Global Marketing News – 15th February 2016
New search engine launches targeting Albania
A new search engine has just launched in Albania.
Gjirafa has been created specifically with the Albanian language in mind, and its creators want it to grow to become the most popular search engine, online advertising and ecommerce site in the country.
It faces an immense challenge, however, due to the fact that there is very little Albanian content online.
Therefore, Gjirafa has been embarking on the ambitious task of digitising as much information as possible about Albania.
They have started by digitising Albanian bus timetables, businesses and venues, many of which previously had no online presence at all.
To help it to achieve its goals, Rockaway Capital has invested 2 million US dollars in the company.
Albania has an internet population of 1.8 million people, equivalent to 63% of the population.
Google expands “right to be forgotten” rules
Google has expanded its “right to be forgotten” rules following pressure from the EU.
The EU “right to be forgotten” law means that EU citizens can ask search engines to remove links to outdated or inaccurate information about them.
Previously, Google had only been removing links from the European versions of its search results, such as google.co.uk and google.de domains. The links still appeared if you searched for the person’s name using any other Google domain, including google.com.
Now, Google will remove links from all versions of its search engine if the person conducting the search is in Europe.
It will use the user’s IP address to determine their location.
This means that anyone in Europe, even if they are using the google.com domain, will see the edited results. Anyone searching from outside of Europe will see the unedited results.
Facebook and Instagram are top social networks in Indonesia
Research by JakPat has revealed that Facebook and Instagram are the most popular social networks in Indonesia.
The study asked Indonesian mobile internet users aged 16 to 35 which social networks they had used in the last week.
88% said they had used Facebook in the previous week, followed by 69% who had used Instagram, with Twitter trailing in third place at 41%.
When looking specifically at Instagram, the study revealed that the most popular online activity was to look at other people’s accounts to do with online shopping and jokes.
Indonesia has the 8th largest internet population in the world, with 78 million people online, equivalent to 30% of the country’s population.
Smartwatches are most sought-after wearables in Latin America
Smartwatches are the most sought-after wearable items in Latin America, according to research by Qualcomm Innovation Society Index.
Smartwatches topped all other wearable devices in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia. They were most popular in Mexico, where a staggering 71% of internet users said they wanted one.
Fitness bands were the second most sought-after wearable items in all four countries.
The research shows just how large a difference a year can make in the tech world – just 12 months previously a separate study by AVG and MEF found that the majority of people in Brazil and Mexico didn’t even know what a wearable device was.
Is the UK ready for clothes rental services?
And finally, the shopping centre company Westfield has conducted research into how successful the clothes rental market could be in the UK.
It asked UK shoppers whether they were interested in the idea of renting clothes rather than buying them, and found a surprisingly large proportion were open to the rather unusual idea.
20% of shoppers said they would consider renting their clothes, with this proportion rising 33% in London and 46% amongst people aged 25 to 34.
When asked how much they would be willing to pay to rent their clothes, 20% said they would be willing to pay £200 for a monthly unlimited subscription. This rose to 40% for Londoners and 59% for those Londoners who described themselves as being extremely confident fashion shoppers.
The openness of UK shoppers to clothes rental has been put down to the recent popularity of online “rental” subscriptions and the “sharing economy” with companies such as Netflix, Airbnb and Uber all seeing strong user numbers.
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