SearchEngineUpdate with Vanessa Zamora - 04-28-2008 Part II
Abstract: 1. China's Web Portal Sohu Profit Rises Fivefold, 2. Google Product Search Updated, 3. Yahoo Local Search Circles
Vanessa Zamora
Video Content Producer, SearchEngineWorld
9:36 pm on April 28, 2008 (utc 0)
Transcript
Monday April 28, 2008
China's Web Portal Sohu Profit Rises Fivefold
China’s third largest Web portal, Sohu, not only beat analysts’ forecasts with the announcement of its first quarter earnings, but because of a fivefold gain in profit as a result of luring users to its new Internet game and a rise in online advertising sales, share prices rose 14 percent. Net income climbed to $21.6 million from $4.5 million a year earlier, according to the company, and outperformed a $14.7 million expected profit median average of eight analysts estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sohu, which is the official Internet portal for the upcoming Beijing Olympics, expects even greater gains through most of 2008 because of rising Olympic ad spending and it’s growing presence in the online market. Sohu forecasts second-quarter revenue of $93 million to $96 million, beating the $77.8 million median of nine analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Google product search has released an update to its service that provides users who search for a product on the Web site with information on identical products that are available in multiple online stores to allow user to compare prices, read reviews and technical specifications on a single page. The feature is similar to services offered by other comparison shopping sites such as Shopzilla, MSN Shopping and Yahoo Shopping. Until now, Google Product Search linked users directly to the online store’s web page.
Yahoo Local Maps service has announced the release of a new feature intended to make searching for business locations in a specific area easier. Going a step beyond refinement tools, Yahoo enables users to drag and drop a circle on an area of a map, as small or large as desired, which returns results for a type of business, such as Chinese restaurants or dry cleaners, in the specified area.
9:36 pm on April 28, 2008 (utc 0)