Internet portal Kimo.com (網景奇摩站) will team up with Hong Kong Telecom's Netvigator (網?W|? and China's Netease (網易) to form a one-stop advertising channel with an eye toward slashing ad rates and supplying Web users with more Chinese content, Kimo President David Lu (盧?j為) said Thursday.
The venture, to be called the Greater China Portal Alliance (GCPA,
"We expect there will be more regional content on the Chinese sites in the region, which will stimulate more cross-region traffic within Greater China," he said. "It is the whole concept of the Internet -- no geographical boundaries to information and service."
The alliance has also planned e-commerce business-to-customer initiatives, Netease chief executive officer William Ding (
A GCPA survey showed that users in the region were interested in receiving more Chinese content, with 95 percent of those surveyed saying they would use a portal which provides regional information and on-line community services.
China's Internet surfers were more avid users of Hong Kong or Taiwanese sites than the other way round, the survey found.
A June report by consultancy firm Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong found that Netease was Asia's second largest portal after Singapore's Asia1 portal.
The rankings were derived by looking at the variety and volume of on-line content offered by portals, as measured by the number of hyperlinks to other Web sites.
Asia1 had around 16,000 hyperlinks compared to Netease's 15,000. Kimo came in fourth place with nearly 6,000 hyperlinks, while Pchome, another Taiwan Web site, had 2,000 links.
The strategic alliance increases Hong Kong Telecom's stake in Taiwan's Internet and telecommunications market.
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