195M Young Chinese Netizens Spend Time Online On Music, Games, Video

According to the annual China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) report “2009 Report on the Behavior of China’s Young Internet Users”, the number of young Chinese Internet users — those who are younger than 25 — rose almost 17 percent to 195 million from the end of 2008 to 2009. In addition, this group accounts for 51 percent of all Internet users in China. There’s also a 24 percent increase in mobile phone usage to access the Web; currently, 74 percent of these youngsters access the Web through phones.

Young Chinese Internet users spend lots of time on gaming. Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/randomwire/

More highlights from the CNNIC survey:

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• Internet penetration for China’s young population now stands at 54.5 percent.

Baidu Hacked by “Iranian Cyber Army”

China’s top search engine has been hacked Tuesday by alleged members of a pro-Iranian government group, according to state media.

The group which identifies itself as “Iranian Cyber Army” has replaced the immaculate white homepage of Baidu with a dark motif, map of the Middle East, blood-red text in English and Farsi and Iranian flag. The English text read “This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army” and the Farsi message was translated as “In reaction to the US authorities’ intervention in Iran’s internal affairs. This is a warning”.

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SEO Trends and Predictions for 2010

A customary way to review the past year is to summarize its highlights and milestones. To enter the new one is to anticipate things to happen and lay out predictions. This one’s no different. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has always been an ever evolving industry whose methodologies are moving targets. Needless to say it is very important to be updated with what’s new and discard what’s old and irrelevant.

SEO trends we expect for the year are previously termed as “immature” or “promising”. The future is now, hence these SEO trends and predictions for the year.

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Hong Kong Internet Usage Stats in 2009

Yahoo! sites and instant messaging are winners, according to Comscore’s first Web report on Hong Kong.

Most visited web property: Yahoo! reigns
Last August, Yahoo! Sites are most visited by 3.92 million Hong Kong Internet users. Various Yahoo! web properties include Yahoo! Blog, the Yahoo! portal, Finance and Auctions.

This is definitely good news for Yahoo! on two fronts: a) Yahoo! still has solid fan base in the city with strong loyalty b) Hong Kong users are relatively affluent in the region, which is a very good thing when talking about turning loyalty into business.

Most popular online activity: Instant Messaging
Hong Kong people spend most of their time on instant messenger, accounting for nearly 16% of their whole time online.

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Bing Go: Bing Improves Its Search Engine Market Share

Microsoft search engine Bing has grown in popularity and this translated to increased volume of search queries and search engine market share as of August 2009. Bing increased its market share by 22.1 per cent month-over-month in August, making it the fastest growing search provider among the top 10.

When I had my seminar a few weeks ago, someone asked what will be Bing’s impact on search engine landscape. My reply was that unlike Bing’s predecessors MSN Search and Live Search, Bing’s search results are more accurate and provide more options to users. It means Bing is a legitimate alternative to the dominant Google search.

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