Watching Google's Adventures in China from the Inside
Shak's in China right now. He chose to set out for China instead of India - even though he already knows the Indian language and culture - because he "felt that if I WAS going to make the move, then might aswell go for the deep end."

I'm glad he's in the deep end cause he's hearing some interesting stuff about Google's doings in China:

1) According to a Hong Kong paper, "Google has identified improvement of its Chinese-language search results, MP3 search and mobility as key areas of development needed to close the gap with mainland rivals such as Baidu.com."

2) Google hired Johnny Chou, former COO of UTstarcom to be Google China's COO. His telecom background does indicate a strong push towards Google China wireless.

3) His "reliable sources" confirmed that "Google's recruiters have been directed to hire every attractive single woman they can."

4) From Shak's perspective Baidu's running the search show: "Google on the other hand are a kick axx company with some very very smart people and an amazing brand, however China is 1 place where all this can mean very little or very much dependant on the mood of the people, and at the moment it's all about Baidu."

Will Google buy Baidu? Shak thinks, "an outright buy or a much bigger partnership would make total sense, as ultimately it's about the advertising $, and this Google has lots of when you look at their advertiser base, Baidu has the user base but very little of the foreign $$$s are coming through, although their marketing activity is being ramped up since the IPO."
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |