China Search Daily

Mr. Xie said good bye to the CEO position of Yahoo China recently. He was only there for about 40 days. Allen Wang, the one who picked the chinese name for Google, said good bye to his Google China position.

And Johnny Chou almost did the same things.

I felt like this was the farewell season for internet industry in China. Are they graduating from the position? I dont think so.

This is just a game. Players moved from one to the other, or from managers to entrepreneurs. Yes they all said so, they wanted to launch their own business.

Good idea, maybe good excuse.

Rumors about Softbank is going to be the financial backer for 13 leading ex-3721-resellers is not going to be just rumors.

That may come true.

Are they going to be the most aggressive reseller after the real merging? How about their existing business, some of them still related to yahoo china or other searchs.

That will be such a challenging thing to integrate the 13 businesses team at more than 13 cities. So as to integrate the HR and operation. Who will be the chief executive? Can he influence this new Giant with a strong mind and clear co-vision?

Although it may come true, still not clear enough regarding the future.

Internet Content Provider (ICP) license become more and more important in China.

Those global players need to reconsider their ICP issue, or start to apply for an independent one now.

Google China rented an ICP license before, Yahoo China still share an ICP license with 3721. MSN China benifited from its JVs license.

A new rule from the government came out recently, everyone needs an independent ICP license.

Google had already started it application precess.

Yahoo is the first global search engine player came to china. Some may regard Google as the second one into China.

That’s wrong. Mr. Jeeves came earlier than Google China. I met Mr. Jeeves this April at Hangzhou, the headquarter of Alibaba.

Yes, although the branding was only ASK then, but Mr. Jeeves still stood right there smiled to me.

According to the information from Mr. Jeeves Hangzhou office, they came to China at the early 2005. More than 200 employees have beening working there for nearly two years. We are expecting ASK and its service in chinese.

But when can we have ASK.com in chinese, or ASK.cn? I check the website ask.com, cant find the chinese; I check ask.cn, it seems the domain belongs to a chinese company.

When, why and what? Maybe I should ASK Mr. Jeeves again, if he still there.

Some Yahoo China resellers started to complaint.

After the Alibaba-Yahoo deal, real name business and CPC business for Yahoo China became one department, that was Jack Ma’s strategy for Yahoo. Which meant that there would be only one team and one reseller system for this two business. Jack even simplified the yahoo china’s homepage, cut all the portal elements, made it a pure search engine.

But now, Yahoo China back to a portal, just as the same as the Yahoo before deal. Jack’s search engine strategy went home.

Last week, the GM for Yahoo China SME resigned, He took care all the reseller channel management. Real name business and CPC business again back to the situation before the deal, that is each has it own reseller channel and managing team.

Yes, everything back to 1 years ago. The reform failed.

At May, three big resellers of yahoo gave Jack Ma emails. They tried to warn Jack that all their resell business for Yahoo were shrinking. They needed more channel support to win the market share back.

At the first six month of 2006, Hardly any reseller’s performanece reach their targets. That was unusual. The 3721 resellers used to be the most aggresive and fast developing group.

Alibaba should learn from this lesson. Search far more than B2B.

Who is the Number One at Chinese Search Engines market?
The answer is Baidu.

Where is Google China?
Google is the third, right after Yahoo.

Why Yahoo search is the Second?
They still relied on the real name (3721) business. The search performance for them is not as strong as the position indicates.

According to the report of Analysys International, at 1 quater of 2006, Baidu’s market share was 43.9%, Yahoo China was 21.10%, Google China 13.20%. The total market scale for chinese search engine is 303 million RMB, 175 million RMB of which is from CPC, 9 million RMB from  search AD ( fixed ranking ), 120 million RMB from real name search.

Although the real name search still has a big share, their performance is shrinking. Chinese real name search is not a long-term products. The advertisers are losing their interests at Real Name search. According to the two main real name search player, Yahoo China’s 3721 and Zhongsou, their revenue growth is negative now.

Google should speed up its localization. I can see many chinese googlers have international company working experience. They are more global than local.

Take Yahoo China for example, before the Alibaba deal with Yahoo. Leaded by Mr Chou, Yahoo China is very local and aggressive.

Google should find a person like Mr Chou, the former Yahoo China CEO, founder of 3721.