Yesterday, March 22, 2006, in Singapore, Yahoo! Inc., the world’s leading internet content provider, held a press conference to officially announce the launch of Yahoo! Vietnam at the address: www.yahoo.com.vn.
Yahoo! Vietnam offers localized services including email, search, chat, and news. For the news section, Yahoo! has partnered with Tuổi Trẻ Online as the content provider.
In addition to introducing the Vietnamese version of its homepage, the company also announced localized Yahoo! pages for Indonesia (www.yahoo.co.id) and the Philippines (www.yahoo.com.ph).
With this, Yahoo! East Asia now has a total of six localized pages: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Over the past year, Yahoo! Southeast Asia has continuously updated its content services across all these versions. By localizing language for the Search, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Entertainment, and Sports sections, Yahoo! aims to provide the most relevant and necessary information to meet the needs of internet users in Southeast Asia.
Mr. Reza Behnam, CEO of Yahoo! Southeast Asia, stated: “Yahoo!’s investment in localizing services is aimed at making the internet more relevant for the 60 million users currently online in Southeast Asia, as well as for the millions of new users that are increasing every year in this region.
Instead of creating a single website or service to meet diverse needs across different countries, Yahoo! will provide specific versions for each country, including highly localized content tailored to the unique needs of users in those nations.”
For the News section (Yahoo! News), Yahoo! will collaborate with the most reputable partners in each country to provide the latest and highest quality information about local current events, entertainment, and sports, ensuring users receive news that interests them most. With Yahoo! Mobile services, Yahoo! will also partner with telecommunications providers in each country to offer users SMS alerts and WAP services.
Mr. Larry Jordan, Product Management Director of Yahoo! Southeast Asia, added: “The localized homepage of Yahoo! will help users easily search for anything they want on the internet. Our services will also enable users to connect and share their ideas and information through computers and mobile devices.”
According to data from the Computer Industry Almanac published in January 2006, global internet users are expected to reach 2 billion by 2011, which is a 100% increase from the end of 2005. Particularly in Southeast Asia, this growth is anticipated to be dramatic due to government encouragement in bringing information technology closer to the public.
HOÀNG HỒNG
