TechBays

December 2007 US search rankings

In December, Google Sites’ share of core searches stood at 58.4 percent. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 22.9 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.8 percent), Time Warner Network (4.6 percent), and Ask Network (4.3 percent). Yahoo! Sites experienced the most significant market share increase, gaining 0.5 share points versus the previous month. (By comScore)

China internet population over 200 Million

China’s Internet population stood at 210 million at the end of last year, up 53 percent from the same time in 2006 when there were 137 million, the China Internet Network Information Centre said in its semi-annual report on Internet use here.

That figure puts China just 5 million users away from becoming the world’s largest wired nation and with only about 16 percent of the population online. At its current growth rate, China will become the world’s top Internet market sometime in the next few months. (via NYTimes)

A new Index of Innovation Confidence

A new global survey of innovation acceptance reveals that consumers’ confidence in the ability of more advanced products and services to improve their lives varies widely around the world and that up to half of consumers in some European continental countries are skeptical of the value of innovation. Only 30 percent of Dutch working age adults believe that new products or services will improve their lives in the next six months, compared with 60 percent of United States consumers, and 80 percent in India and the United Arab Emirates, according to The Institute for Innovation & Information Productivity, which released the study today. (By IIIP)

Second life posts solid growth in Q4

Many of our economic metrics showed much slower growth from Q2 to Q3 as can be seen in the charts below. We believe the slower growth was primarily due to the impact of stricter security on credit card processing, shutting down gambling in July and beginning to charge VAT September. With those things behind us in the fourth quarter, the Second Life economy demonstrated its resiliency. The LindeX – the purest measure of economic activity in Second Life – grew 13.2% to nearly $7.6 million USD for December and $22 million USD for the full quarter. (by SecondLife)

Redtube, an adult site, is fastest growing

The chart below shows the top twenty sites that gained or lost the most amount of traffic from December 2006 to December 2007, as a percentage of visits in December 2006. (By Compete)