Tag: Google

Chart of the week: Turkey’s crackdown via Google

Jun 17, 2013 5:23pm by Rob Minto

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It’s hard to quantify an authoritarian crackdown. How do you measure curbs on free speech? And when a protest movement has many facets and disparate aims, they can be even harder to gauge, let alone put in numbers.

However, when it comes to the internet, there is one source that shows how keen authorities in different countries are on stifling criticism and controlling the debate. And if anyone had been paying attention back in 2012, the current protests in Turkey might have been less of a surprise. Chart of the week takes a look. Continue reading »

Tags: Chart of the week, data, Google, transparency, Turkey turmoil Posted in Europe, Turkey | Permalink

Coc Coc, Russo-Vietnamese search engine with sights on Google

Jun 6, 2013 9:44am by Nguyen Phuong Linh

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Five years ago, few Vietnamese owned a smartphone with internet access. Now, wireless networks, 3G services and iPads are in use on every street corner. Vietnam, a country of 90m people, a third of whom use the internet, seems to be a promising land for web start-up businesses. But a web start-up like Coc Coc, whose aim is to beat Google, is rare. Continue reading »

Tags: Baidu, Coc Coc, Google, internet Posted in Asia, Vietnam | Permalink

[trend spot] Africa ♥ Chrome

Feb 11, 2013 4:54pm by Rob Minto

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Google’s dominance of global search is well known, and that includes Africa, where the US search engine has over 90 per cent market share.

Now it can add its browser Chrome to its trophy list – according to data from StatCounter it has just overtaken Firefox as the continent’s most popular means of browsing the web. Continue reading »

Tags: browsers, Google, internet, technology Posted in Africa, Global | Permalink

Google: don’t let 1,000 Androids bloom

Sep 18, 2012 8:36am by Sarah Mishkin

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It’s been the season of high-profile phone launches. Except, sadly, for Acer and Alibaba. Their planned launch of a co-branded phone for Chinese consumers got cancelled at the last minute when Google objected to the version of Android on the phone.

What the last-minute cancellation – and some continued sniping between the companies – shows is how tricky it is to manage China’s booming mobile market. That’s true, apparently, even for Google, whose Android platform dominates in a big way. Continue reading »

Tags: Acer, Alibaba, Android, Google, smartphones Posted in China, Taiwan | Permalink

Google in Africa: waiting game

Sep 7, 2012 4:53pm by Eleanor Whitehead

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Combine low levels of internet penetration, meagre financial inclusion and an underdeveloped private sector, and you might wonder why Google – which earns most of its cash by selling advertising on its search engine – has Africa firmly in its sights.

But the American technology giant is serious about the continent’s fast-changing online landscape, as new undersea data cables and skyrocketing mobile phone subscriptions – now in excess of 500m – reshape Africa’s connectivity. Continue reading »

Tags: Google, sub-Saharan Africa, ThisisAfrica Posted in Africa | Permalink

Gmail goes SMS in Africa

Jul 20, 2012 4:16pm by Rob Minto

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More power to the mobile in Africa. On-the-go access to Google’s email service, Gmail, usually entails running it on a high-end smartphone – but now, any clunky old mobile will do.

Google announced this week that in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria, mobile phone users will be able to access Gmail via SMS – the short text service that is used widely around the world. It’s Gmail, just not as you know it. And it’s all part of the battle to get African users at the earliest stage possible. Continue reading »

Tags: Google, internet, sub-Saharan Africa, telecoms Posted in Africa, Ghana, Global, Kenya, Nigeria | Permalink

Inside the Chinese mind, via Google

Jul 3, 2012 9:04am by Rob Minto

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One of Google’s great attributes is that the cumulative effect of millions of searches can be used as an almost real-time opinion poll. So what do the sum of Google’s China searches tell us about the Chinese economy?

Standard Chartered have crunched the numbers, and have a few interesting finds in a note titled China – Inside the great firewall. Continue reading »

Tags: China economy, Google, Standard Chartered Posted in Asia, China | Permalink

Yandex takes on Google in Turkey

Apr 18, 2012 8:01pm by Courtney Weaver

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Can a regional internet giant find success in a foreign market? This is the question that Yandex, the Russian search engine, is asking as it seeks to replicate its Russian success in a country where it lacks the linguistic and cultural advantages it enjoys in Moscow.

Yandex launched its Turkish site, yandex.com.tr, in September, and is prepared to take on Google in other European markets where its American competitor holds a virtual monopoly. Continue reading »

Tags: Google, Russia tech, Russia-Turkey, technology, Yandex Posted in Europe, Russia, Turkey | Permalink

Chart of the week: how to sell smartphones in China

Apr 2, 2012 10:41am by Rob Minto

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If last week’s chief executives travel plans were anything to go by, mobile phone makers are getting serious about China.

So which models are selling in China and which way is the market going? Chart of the week takes a look. Continue reading »

Tags: Apple, Chart of the week, Google, iPhone, Microsoft, Nokia, phonemakers, Samsung, smartphones, telecoms Posted in Asia, China | Permalink

Google India’s SME drive

Nov 3, 2011 1:54pm by Neil Munshi

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For anyone who’s ever tried to look up the menu of a restaurant in India to see if they offer a particular type of chicken kebab and had to sort through blurry, user-scanned copies uploaded onto sites like burrp.com or zomato.com, Google’s latest initiative will come as a welcome fillip.

On Wednesday, Google India began offering free websites, hosting, maintenance and training to SMEs in an effort to get more of the 8m small businesses in India online. But there is, of course, something of a catch. Continue reading »

Tags: Google, internet, technology Posted in India | Permalink

Kenya’s own YouTube takes to the air

Oct 7, 2011 2:54pm by Katrina Manson

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The black, red and green stripes of the Kenyan flag behind the word “Tube” say it all. Kenya has its very own version of YouTube, the online video platform that has 800m users a month worldwide, uploading seven years’ worth of video to the site every day.

For now, it’s a Kenyanised version of youtube.com but in the next few days the youtube.co.ke address should be fully up and running. Continue reading »

Tags: Google, internet, investment Posted in Global, Kenya | Permalink

Russia: How to look good on Google

Jul 25, 2011 1:09pm by Ivana Kottasová

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Chelyabinsk is hardly a hot spot of Russian tourism. In fact, the town in the southern Ural mountains has long been labelled as the most polluted spot on earth.

Now city authorities have decided it’s time to tackle the problem head-on – not the pollution problem, mind you, just the labelling one. In a public tender document published on the Chelyabinsk region website, bidders are being sought for a $10,000 contract to provide search engine optimisation. Continue reading »

Tags: environment, Google, IT Posted in Europe, Russia | Permalink

Google in China: not as loved as Baidu

Dec 14, 2010 12:30pm by Kathrin Hille

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Google’s share of the Chinese online search market is plummeting, but the company’s staff in China comfort themselves with the thought that they are the champion of hearts. “The people love Google,” says John Liu, the company’s vice president for Greater China operations.

But it turns out that the Chinese people love Baidu more. According to WPP, the global marketing group, Chinese consumers have much stronger emotional ties to the brand of the local hero than to Google. Continue reading »

Tags: Baidu, China internet, Google, internet Posted in Asia, China | Permalink

Wikileaks in China: was the Politburo behind Google attacks?

Nov 29, 2010 11:34am by Barney Jopson

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One of the juicier nuggets from the leak of 250,000 US embassy cables concerns Google’s partial retreat from China earlier this year. The newspapers with access to Wikileaks’ trove say diplomats relayed word that China’s Politburo had directed the hacker attacks that contributed to Google’s exit from the mainland.

Google has said that cyber attacks on its corporate infrastructure came from inside China. If they were directed from the top of the political hierarchy, that would be deeply troubling to all those who are wary of China’s growing power. Continue reading »

Tags: China politics, Google, internet Posted in China | Permalink

Google vs China . . . continued

Nov 15, 2010 8:15pm by Ranjit Lall

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The bitter dispute between Google and China rumbles on. In the latest episode, the company has released a white paper urging the international community to fight internet restrictions, which it calls the “trade barriers of the 21st century”.

Naturally, Google officials denied that the report was targeted at a specific country. Bob Boorstin, Google’s director of public policy, told the FT:

It’s not to do with what’s happened in China – it’s a broader attempt to get at these issues. Governments that block the free flow of information not only are breaking trade agreements in certain ways, but they’re hurting their own economies as well.

Continue reading »

Tags: Google, internet, trade Posted in China, Global | Permalink

Older entries

beyondbrics

Tag: Google

Chart of the week: Turkey’s crackdown via Google

Coc Coc, Russo-Vietnamese search engine with sights on Google

[trend spot] Africa ♥ Chrome

Google: don’t let 1,000 Androids bloom

Google in Africa: waiting game

Gmail goes SMS in Africa

Inside the Chinese mind, via Google

Yandex takes on Google in Turkey

Chart of the week: how to sell smartphones in China

Google India’s SME drive

Kenya’s own YouTube takes to the air

Russia: How to look good on Google

Google in China: not as loved as Baidu

Wikileaks in China: was the Politburo behind Google attacks?

Google vs China . . . continued

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