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)

South Korea is extremely digitally advanced, and has often been ahead of the western world in terms of internet development. 95% of homes have broadband access, and the country was one of the first to receive TV via the internet.

The report found that Google accounts for less than 5% of the search engine market share in South Korea, and it’s local search engines Naver and Daum which hold 77% and 11% respectively.

PPC and paid advertising are hugely prevalent in South Korea, in fact the report states that ‘natural search plays little or no role in this market’, and SEO is more about social media saturation than content or link-building as it is on Google.

Social networks are big news in South Korea. CyWorld is the most popular, with over 90% of adults having accounts. As in China, Facebook and Twitter are barely heard of, and local social network sites and online communities are far more popular. Virtual goods have managed to generate a lot of revenue for social networking sites, and users can buy ‘add-ons’ for their social networking profiles. It is here that social networks are seen as more successful than those in the West in terms of financial gain. CyWorld is a very popular advertising platform, and brands engage users by including interactive advertisements.

http://www.netimperative.com/news/2010/june/south-korea-search-market-review-a-nation-of-web/

Greig, an expert in the field of multilingual SEO, PPC and cultural multivariate, will be discussing international SEO case studies of some of our biggest clients such as Aviva, P&G and Discover America.

The details of the talk are as follows:

Day One: 29^th June 2010

16.00 – 16.30

International SEO PPC, Social Media & Cultural Multivariate: What’s hot in 2010

To find out more about the show, please visit:

http://www.onlinemarketingshow.co.uk/presentationarenasDMA.aspx

The study, which looked into business and leisure travel trends, was conducted in partnership with Travelport, and covered 12 different countries, with a minimum of 1000 respondents in each.

India and Hong Kong followed China in researching business travel via social networks. In comparison,  results showed that people from the USA and UK were less inclined to use social networks to formulate business travel plans.

For leisure plans,China ranked third in researching on social networking sites.

China has the highest rate of internet users in the world, the number currently stands at around 400 million. In terms of percentages, social network usage is seemingly moderate at 35%, however, considering the number of internet users in China, the number actually stands at around 140 million.  That number is expected to more than triple in the next five years.

A survey last year found that about 20% of Chinese tourists look for travel reviews on social-networking sites. Thirty million Chinese people booked travel online last year—80% more than in 2008.

By Anna Pearce

Here’s an atlas displaying some of the most popular social networking sites around the world:

As with most local search engines, Yandex prefers locally hosted websites in the Russian language. Foreign websites are rarely shown in the first page rankings, and Yandex have stated that Russian web users prefer sites locally relevant and in Cyrillic script.

However, some users may be looking for something which is particular to another country, or which another country may be able to provide better information on, for example, if a Russian were searching for ‘hotels in London’, a UK website on holiday accommodation is more likely to be of use.

Now, when the global search filter is enabled, yandex.ru will display only the results from other countries. Latin script based enquiries account for 12-15% of all searches on Yandex, but Yandex also understand that just because people may be searching in English (for example) this may not mean they are after an English website. If someone were to search for the term ‘Apple iPhone’, as the gadget is known universally, they may still be looking for a site which sells it in Russia. Therefore, Yandex allows users to choose whether to view local search results or foreign results.

Whether or not Yandex are hoping to take on Google with their global search options is debatable, however the move certainly provides Russian web users with more choice when searching.

By Anna Pearce.