Roundup: Mobile Search, Fundraising of 51.com, Ku6 and Youku

Written by Tangos on July 3, 2008
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Google Mobile Outdoor adsMobile search: Google China vs. Baidu: If you check any mobile Internet usage report, you will find a large percentage of traffic come from Guangdong Province. Google China recently launched offline marketing campaign to promote mobile search in Guangdong. We can find its outdoor advertisements in subway station of Guangzhou, (more photos in DWGoogle.cn). On June 26th, Google also placed an advertising on Guangzhou Daily, a popular newspaper in Guangzhou. In the advertising, there is only one sentence, “The newspaper records what happened before it print. For what is happening now. Use mobile phone to visit G.cn”, on a blank background. (via DWGoogle.cn)

At the same time, Baidu recently partnered with Nokia to provide widget on Nokia’s Widsets platform. It is said the Widsets has over 4 million users in China already.

51.com raised $51 million: we reported in May that 51.com is closing another round of about $50 million, it is official now. The Nasdaq listed online gaming company Giant Interactive invested in $51 million to take 25% shares of 51.com. Therefore, game, esp. web-based games will be a very important feature of 51.com. It is said that Jack Ma of Alibaba was also very interested in 51.com, and make the same offer to the company, but Yuzhu Shi of Giant Interactive finally won the deal.

Fundraising of Ku6 and Youku: Ku6.com and Youku.com both announced new round of financing. Youku raised $30 million equity financing led by Maverick Capital and $10 million equity loan. Ku6.com is said to have raised $30 million in this round, and the details to be announced in next week. Ku6 also announced that it got the licence from CCTV to broadcast video clips on Beijing Olympic Games.

Youku and Ku6 were both founded by former Sohu managers. Youku was started by ex-Sohu COO and president Victor Koo, and Ku6 by Li Shanyou, who began his career at Sohu in human resources but ended up as a senior vice president and Chief Editor at the time of his departure in mid-2006.

Check Kaiser Kuo’s post for more information.

Telstra buys stake in Chinese vertical portal: Australian telecom operator Telstra announced that it has acquired 55% stakes in both Norstar Media and Autohome/PCPop. These two companies both operate popular vertical portals on IT and auto information. Norstar operates IT168.com and Che168.com, while Autohome/PCPop operates Pcpop.com and AutoHome.com. Besides Telstra, CNET China owns several IT vertical portal and an auto information vertical portal xcar.com.cn, PConline.cn, a Hongkong listed company, owns PCOnline.com.cn and PCAuto.com.cn. In 2006, Telstra acquired a 51% stake in Soufun, a real estate vertical portal, for $254 million.

Event: Entrepreneur 27 Singapore Unconference: Entrepreneur 27 Singapore will be organizing the 5th Unconference on the 12th of July 2008. The event will start off with a pitching session, followed by breakout sessions which comprises of 4 simultaneously running tracks. Check out the unconference site for more details.

5 Responses to “Roundup: Mobile Search, Fundraising of 51.com, Ku6 and Youku”

  1. Moe on July 4th, 2008 3:54 pm

    download free olympics game score tracker on your cell phone from following link…

    http://www.getjar.com/products/16395/BeijingOlympics

    Moe

  2. Hongkong » KhuTaDietMa2_14_NEW-1.avi on July 5th, 2008 10:57 am

    [...] Roundup: Mobile Search, Fundraising of 51.com, Ku6 and Youku [...]

  3. Is SNS+Game the Next Big Thing? : China Web2.0 Review on July 12th, 2008 12:33 am

    [...] Two weeks ago, Giant Interactive, a major online gaming developer and operator, announced its $51 million investment in social networking site 51.com, and back to CHINICT event in May, 51.com already said it would offer web-based games to users soon, actually it has started to partner with 51wan.com, a leading web-game developer and a portfolio company of Sequoia China, to provide web games. [...]

  4. (Zu Olympia) Welt in Zahlen: Chinas Internet : WebWorkBlogger on August 8th, 2008 6:57 pm

    [...] Verkaufspreis des größten deutschen Social Networks StudiVZ (für Studenten & Schüler & mehr): vermutete € 84 Mio. Investition in das größte chinesische Social Network 51.com: € 32,7 Mio., Evaluation: € 131 Mio. (Quelle) [...]

  5. Is SNS+Game the Next Big Thing? : China Web Radar on January 14th, 2010 10:17 am

    [...] weeks ago, Giant Interactive, a major online gaming developer and operator, announced its $51 million investment in social networking site 51.com, and back to CHINICT event in May, 51.com already said it would [...]

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