Facebook has overtaken Orkut to become the leading social network in Brazil, having increased its user base by almost 200% in 12 months. Google-owned Orkut has long been the market leader in the socially active South American country, just as it was in India before Facebook began to dominate there in 2010. This success will give Facebook hope that it can conquer the remaining 6 global markets - China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Poland and Vietman - where it is not yet the leader, however it faces stiff competition from local player in those countries.

 

The Yahoo-Microsoft Search Alliance is beginning AdCenter testing in UK, Ireland and France, with the aim of rolling out its ads to all Yahoo pages in those markets in Q2 this year. As with the organic rollout, which was completed globally last year, the paid search transition will rollout gradually across Europe and the rest of the world. It is already complete in North America.

 

Four Seasons Hotel Chain is looking for an agency or agencies to handle its global advertising, media and CRM accounts.

 

A poll of 146 retailers from across Europe, all with sales of over €100 million, has revealed that the majority believe cross-border ecommerce is a key source of growth and an effective way of increasing revenues. However, while retailers are keen to expand out of their domestic markets, barriers such as logistics, differing employment and trading laws and variances in VAT levels are hampering growth. E-tailers also need to ensure their ecommerce sites are properly localised and optimised for all target markets.

 

Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa will be speaking at the International Search Summit San Jose, where she will focus on the implementation of the multilingual content markup. Delegates will learn when and how to effectively implement the markup, in order to improve the targeting of their international web pages. Susan joins a host of global search specialists covering topics across search and social media

Early Bird Rates apply until January 28th

 

While social networking growth has plateaued in mature markets, it is still growing significantly in emerging markets such as Indonesia, Russia and Mexico. Perhaps more importantly for brands, users in those markets are more open to social media marketing and are more likely to treat social networks as a source to research and buy products, than users in developed markets.

 

Futubra, Mail.ru's answer to Twitter has launched this week, providing Russian language users with a new multimedia microblogging platform where they can share short messages, videos and photos. Mail.ru claim to have developed a platform offering more functionality than existing microblogging sites, enabling users to view newlines as media to provide a more interactive experience. According to the Russian State News Agency, Futubra attracted 17,000 users in the first 24 hours, and the site will be hoping to replicate the success of Chinese microblogging site Weibo, which now has almost 250 million users.

 

ICANN has opened the application process for new gTLDs, which gives organisations 3 months to apply for their desired extensions. As well as stumping up a $185,000 application fee, applicants must also provide financial statements and business plans to demonstrate how they will operate the new domain. For the first time, gTLDs will also be available in non-Latin languages, an important step for businesses operating in markets like Russia and China. However, the high cost and complex application process is likely to deter many potential applicants, with only large global brands expected to acquire a new extension.