Paid Search Engine Advertising Booms

I have read an article about search engine advertising on last week’s BusinessWeek. Google is currently the number one search engine, followed by Yahoo! search and MSN search. Google itself has 50% of the market share of paid search engine advertising. Yahoo! and MSN together have around 50% market share in paid search engine advertising. They are far behind Google. Last year, Google has earned USD$10 billion only on paid search engine advertising (Google AdWords) and expect to have USD$15 billion this year.

Yahoo! and MSN are planning to catch up. Both of them will launch new paid search engine advertising services this month. MSN will have a good feature which can target customers demographically, for example, we can choose to target 30-50 years old male with income more than $40,000 pa. Because MSN has demographic data of customers gathered through other services like Hotmail etc. It will be a good option for marketers to consider in the future.

Intel will change the brand name for chips

According to Computerworld, Intel will sell its new generation of desktop and notebook chips using the name of "Core 2 Duo".

Intel plans to launch new desktop and notebook chips in July and August respectively. All new chips will be built with Intel's new 65-nanometer Core Microarchitecture design. Both desktop and laptop chips will be called Core 2 Duo, and distinguished by a five-digit code to follow.

The first digit will be a letter connoting the power draw of the chip, as shown blow:

• "U" for ultra low voltage (below 15 watts)
• "L" for low voltage (15 to 24 watts)
• "T" for standard mobile (25 to 55 watts)
• "E" for standard desktop (55 to 75 watts)
• "X" for extreme (above 75 watts)

The next four digits will be a numeric code, with Conroe chips (code name for new desktop chips) in the 4000 and 6000 series and Merom chips (code name for new laptop chips) in the 5000 and 7000 series.

Additional numbers will represent extra features like Centrino for mobile PCs, Viiv for home entertainment PCs and vPro for business desktops.

For example, a high-end desktop CPU may be called the Core 2 Duo E6800 and Intel will call its high-end gaming desktop processor the "Core 2 Extreme".

The new name will supersede the "Pentium D" brand for desktops, and eventually take over for future chip designs such as four-core and eight-core processors.

Click here for existing Intel desktop chips.

Source: www.computerworld.co.nz

New Zealand's Top 10 Websites

OK, we see world's top 10 websites in my last post. But who are New Zealand's top 10 websites in terms of traffic ranking? And what are their positions in the world? Here is the answer:

1. Google New Zealand - www.google.co.nz (World Ranking: 604)
2. Trade Me - www.trademe.co.nz (World Ranking: 619)
3. Google - www.google.com (World Ranking: 2)
4. Microsoft Network (MSN) - www.msn.com (World Ranking: 3)
5. Yahoo! - www.yahoo.com (World Ranking: 1)
6. XtraMSN - www.xtramsn.co.nz (World Ranking: 2,223)
7. Wikipedia - www.wikipedia.org (World Ranking: 16)
8. New Zealand Herald - www.nzherald.co.nz (World Ranking: 2,630)
9. Stuff - www.stuff.co.nz (World Ranking: 2,596)
10. Passport.net - www.passport.net (World Ranking: 11)

There are some interesting outcomes from this list. Google is obviously the strongest in New Zealand with first and third positions.

Trade Me is the best local website with world ranking of 619. I want to say "it's the best kiwi owned website". But it's not anymore, and that's why it can be sold for 700 million.

Big global players like Yahoo!, MSN and Passport.Net are also on NZ's top 10 list. Other big local players are XtraMSN, New Zealand Herald and Stuff. Interestingly, Stuff has higher world ranking than NZ Herald, but with lower New Zealand ranking. It means that there is more people access Stuff than NZ Herald from outside of New Zealand.

The last thing I want to mention is Wikipedia. Lots of you may not be aware of it. It's a free encyclopedia built collaboratively using Wiki software. Anyone can access and edit, correct, or improve information throughout the encyclopedia. It begun in 2001 and has rapidly grown into the largest reference website on the Internet. New Zealanders pretty like it.

Here is another wonderful website, click here to check out.

Source: Alexa Traffic Rankings

World's Top 10 Websites

Who are the top 10 websites in the world in terms of traffic ranking? Here they are:

1. Yahoo! - www.yahoo.com (U.S.A)
2. Google - www.google.com (U.S.A)
3. Microsoft Network (MSN) - www.msn.com (U.S.A)
4. Baidu - www.baidu.com (China)
5. Yahoo! Japan - www.yahoo.co.jp (Japan)
6. MySpace - www.myspace.com (U.S.A)
7. Sina - www.sina.com.cn (China)
8. EBay - www.ebay.com (U.S.A)
9. QQ - www.qq.com (China)
10. Sohu - www.sohu.com (China)

Surprisingly, Google is not the number 1, but Yahoo! is. Yahoo! Japan is also on the fifth position. Yahoo! performs much better than I thought.

MySpace is catching up pretty fast, which is sixth at the moment. I personally don't use it, but lots more people in the world do.

There are four Chinese websites on the global top 10 list, which is just behind American's five.

Here is another great website for you, click here to find out.

Source: Alexa Traffic Rankings