Archive for February, 2007
But Chinese Web search leader says it expects less sales growth early in 2007
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — Chinese Web search leader Baidu said on Wednesday quarterly net profits quintupled, but stepped up investments and the impact of a late New Year’s holiday season will cut sales growth early in 2007.
Revenue, mostly from online advertising, rose 136 percent to 271.3 million yuan, or $34.8 million, in the fourth quarter, slightly above analysts’ average forecast of $34.6 million.
The Beijing-based company, known to investors as “China’s Google,” expected first-quarter revenue of $34 million to $35 million - growth of 95 percent to 103 percent.
Analysts were looking for $36.6 million to $39.4 million, according to Reuters Estimates.
Baidu Chief Financial Officer Shawn Wang said in a statement the company is making progress developing a Japanese language Web search technology, but it will need to invest in coming quarters to increase technical capacity.
“In the quarters ahead we will continue to make investments in technology, network capacity and physical infrastructure that position us for long-term growth,” Wang said.
Fourth-quarter net income for the Beijing-based company rose to 122.8 million yuan (US$15.7 million), or 3.54 yuan (45 cents) per diluted share, compared with the year-earlier quarter’s 24.5 million yuan, or 0.71 yuan per diluted share.
Excluding stock option expenses, the latest quarter profit amounted 3.75 yuan to 48 cents per share.
The net profit compared with analysts’ consensus forecast of $11.1 million in profits, or 32 cents per share, according to Reuters Estimates. Excluding stock-based compensation and one-time items, the analysts’ consensus was 36 cents a share.
The company was expected by analysts to produce fourth- quarter revenue in a range from $33 million to $35.2 million, according to Reuters Estimates.
Online marketing revenue was $34.6 million, a 141.4 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2005, fueled by overall audience growth and increased spending by existing advertising customers. Baidu counts 108,000 advertisers, which is up 5.9 percent from the third quarter of 2006.
Baidu’s results benefited from its growing audience for services beyond core Web search, including online news and blog search services and a user-submitted question-and-answer site.
Baidu recently won approval to become an online news provider giving it an edge in terms of exclusive content over Western rivals such as Google (Charts) or Yahoo (Charts) in the second largest Internet market after the United States.
Baidu controlled 62 percent of China’s Web search market near the end of 2006, according to China Internet Network Information Center. The state agency said Google had only 25 percent of the market, losing 8 percentage points in a year.
“The results are essentially what we expected,” Silicon Valley-based analyst Safa Rashtchy of brokerage Piper Jaffray said.
The lowered outlook for the current quarter reflects increased spending on its Japanese search technology and the unusually late timing of the New Year holiday season in late February, instead of late January or early February, he said.
This means companies such as Baidu have only the month of March to recover from the slowdown in Chinese society that normally occurs ahead of the holiday, Rashtchy said.
“This is affecting all of the Chinese Internet companies, including Focus Media,” he said.
Baidu.com (Charts) shares rose 1.5 percent, to close at $115 on Nasdaq ahead of the report. Following the results, which came after regular session trading finished, the stock fell as much as $7 before recovering to trade up at $116.30, after-hours.
ookSmart LOOK (ASX:LOK), an online advertising company, announced today that Ask.com, a leading search engine and wholly-owned business of IAC, has extended its license of LookSmart’s AdCenter for Publishers through 2009. Ask.com leverages LookSmart’s AdCenter as a component of its Ask Sponsored Listings PPC advertising program. Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL) is an automated open-auction system that allows search marketers to purchase, manage and optimize campaigns on Ask.com and its publisher network. Offered through IAC Advertising Solutions, ASL processes more than five billion queries each month, and supports over 30,000 advertisers bidding on more than 10 million keywords.”We’re focused on delivering results for our advertisers and AdCenter is one component of our overall strategy,” said James Speer, vice president of search marketing products at IAC Advertising Solutions.
"The AdCenter provides Ask.com a solid platform to grow and service its advertiser base and revenue in a cost-effective manner," said David Hills, CEO of LookSmart. "We're proud to be associated with their success."
LookSmart's AdCenter for Publishers is designed for all types of online media companies, providing an auction platform, algorithmic ad server and a reporting engine. The platform offers detailed reporting for both the publisher and the advertiser, allowing both to optimize pricing and ROI. LookSmart also provides an API which allows agencies and large advertisers to interface directly with publishers licensing AdCenter technology.
About Ask.com
A leading search engine on the Web, Ask.com combines world-class search technology with one-of-a-kind search tools to help people get what they are looking for faster. Ask.com sites include Ask.com US (http://www.Ask.com), Ask.com Deutschland, Ask.com Espana, Ask.com France, Ask.com Italia, Ask.com Japan, Ask.com Nederland and Ask.com UK. Additionally, Ask.com syndicates its search technology and advertising units to a network of affiliate partners. Ask.com is a division of IAC Search & Media, a wholly owned business of IAC.
Pay-per-click ads on Ask.com are available through Ask.com's advertising and sales division, IAC Advertising Solutions. IAC Advertising Solutions offers complete solutions for a variety of communication needs and a comprehensive range of advertising products, including search, media, and direct marketing. Search solutions include Ask Sponsored Listings, an automated open-auction system allowing marketers to purchase, manage and optimize campaigns on Ask.com and its publisher network. Media solutions include online templated ad units and integrated sponsorships, as well as offline media capabilities on IAC Advertising Solutions' network of leading online brands, including Ticketmaster Citysearch, Evite, Match.com, iWon, Excite, Expedia, and The Huffington Post. Direct Marketing solutions include email, lead generation, co-registration, sweepstakes and promotions. IAC Advertising Solutions can be contacted at www.iacadvertising.com or 212-404-1000.
About LookSmart
LookSmart is an online advertising company that provides relevant solutions for advertisers, publishers and consumers. LookSmart offers advertisers targeted, pay-per-click (PPC) search advertising and banners via its consumer Web properties and a monitored ad distribution network; a customizable set of private-label solutions for publishers; and vertical search sites and web tools for consumers. LookSmart is based in San Francisco, California. For more information, visit www.looksmart.com or call 415-348-7000.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including references to the extension of the term of a material relationship. These statements, including their underlying assumptions, are subject to risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance. Results may differ due to various factors such as the possibility that we may be unable to maintain customer acceptance of and satisfaction with our products, that advertisers may decide to reduce spending or terminate their relationships with us or our partners, and that our relationship with Ask.com is terminable under certain conditions. In addition, you should read the risk factors detailed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
LookSmart is a registered trademark of LookSmart Ltd. Contact Information: Lyman Public Relations Carmella Lyman, 707-256-3834 carm@Lymanpr.com
While Jack Bauer is still pursuing the baddies who detonated a nuclear bomb at the end of the season premiere of
24 a few weeks ago, 20th Century Fox already has a handle on its own leg of the investigation.
The studio said Friday that video-sharing Websites YouTube and LiveDigital have complied with a subpoena demanding the identity of the two users who allegedly posted the Emmy-winning drama’s four-hour season opener, in its entirety, days before its airdate and nearly simultaneous DVD release.
“We intend to use the information provided to pursue all available legal remedies against those who infringed our copyrights,” 20th Century Fox media relations VP Chris Alexander said in a statement to E! Online.
“As we have long maintained, Fox is committed to vigorously protecting our content from illegal Internet distribution and other forms of piracy.”
According to Alexander’s statement, the errant YouTube and LiveDigital users, known publicly only by the names “ECOtotal” and “Jorge Romero,” respectively, could face prosecution for copyright infringement under the terms laid out by the federal Copyright Act.
While Jorge Romero’s allegedly illegal activity on LiveDigital only involves 24, ECOtotal is also being looked at for supposedly posting 12 full-length episodes of The Simpsons, as well.
20th Century Fox hit YouTube with a subpoena Jan. 24, while LiveDigital was served Jan. 19. Both orders were filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California, where YouTube parent Google is located.
But while YouTube and LiveDigital are both currently minus 24, you can still view snippets from other Fox shows, including The Simpsons, proving just how fruitless it might be for studios and networks to try to muzzle the public’s cry for fast and free video-viewing pleasure.
Earlier this month, Viacom called for YouTube to divest itself of all content from the company’s coterie of networks, which includes MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, Comedy Central, BET, CMT and Spike TV.
YouTube started to comply right away in order to avoid federal prosecution, but removing the 100,000-plus videos was a slow-going process. The hugely popular site also cleaned house in October after Viacom said that YouTube could feature clips of shows such as The Colbert Report, South Park and SpongeBob SquarePants, but not entire episodes.
“In these cases, some solution needs to be arrived at that prevents users hiding behind such systems from repeat postings,” Michael R. Graham, a Chicago-based intellectual property attorney, told the Wall Street Journal late last month, specifically commenting on 20th Century Fox’s recent crackdown.
The lawyer also predicted that YouTube and LiveDigital would comply with the subpoenas—which they did, obviously, without making a fuss.
“Copyright owners and digital content sites would be well-served to work together to develop workable procedures and practices to assist each other in preventing and prosecuting such infringements,” Graham said.
“While this process may appear complex to some,” he continued, referring to the Websites’ privacy policies that prohibit them from sharing confidential user info without a subpoena, “it is actually quite straightforward and ensures protection of both Fox’s copyrighted programs and the privacy of site users.”
Yahoo has launched its “Suggestion Board” with Digg-like interface. http://suggestions.yahoo.com/landing/?prop=autos
I wonder how long that interface will remain as it is.
Microsoft has launched it’s answer to youtube at http://soapbox.msn.com/ using flash video as it’s format.
WARSAW (AFP) - Google has launched legal action against a group of Polish poets, demanding that they give up their Internet domain name gmail.pl, a member of the cultural collective said.
zabela Krawczyk of GMAiL — the “Grupa Mlodych Artystow i Literatow,” or Group of Young Artists and Writers — told AFP that Google had turned to the country’s IT and telecommunications tribunal to try to stop them using the Web site address www.gmail.pl.
Google charges that GMAiL has no rights to the name, which resembles the US firm’s internationally known email service www.gmail.com.
The service is enjoying snowballing global success, encouraging Google to try to snap up variants of the name which use national suffixes, such as .pl in Poland.
Besides turning to arbitrators and the courts to stop so-called cybersquatters from abusing their names on the Internet, companies sometimes pay big money to buy back such domain names.
Krawczyk, however, blasted the suggestion that the poets were looking for a fast buck.
“We didn’t buy this name just to sell it to Google. As a matter of pride, we’re refusing to give it up,” she said.
“We bought the name legally, with our own money. Nobody gave it to us for free. We refuse to be deprived of what we consider is our property.”
Krawczyk said that Google had not proposed a financial settlement.
“Their lawyer told me that his client had no intention of paying for something which belonged to him,” she claimed.
It was not immediately possible to contact Google’s Polish lawyers on Friday.
Krawczyk, a poet and IT fan based in the central Polish city of Lodz, said that at the end of last year her group was surprised to discover that www.gmail.pl was available.
They decided to buy the rights to the domain name in order to raise the profile of GMAiL, which publicises the works of young unknowns who have not yet found a conventional editor.
“Our site has a use. There’s no financial gain involved. And we’re not competing with the US company,” she said.
Google has also faced problems after failing to be the first one to register local versions of its domain name in Britain and Germany.
Yahoo Inc. said on Sunday it has signed up top corporate advertisers to use its advertising system to run brand ads on mobile phones in 18 countries, marking a major diversification beyond computers. The Internet media company has begun offering its brand advertising to reach mobile phone users across markets in Western Europe, South Asia and the Americas, capitalizing on its prowess in supplying Web advertising to computer users.
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2007-02-12T080641Z_01_N12314478_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-YAHOO-MOBILE-DC.XML
IBM has developed an open desktop product that supports a range of applications, such as email and instant messaging, without the need to run Microsoft Windows. On Sunday, IBM announced details of its Open Client solution. It incorporates a range of applications, some from IBM’s Lotus family, and runs on the two major strands of corporate Linux, Red Hat and Suse, as well as Microsoft Windows and, soon, the Apple Mac.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39285893,00.htm?r=34
A Brussels court said Google Inc. violated copyright laws by publishing links to Belgian newspapers without permission and ordered the company to remove them, setting a precedent for future cases in Europe. Google, the owner of the world’s most-used search engine, must pay 25,000 euros ($32,500) a day until it removes all Belgian news content, the Brussels Court of First Instance ruled today. There’s “no exception” for Google in copyright law, the court said. The Mountain View, California-based company said it has already removed the content and will appeal the ruling
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aE27SVCsDbEc&refer=news
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8N8OSNO0.htm
http://www.newsday.com/technology/ats-ap_technology10feb13,0,6621677.story?coll=ny-technology-headlines
A court on Tuesday ruled in favor of Belgian newspapers that sued Google Inc., claiming that the Web search Internet search leader infringed copyright laws and demanded it remove their stories. It ordered Google to remove any articles, photos or links from its sites — including Google News — that it displays without the newspapers’ permission.
I see that Google China has added maps to their list of services:
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http://ditu.google.cn/ Most cities don’t have much detail, but major roads appear to be in place. Cities like Shanghai and Beijing have a bit more mapped out.
The service seems popular as everything is very slow to access, at least for me from Japan. I am seeing them making access calls to this address: mapgoogle.mapabc.com
So Google is using a 3rd party for their Chinese language map overlays?
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