Yahoo! China and Goo Goo Google

Phil Butler,

on April 11, 2007,

Yahoo! China just launched a new blogging and networking aspect in their continued efforts to diversify. The effort, termed "Yahoo Space" includes blogging, networking, a photo gallery and other interactive services.

In actuality Yahoo! has always been more diverse that Google, but got passed because of several factors including Google's superior search and raking capability back when. Since then Yahoo! has been incrementally integrating services to add utility for their users. As my colleague Paul Glazowski pointed out in a great article on Monday, "It's hard to dislike Yahoo!, is it not?"

This latest effort by Yahoo! is just one in a series of well thought out moves to methodically overtake Google. I must say that Goggle is doing pretty much everything they can by way of helping Yahoo! Even today news arrives about Google "inadvertently" copying part of a software tool from a rival Chinese Internet company Sohu.com, Inc. Well, Google reluctantly admitted complicity in using some copyrighted materials, I guess after they were caught red handed?

Given the foul ups or machinations of Google in the past couple of months, one has to wonder exactly when they are going to make the big boo-boo. A billion dollar trademark lawsuit vs. Viacom, YouTube making a whole country mad (Thailand), suits against Polish poets because Google did not have sense enough to gather domains internationally and now pilfering more copyrighted materials from companies in potentially the largest market in the world!

Yahoo! does not seem to step on nearly as many toes as Google, but why? Clues really abound. Look at this statement via Reuters/Yahoo! News:

"Search is a tool for the user to get the information he wants, but it is not the final destination," Zeng Ming, Yahoo China's new president said in the emailed statement.

Yahoo! executives seem rather "clued in" to the mission at hand. People want more than just a search engine with gadgets added on, at least in China. More importantly, international relations require more finesse and business sense than Google appears to be able to exert.

Essentially Yahoo! is not near as greedy as Google and a whole lot less arrogant. Take Yahoo's entry into the Chinese market for example. Alibaba.com controls e-commerce in China, and Yahoo! simply retains a 40 percent share in that company.

If you want a clue to perhaps why Google keeps getting shellacked perhaps you should check out Google's team in Beijing. I am sure these are all nice people, but they could easily pass for either a Chinese version of "Goodfellas" or the cast of the old TV series "Romper Room". There is a huge difference between young people using a service like the young Chinese people in the photo above at an Internet cafe in China, and company employees hired to support these users like the ones below at Google's diggs in Beijing. Who is being more studious and astute to you?