Google Street View comes to HK
A few minutes ago, just above Lan Kwai Fung, I spotted a silver Prius with an odd contraption on the roof and Google stickers on the door. Looks like Google Street View will be coming soon to Hong Kong.
I took great pleasure in photographing the Google Street View car, which was presumably photographing me.
Perhaps I should have run alongside the car to get in as many shots as possible.
Google Suggest across 9 languages
Do Google’s search suggestions vary by country and language?
Blogger Akky Akimoto compiled the above table suggested by Google across 9 languages when you type in a single letter. (See Akky’s blog for a more readable version)
A - Amusing examples
“a” - “Amazon” in English, German, Italian and Korean. In French, however, it suggests “ANPE”, the unemployment agency.
“b” - “bebo” in English, German and Italian, but “baidu” in simplified Chinese.
“m” - “myspace” in English, German and Italian. In Japanese, however, social network “mixi”.
B - Biggest winners
“facebook” turns up for “f” in 6 languages (the other 3 turn up “firefox”)
“hotmail” turns up for “h” in 7 languages (All apart from simplified Chinese and Russian)
“Wiki” or “Wikipedia” turns up in 7 languages. (In China, where Wikipedia is banned, the suggestion for “w” is Google rival Baidu. In Russia you get mail.ru)
C- Caveats
1 - English, German and Italian are identical. I don’t think Germans and Italians who type “v” are looking for “Verizon Wireless”!
2 - In China, Japan, Korea and Russia, Google is not the market leading search engine and many users would not use the roman alphabet.
Any other thoughts on this table of results?
New Google dictionary defines China as Taiwan
In testing out the new dictionary feature, I found that Google’s definition of “China” is “Taiwan”.
Chiang Kai-Shek would pleased!
Preston Lau: Update on YouTube
Preston Lau, General Manager of Google in Hong Kong presented an update on YouTube at the Broadband World Forum Asia 2008.
- YouTube’s biggest categories: Humor (75%), Music (54%) News (46%). (I think these numbers add up to more than 100 percent because you can select more than one category per video.)
- Two thirds of Google traffic is non-US. Age distribution is fairly evenly, until 55 yrs old when use drops off.
- Only 50 percent of YouTube viewers watch to end of video.
- One third of people leaving a movie say they searched for the movie they just saw. 61 percent used Google and 60 percent said their decision was affected by what they found. (Presume this is a US Survey)
- One of Hong Kong’s most successful YouTube channels, run by TV station TVB, has built-in interactivity. Users request uploads of programs via video and receive responses from staff. TVB’s YouTube channel has become one of the top YouTube channels in Hong Kong. (Congrats to Ivy Wong!)
- Hong Kong, population roughly seven million, is one of the world’s top five in the world for YouTube - in absolute terms - for uploading and viewing videos.
- YouTube’s API has inspired a number of interesting features, including the Apple iPhone’s ability to browse YouTube’s video library and allowing gamers on Sony Playstation to share their in-game experiences. YouTube pets (pictured above) is another cool application of the YouTube API.
Preston faced repeated questions from the audience at Broadband World Forum to explain YouTube’s business model.
Questions included: How will YouTube make money? Since YouTube consumes so much bandwidth from ISPs and soon from mobile phone companies, shouldn’t YouTube pay its own way?
Preston gave a lengthy answer that did not appear to satisfy the audience.
A fellow panelist, Chris Lau of SmarTone-Vodafone, stepped in: “To answer your question: Nobody knows where the money will come from, but the money does have to come from somewhere.”
Another panelist, Jeffrey Soong of Broadband Network Systems offered an interesting riff about online advertising:
Advertisers are not yet spending the amounts that the digital world deserves, but when they do decide to spend, there are actually few places for them to go.
Even those agencies spending money online prefer to be associated with branded content, rather than the rough and tumble of user generated content.
One solution is the Mullet approach developed by MySpace: For the wary executives you make a sober opening page, like the short hair in the front of a Mullet haircut. In the back, you have the long hair where real users go.
Preston Lau
Preston Lau is the general manager for Google in Hong Kong, responsible for sales and business development as well as team and operation oversight in Hong Kong.
Prior to his current position, Lau led Google’s strategic partnership development in the region, establishing relationships with telecom operators and mobile manufacturers - including Hutchison and HTC - as well as content developers to beef up Google’s service offerings around videos, maps, and finance.
Before joining Google, Lau held regional sales and business development roles at technology firms including Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, and Alcatel.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and his master’s degree in business administration at the Santa Clara University.
Paul Ginocchio: Should Newspapers and Dotcoms flirt or marry?
Spoke with Paul Ginocchio of Deutsche Bank, one of the few remaining newspaper stock analysts in the United States, about newspapers and dotcoms on the sidelines of IFRA’s Publish Asia 2008 conference in Macau.Newspapers have traditional strengths- Content: Highest quality and most robust local news and information (by far)- Brand: Almost always the strongest local media brand by a wide margin- Sales: Large local advertising sales force- Cash Flow: Legacy print business still produces cash flow that is significant compared to most online businessesbut also weaknesses.- National: Newspapers are local, which creates issues when bought nationally- Online Traffic: Not good at driving pageviews, industry struggling to create inventory- Technology: Much smaller IT staffs and less digital experience- Culture: Legacy monopoly print culture makes for slower change (US v. UK/Canada)An alliance with a pure online company could help a newspaper overcome some weaknesses- Partner with market leader- Better technology- Strong online brandbut also has inherent dangers for the newspaper.- Potentially diverging interests over time- Signifinant value accretes to online partners (brand building, consumer usage)- Relying on outside companyExamples of alliances:- HotJobs, Monster- Yahoo! Newspaper consortium: Ad platform- Google Print Ads- ZillowAlternately, purchasing a dotcom offers the newspaper some advantages- Total control- Most value accretes to owner- Owner gets product or services fully subsidized by other affiliatesbut full ownership can be onerous.- Clients have not long-term commitment to product, typical client/vendor relationship- Potentially harder to sell product, leading to lower network effectsExamples outright ownership:- Discovery Planet (Gannet’s white label local search business)- RealCities (ad platform/rep firm launched by Knight Ridder)- Town News (Website infrastructure outsourcing owned by Lee Enterprises)What guidelines for newspapers?- Newspapers should focus on what they do best and outsource or partner for the rest- Don’t try to compete via technology, win through brand and content- Local sales is a strength, national sales and self-service is likely a weaknessThe real danger for newspapers:- Building the brand and usage of your online partners (Zillow, HotJobs)- A newspaper’s legacy culture got in the way of partnerships for too long, ceding much of the first mover advantage to online pure-players.- Culture and language of old and new media companies are too wide to bridge.
Link up:
My newspaper articles:
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