was the most profitable online purchase sector, up by one third compared to June 2010 and 18% on July 2009, which the IMRG have related to the Brits wanting to escape the dreary weather for hotter climates.

The clothing and accessories sector saw the biggest rate in growth, jumping up by 64% since 2009, and alcohol sales rose by 22% year on year; however they had dropped since June caused apparently by England’s unsuccessful World Cup attempt.

“It is really encouraging to see growth levels returning to those seen pre-2007 and before consumer confidence was knocked by the financial crisis and the recession.” said Chris Webster, the head of retail consulting and technology Capgemini, which publishes the online sales index with IMRG.

The @uriminzok account (translating to a shorter version of the term ‘our people’) already has nearly 9,000 followers, and comes after last month’s launch of the North Korean Youtube channel.

Unsurprisingly, the social media platforms are being used to launch propaganda, and in one Tweet the South Korean government were referred to as ‘a prostitute’ for the US, and in some of the eighty Youtube videos the US and South Korea are called ‘war mongers’.

South Korea have already tried to ban the Twitter feed from their Northern nemesis, and the South’s Unification Ministry has warned local web users of possible punishment for seeking to “reply” and “retweet” on the Twitter page.

At the moment the Tweets are only in Korean, as are the Youtube videos, however it’s believed that the government may start communicating in English in order to get their message across.

The global Twitter audience has more than doubled in the past year, with 93 million people visiting the site in June 2010 (excluding visits via Twitter applications), 109% more than in 2009. The site experienced strong growth across all regions.

Indonesia was top of the list with a reported 20.8% of internet users visiting Twitter that month. Brazil followed with 20.5%, and Venezuela with 19%. The success in Venezuela has been attributed to the fact that the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez joined the social network in April.

Out of the five major global regions analysed, Latin America experienced the biggest growth in Twitter usage, growing 305% since 2009. In Europe Twitter usage grew by 106% to 22.5 million visitors. In North America, usage went up 22% to nearly 25 million visitors in June.

Here is a list of the top twenty Tweeting countries in terms of reach:

At the moment Baidu holds a vast proportion of the search market share in China, and also operates in Japan, although Baidu Japan is nowhere near as successful as its Chinese counterpart, and is reportedly losing revenue for the company. How Baidu would compete on international territory against the Google’s and Microsoft’s of the world is something yet to be seen.

Robin Li also spoke of Google’s highly publicised move away from the Chinese search market and the effect it had on Baidu.  Being sure to point out that Baidu held a large majority share before the Google re-direct, he spoke positively of the publicity surrounding Google in China, and how it highlighted the importance of search to marketers and advertisers.

The ‘Firewall’ issue was also covered, with Li speaking of the financial consequences for Baidu. The search engine has a strict screening and editing procedure in order to ensure any un-censored web content doesn’t filter through into search results.

Finally, Mr Li left internet buffs with a cliff hanger by speaking of Baidu’s ‘revolutionary’ new product; however he gave little more away. Li refused to expand on the topic, and didn’t hint at whether it was a browser or mobile operating system when asked, but he did leave plenty of room for speculation.

Any ideas as to what Baidu’s mystery product is? Answers on a postcard please!

Akamai Technologies Inc. revealed how different countries across the globe compare in terms of internet speeds, based on data collected on vast amounts of internet traffic from across the globe.

The city with the fastest average internet speeds was (unsurprisingly) Masan in South Korea.

Unlike most countries which have gotten faster in terms of internet speed, the UK dropped from 23^rd place to 27^th out of the 201 countries analysed since Akamai’s last report, with an average speed of 3.8 Mbps. Ofcom had previously predicted the UK to have an average of 5.2 Mbps.

In South Korea, super-fast broadband is available; however it is often too expensive for the average household to afford. 100 Mbps broadband can cost hundreds of dollars per month. The average maximum speed in South Korea stands at 33 Mbps.

The countries with the highest average internet speeds are:

South Korea 12Mbps

Hong Kong 9Mbps

Japan 7.8Mbps

Romania 6.3Mbps

Latvia 6.3Mbps

Sweden 6.1Mbps

Netherlands 5.9Mbps

Czech Republic 5.4Mbps

Denmark 5.3Mbps

Switzerland 5.2Mbps

In terms of cities with the fastest broadband connections, more than half of the top 100 cities were in Japan. Out of the top twenty, Umea in Sweden was the only city which wasn’t in South Korea or Japan.

Not one UK city made it in to the top 100.

The move shuns a deal made last year which saw Microsoft agree to provide Yahoo Inc with search engine technology. The agreement didn’t include Yahoo Japan, of which only 35% is owned by Yahoo! Inc. In turn, Yahoo Japan were free to choose between Google, MS and domestic search engine providers.

Yahoo Japan will also be using Google’s paid advertising system in the move, which is set to take place by the end of this year.

According to Yahoo Japan, they currently hold around 57% of the market share in Japan, and Google controls around 38%.  By joining forces the two will hold a near monopoly in the search engine market in Japan. Microsoft holds a mere 3% share.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10773532

96% of the Finnish population already has access to the internet. The new law will mean internet providers will be expected to fit Finnish households who aren’t already connected with broadband lines. Before the law was implemented, certain parts of Finland were restricted in terms of internet access. Now more rural parts of the country will be able to experience the same kind of connection speeds that the other parts of Finland already has.

The view that fast internet is a necessity for everyday life is shared by other nations too; in fact the USA is the only industrialised country which doesn’t have a policy to promote high speed internet access to all of its citizens. The British government has made a promise (though not a law) to supply all homes with connections speeds of 2Mbps by 2012.

OBAN Multilingual have been at the forefront of multilingual search strategies for over almost a decade, and have worked with a vast range of prestigious clients in researching and developing SEO and SEM strategies on an international platform. Now they have decided to share their findings and knowledge with the rest of the world.

The ‘International SEO News’ channel delves into the World Wide Web, looking at how the internet and search varies from place to place, and provides valuable and thought-led insight into cultural differences and search engine marketing.

“We carry out extensive research into internet trends and search in a number of different markets, and we often discover some interesting and unexpected facts and figures, the sort of things we wouldn’t want to keep to ourselves. Our short videos cover some of these findings, as well as some general multilingual SEO tips.” says Greig Holbrook, MD, OBAN Multilingual Strategies.

There are currently three films on the channel, the first providing some valuable insight into international SEO from Greig, the second covering SEO in China, and the third Russia. OBAN plan to release several more over the coming months, with each covering a different market.

The videos can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/user/InternationalSEONews.

Paul’s lucky talent was first realised during the 2008 Euro Championships when four out of his six predictions were correct. He has been predicting match results ever since, and his knack for predicting match outcomes made him into a star in Germany.

However, as we have seen many times before, fame always comes at a price. After Paul correctly predicted that Germany would beat Argentina in the quarter final, Argentinean fans threatened to kill and eat him, and since Spain’s victory over Germany on Wednesday, another outcome predicted by Paul, even the German’s have suggested Paul be turned into a tasty meal.

A Hitwise Intelligence report has found that the term ‘octopus world cup’ was one of the top ten ‘octopus’ related search terms for the 4 weeks leading up to July 3, 2010, and this is no doubt set to rise hugely since Wednesday’s match.

15-24 year olds were the most engaged, consuming an average of 192 videos per viewer and overall watching an average of 15 hours of online footage each. Surprisingly, people aged 55 and over also demonstrated heavy engagement with online videos, averaging at 12 videos each over the month.

Internet users aged 25-44 represented the highest number of unique online video watchers, however they spend less time viewing them and watch fewer videos on average compared to the higher and lower age brackets.

Online videos are one of the most popular forms of online entertainment  in Singapore. In April 320 million videos were watched there. Google sites ranked as the top video hosting service and represented 63.8% of the videos watched online. Youtube.com accounted for 99% of these. Facebook and Tudou ranked a far second and third.

(comScore, June 2010)