This week in Germany world leaders gathered to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The tearing down of the Wall, a potent symbol of East German oppression since 1961, marked the end of one era and the start of a new one. Strange though it may sound, the tearing down of the Wall in 1989 was a significant influence on how we do search marketing in Europe today.

When doing SEO in Europe, you are bound to run into some issues which that originated in some way from the fall of the Berlin Wall. In this column I’ll try to give you a little historical insight which will help you look at search in Europe through that lens, offering a somewhat different perspective than usual. With this background you’ll benefit when entering the European market by knowing more about the wants and needs of your target audiences, increasing your chances of actually reaching them.

In one day, Europe suddenly became much bigger

One of the obvious consequences of the fall of the Wall is the fact that Europe got bigger. Where before capitalism and therefore business (and search) was focused on Western Europe, the potential market is now more than twice that size. Countries like Poland, Czech and Romania now are big growing markets, especially on the affiliate marketing front.

With the bigger market there is more money flowing around. That is a direct consequence of the tearing down of the Wall. Eastern Germany was almost bankrupt when the Wall went down. Because of Western Europeans coming into Eastern Europe there is a lot more money which went to the East.

The rise of the European Union

In my last column I talked about legal issues in Europe. Many legal issues are caused by the way the European Union works, designed to protect European citizens. In 1989 the European Union was called the European Economic Community (EEC). That was the case until 1993. The EEC wasn’t by far the size of the current European Union. It was only the Western European countries which were members. And they were just working together on some economic issues, not on other regulations.

Eastern European countries weren’t allowed in the Union at first. The German councilor Helmut Kohl fought for their rights and succeeded. After 1993 the European Union saw big growth, and with this growth regulation also started to expand. Many current regulations come from the thought of giving all Europeans the protection and freedom they want and need. Keep in mind one thing: with all the different European countries one institution which regulates may seem to make a lot of regulations. But at least now all the regulations are the same for every country, unlike the fifty different rules marketers might have had to comply with just a few short years ago.

Common coin: The Euro

In 1989 the French Prime Minister Francois Mitterand was at first no fan of the German unification which came shortly after the Wall went down. But he did take the opportunity to get something done he had wanted to do for a while: the introduction of the European coin, what would later be the Euro. He originally wanted this coin just to keep the German Mark, which was very strong, under control. But indirectly he changed the way you do business in Europe. In 1991 was decided to introduce the coin which has been around for a decade now. This decision could never have occurred without the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Politics

The fall of the German Wall had many political consequences, both inside and outside European countries. The best example is Germany itself. After 1989 Helmut Kohl quickly came up with a plan to unify East and West Germany. The German unification still has its influence on the way we work. primarily because now Germany is by far the biggest market in Europe. That wouldn’t have been the case without unification. And Germans need special care. They are very protective of their “own people.” It’s not a coincidence that its the Germans who are attacking Google in different ways. This comes from the German mindset—they have strong protectionistic instincts regarding their country. The fact that German councilor Angela Merkel is herself an original East German citizen might give you a little bit more insight in the way she thinks about big capitalistic companies like Google.

The political climate changed significantly with the fall of the Berlin Wall. And it still works through in the way we do business in Europe. If you optimize for Germany you have to keep in mind the differences between East and West Germans and you have to keep in mind the history to understand why Germans respond (or don’t respond) to what happens on the web.

Google alternatives: Yandex and Seznam

Finally, something directly search-related. Europe is pretty much dominated by Google. In every country Google is the biggest—with two exceptions. In Russia, Yandex is the biggest search engine by market share. In Czech there is Seznam that’s more popular than Google. These search engines have origins in the way things were before 1989. They didn’t exist then, but they were founded with the thoughts and ideas of the people who lived in Eastern Europe before communism fell. That is an entire different mindset than engineers who created US search engines. So if you want to optimize for them you have to think differently.

What if the Berlin Wall hadn’t fallen?

What would search in Europe be like if the Berlin Wall hadn’t gone down and communism in Eastern Europe was still flourishing? The “what if” question is always difficult but it could have looked like this in Europe:

• Yandex and Seznam would dominate the entire Eastern European area. Google wouldn’t probably even get a percentage.
• The potential market in which search marketers could work would have been just half of what it is today.
• Eastern Europe would probably be broke, so you wouldn’t be able to get much profit there.
• There would be more different regulations to work with. Every country would think of their own.
• Instead of a single, unified currency, you would have to work with more than 50 different currencies.
• In all it would have been a lot less interesting market to work in.

So why this lesson in European history then? What is that worth for working in search in Europe? Well, a lot. Let me give you some takeaways:

• If you look at Europe don’t just look at France, Britain and Spain. Also consider Poland, Romania, Russia and other Eastern European states too. These are big markets with lots of opportunities.
• As in the US, politics plays a big role in Europe. Be aware of the political situation and it can work in your benefit.
• Chances are that in Europe if you want to do business you’ll run into European rules. Keep that in mind and keep in mind where Europeans come from: a divided continent, trying to work together. It could have been a lot worse with lots of different regulations everywhere. Now, be sure to look at the European Union first.
• Though Google is the biggest, there are other interesting search engines that offer opportunities for smart marketers. Try looking at Yandex and Seznam if you target Eastern Europeans. You might be surprised about the ROI you can gain from a well executed search marketing campaign.

Have you ever needed to see the search results for another city — maybe because you want to see what PPC ads are shown somewhere else? Have you ever needed to see search results from a different country, or in a different language? Maybe you’re into real time search, and you’d love a place to find the latest photos and videos being shared on Twitter. Or perhaps you’re planning a vacation abroad, but you’re not sure when is the best time to visit Europe.

It’s time again for another roundup of the latest and greatest search tools and search engines, and in this article, I’ll share five such sites that will answer the above questions (and more). This is the fourth in my occasional series profiling under-the-radar search tools. Links to the previous three are at the end of this article.

SearchMuffin

Look, I don’t name ‘em, I just use ‘em and write about ‘em if they’re cool. And this one is. SearchMuffin has a simple premise: Type in a keyword and choose a city from the dropdown menu, and it’ll show you the Google search results that match. Think of it as a sort of geo-targeted competitive research/PPC research tool. It’s about the easiest way I know of to see the PPC ads that appear in other cities. Here’s a screenshot of a search for “anaheim real estate” in Anaheim, even though I’m up in Washington state.

And best of all, it’s not just limited to major U.S. cities; at the moment, there are 262 choices in the dropdown menu, including such non-metropolises as Roseville, California, and Arvada, Colorado. (No disrespect intended to Rosevillites and Arvadians.)

Glearch

Let’s expand our horizons beyond 262 U.S. cities. What if you needed to quickly see some search results from other countries and/or other languages? Glearch (again, I don’t name ‘em) is an international meta search engine that lets you search by country, by language, and/or by search engine. You can take those three options and customize each to build just the query you want.

In the example above, I’m doing a search for the rock band U2, and I’m searching French-language results on the French versions of Google, Yahoo, and Bing. I’m also including local newspapers, too. The search results page has a tab for web results and a tab for news results. The web results page, like any good meta search site, tells you where each listing was found, i.e., “Ranked 1 by Google search” or “Ranked 4 by Yahoo search.”

Roooby

We’ve written a fair amount about real time search in the past few months, but we haven’t focused too much on the visual element — people posting photos and videos of what they’re doing now. Roooby is one of several real time search engines that capture media, but one of the few that surface both photos and videos. (Although, to be frank, Roooby could do a better job of finding videos by scanning sites such as Qik.com, TwitVid.io, and others that host live video.)

Roooby isn’t the only player in this space. TwitCaps, TwitPicGrid, Pingwire, and Twicsy offer similar real time image search engines.

Spezify

Speaking of media and images, here’s the most visual search tool I’ve ever seen: Spezify. The best way I can describe it is a sort of visual meta search engine. It pulls in results from Yahoo, Bing, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and even eBay and Amazon to create a fairly stunning search results page.

This is serious eye candy. There’s a settings page where you can choose the sources and types of content (images, text, video) you want included. But to be frank, the focus on visuals means the search results have no context whatsoever. You can move vertically and horizontally through the results, but you have no idea why you’re seeing what you’re seeing. It’s innovative to be sure, but for this searcher, it’s too lacking in functionality.

Joobili

Finally, here’s one for our readers in Europe, or for our readers traveling to Europe. It’s called Joobili, and it’s a travel/event search engine with a twist: Rather than telling the search engine what you want to do or where you want to go, you tell it when. There’s a cool date-based slider on the home page to get you started, and once you’re in the results, Joobili lets you see results based on categories (Arts, Sport, Nature, etc.), by country, or by keyword.

If you create an account, Joobili will let you save events to a wish list or a “went” list. You can also rank events to help other users make decisions on what to do and where to go. It’s a clever approach, but as I hinted above, it only covers Europe.

See also:

• Another 5 Search Tools You May Not Know … But Should
• 5 (More) Search Tools You May Not Know … But Should
• 7 Search Tools You May Not Know … But Should

We’re wrapping up SMX China in Nanjing this afternoon. By all measures, the show was a success, with about 300 attendees and a dozen exhibitors, with people from China as well as many other Asian countries, India, Israel and even Africa in attendance.

Search in China is thriving, seemingly impervious to the economic turbulence that’s buffeting most of the rest of the world. There are several reasons for this—some obvious, some surprising—but the net takeaway is that China is poised to become an even more important market for search marketers once we’ve passed through this period of global slowdown.

What follows are impressions and observations from the two-day SMX Nanjing conference, with a focus on interpreting what’s going on in China for those who are either simply interested in following the state of search in the country, or for those looking to take the plunge by getting directly involved in this vibrant market.

The state of the Chinese market

I’ve been involved with organizing and moderating search marketing conferences in China for the past three years. Each time we run a show, the level of sophistication here marks a notable increase, both in quality of presentations and in the questions asked by attendees.

While many people here acknowledge that search marketing in China is “behind” the western world by three or four years, there are some key potential catalysts surfacing that may close that perceived gap much more quickly than many would expect. For example, unlike in western markets, where a majority of search marketing efforts have focused on direct response, conversion-oriented campaigns (e.g. selling stuff online) most search marketers in China until recently were simply promoting internet or online businesses, looking to drive traffic to web sites. “Conversion” is still a relatively unknown concept or goal for many Chinese search marketers.

But that’s changing. E-commerce is still in its infancy here, due to the relative immaturity of online payment systems, lack of infrastructure to sell and fulfill online, as well as a cultural tendency to prefer offline transactions in China (at least on the B2C side; by contrast, Alibaba is a global powerhouse in the online B2B marketplace). But slowly, non-internet industries are adopting search marketing, led by the automotive and electronics industries, but also, notably, others including real-estate, financial services and other categories that are essentially “long-tail” marketers that rely on multiple touch-points to influence consumers.

Another key shift is Chinese user preference migrating from portals, such as Sina and Sohu, to search engines. This is exactly what happened in the western world in the mid-to-late nineties, when users rebelled against walled-garden or “sticky” portal sites and adopted Google’s approach of directing people quickly to the best sites regardless of affiliation. The same shift is occurring in China, with search engines taking dramatic market share away from once-dominant portal sites. That, in turn, has led marketers and advertisers to take a greater interest in search-related opportunities and less interest in traditional display advertising options.

Both small and large firms are increasingly embracing search marketing in China, according to Fu Xinghua of Beijing-based market research firm Analysis. Large enterprises have increased expenditure in online marketing in the past year, using search marketing as a “last mile” tool to get more closely connected with consumers, and also as a relatively low-cost alternative to traditional forms of media. And small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in China are taking the plunge by getting involved with search marketing for the first time in a meaningful way, she said.

This is significant, because the majority of businesses in China are SMEs. The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission, polled SMEs in China recently and found that they had reached 6.58 trillion yuan ($US 954 billion) industrial output in the first five months of this year. Their profits increased by 30.8 percent from a year ago to reach 625.8 billion yuan ($US 92 billion). These folks have some serious change to invest in search marketing, especially in a market like China where costs are significantly lower than most western markets.

Keynote: Microsoft’s KSP – Keyword Service Platform

Zhaohui Tang, Principal Group Program Manager, Microsoft adCenter, kicked off the conference with a keynote address unveiling Microsoft’s new online services platform, designed to be a powerful suite of tools to help search marketers do their job more effectively, improve ROI on campaigns, and perhaps most importantly, add an unprecedented level of transparency to all areas of campaigns, from the true costs of keywords to more finely-tuned and specific traffic measurement and conversion reporting.

The KSP (keyword service platform) is an online service that works seamlessly with Excel 2007, blending the power of Microsoft’s huge data centers with the simplicity and familiarity of the spreadsheet program just about everyone is familiar with. The suite is made up of more than 20 tools related to keyword research. Tang demonstrated many of these tools, and all looked slick and powerful. Several caught my eye as being particularly useful. One was a keyword extraction tool, which performs keyword expansion based on analyzing your content and determining probable relevance of suggested terms based on category, demographics, age and other factors gleaned from the massive amounts of user behavior data Microsoft has collected over the years.

Another tool creates visualizations of potential “search funnels” based on where searchers might be in a buying or conversion cycle. Another, which can save tons of time for search marketers, is a text advertisement writer, that uses both suggested keywords and landing page copy to rapidly generate text ads that are projected to have superior click-through and conversion potential.

All of these tools are available for use with both Microsoft search advertising campaigns as well as campaigns with other search ad vendors. Tang said Microsoft is committed to upping the ante when it comes to opening up data and information to search marketers. “Transparency is part of the DNA at Microsoft Live Search and digital advertising solutions,” he said.

More information, including free registration for an invitation to try out the beta KSP platform, is available at Microsoft’s Keyword Services Platform page.

Key trends: Search in China

Baidu dominates. Regardless of whose stats you use, Baidu remains the dominant search engine in China with well over two-thirds share of the market. While Baidu does search the web, its business model relies largely on a paid-inclusion approach that includes a large number of paid placement results intermingled with some organic search results (it also offers sponsored links). Baidu’s position has strengthened, according to advertisers here, to the point where it has largely eliminated discounts and favored pricing and has been able to increase its rates by as much as 100% over the past year.

The buzz around Baidu centered around its forthcoming “Phoenix Nest” sponsored listings program. I don’t have details on this new program, but will report on it when it launches, reportedly sometime during this quarter.

What about Google? The dominant search engine elsewhere in the world is gaining traction in China, but it appears that Google’s gain is at the expense of Yahoo and the aforementioned portals rather than from taking share from Baidu.

Most search campaigns in China are small-scale. Jason Lei, vice president of paid search management software solution provider adSage, said that 77% of advertiser campaigns on Baidu employ just 200 or fewer keywords; the average is 50 keywords or less for all advertisers. There are some major campaigns running in China, but most of these appear to be managed by agencies that have access to sophisticated systems and tools not available to most search marketers in China.

The rise of branding & reputation management. The recent Beijing Olympics seems to have been both an influence and trigger for using search marketing for both branding and reputation management in China. As noted, search marketing was previously used primarily to drive traffic to online destinations. But with the variety of high-profile offline and online branding efforts that happened preceding and during the recent Olympic games, marketers have realized that search marketing provides a very cost-effective means to reinforce branding messages.

And despite media reports to the contrary, the blogosphere is alive and thriving in China, largely unfettered by official attempts at control or censorship. And just as elsewhere, comments that can spread like wildfire in the blogosphere can end up in prominent positions in search results. Search marketers in China are increasingly responding to this by engaging in reputation management campaigns. A timely example is the spoiled milk scandal that’s causing furor in the blogosphere, where a number of search marketers are engaged in attempting to alter perceptions through active search and social media marketing campaigns.

Mobile search is exploding. The Chinese government has cracked down on text-messaging spam, while at the same time relaxing certain controls on the type of content that can be distributed over mobile networks, stimulating an increase in user expectations for what’s available on mobile devices. According to Gavin Hu, vice president of marketing and sales for Shanghai-based consultancy mInfo, mobile search is adapting to consumer needs by moving more to a “pull-ad” model based on user behavior and opt-in requests rather than more general “push-ads,” which aren’t as targeted.

Mobile search differs from web search, in that mobile searchers are looking for instant gratification. And mobile phones are very personal gadgets, so mobile search requests tend to represent personal needs, rather than the broad needs that general-purpose web search attempts to accommodate. And the rapid expansion of 3G networks that can rapidly pump rich media through smartphones and iPhones should accelerate the adoption of mobile search, according to Hu.

A shortage of talent. Just as with the rest of the world, search marketers in China (both large companies as well as agencies) are scrambling to find qualified, experienced talent to employ as in-house search marketers. And many experienced people are recognizing opportunity and scratching their entrepreneurial itch by starting their own independent search marketing firms. Given the nascent and relatively undeveloped state of the search marketing industry in China, opportunities for qualified people abound.

Yahoo China’s disappearing act. Back in August 2005, Yahoo effectively ceded control of Yahoo China to Alibaba.com in exchange for a 40% stake in the Chinese online auction site. Since then, Yahoo China has all but disappeared as a major player on the search scene in China. Just as in the U.S., there’s been an exodus of Yahoo China employees to smaller firms, even while parent Alibaba has paradoxically emphasized that the future of the company will be very search centric. With all of the turmoil caused by Microsoft’s attempted acquisition and events elsewhere, you have to wonder if Yahoo on a global basis has entered its ultimate swan-song.

The bottom line for global search marketers

Given all of the favorable trends and positive growth in China, is it time for global search marketers to take the plunge and launch campaigns in China? Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to that question. It’s probably best to frame the answer with a list of positives and negatives that should help inform any decision you make.

Positives:

• China is of the largest markets in the world, with the most online users of any country (~250 million and counting)

• Increasing use of search engines by Chinese internet users
• Comparatively inexpensive options for search marketers in relation to other markets in the world
• Relative lack of sophisticated competition; relative ease of capturing top positions in both organic and paid search result listings

Negatives:

• Relative complexity of Chinese language (and multiple dialects) requires sophisticated knowledge and/or strong partnership with local marketing experts

• Lack of transparency on the part of market leader Baidu requires good relationships with company reps or agencies with good connections
• Lack of maturity in E-commerce poses challenges for direct-response or retail oriented search marketers

Establishing a search marketing campaign in China should be a no-brainer for major brands that are seeking to increase market share in China. The payoff likely won’t be immediately measurable, but over time branding efforts via search should pay huge dividends at remarkably affordable cost. For any other marketers, China has now become an attractive enough option to merit a close look, and for those who don’t mind taking a certain amount of risk, establishing a search marketing campaign in China now could pay at least modest dividends in the short run, with potentially huge returns in the long run.

Yahoo just started redirecting people in the UK who are trying to reach Yahoo.com instead to its Yahoo UK web site, something that Google has done for a long time. With the change, this seemed a good time to revisit how all the major search engines may intercept people trying to reach their ".com" versions from countries outside the United States.

Below, the examples are drawn from someone in the UK trying to reach .com versions of each of the major search engines. Those in other countries often will find similar interception in place.

Yahoo

If you are based in the UK, Yahoo will now redirect you to Yahoo UK & Ireland. The UK site shows the Yahoo UK & Ireland logo but also has a top banner explaining the new behavior. Search Engine Land editor-in-chief Danny Sullivan — who is in the UK — sent me a screen capture and explained the behavior of the feature. The screen in the UK looks like this:

Yahoo, right off the bat, tells you your Yahoo experience will be customized based on your locality. If you do not want a locally customized experience, click on "Go to yahoo.com" link, and you will be taken to the US version. Once you do this, the choice is remembered and stored via a cookie. The next time you try to go to Yahoo.com, you can go there directly without being redirected to Yahoo UK.

It is important to note that Yahoo’s results, even if you use Yahoo.com, will be skewed toward what it believes those in the UK would like to see. This will happen EVEN IF you DO NOT use the "UK only" box. The other major search engines also do such skewing. For Yahoo, we don’t know any way to override this behavior.

Google

Like Yahoo, try to go to Google.com in the UK and you’ll be redirected to Google UK. Also like Yahoo, you can override this. You use the "Go to Google.com" link at the bottom of the page. Do this once, and your choice is remembered for the future. Redirection will no longer happen (unless you clear your cookies for some reason).

Also as with Yahoo, results and ads on Google.com will still be skewed to favor what a UK user may want. There is a way to override this for ads and, to some degree, for the general search results. After you do a search, add this to the end of your query:

&gl=us

For example, if you searched for football, you’d see this in your browser’s address bar:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=football&btnG=Google+Search

At the end of that, insert the gl code, like this:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=football&btnG=Google+Search&gl=us

Now the results will be more US orientated. Want to see how they look for other countries? Instead of US, use the two digit code for any country you find listed over here. You can also use the AdWords Preview Tool to see locally based Google search ads.

Live Search

Live Search does NOT redirect you to a new URL. Instead, it gives you a customized look and localized search results for your country. The screen capture above shows the option for "Only from United Kingdom" results, since it was snapped from within the UK.

In the advanced options, there’s an option allowing you to set your location for anywhere in the world. However, Danny says that hasn’t worked properly for at least a year.

Fortunately, those wanting to see US results (or those from any country) can use a brand new Live Worldwide page he was just told about from Microsoft this week. The page hasn’t even been posted to the Live.com site, so you’ve got an exclusive to play with it.

Ask.com

Ask will redirect you to Ask UK. There is a link at the very bottom of the page that says "Ask.com US." Click on that to get to Ask.com. Unlike Yahoo and Google, this isn’t stored. You’ll have to do it each time you want to go to Ask.com from your browser address bar.

Baidu aims to take on Google and Yahoo in Japan from Reuters reports Baidu has relaunched in Japan at http://www.baidu.jp/. The press release called the launch a “formal launch of its Japanese language search engine.”

As part of this launch, Baidu revamped the Japanese home page and added blog search. Baidu currently holds a 70-percent market share in China and hopes to replicate that success in Japan. Here is a comparison of Baidu’s main site in China and the new Baidu Japan site, which is more portal in nature.

Baidu China:

Baidu Japan:

Robin Li, Baidu’s chairman and CEO, said:

We are very excited to officially enter the Japanese search market. With Baidu’s strengths in developing user-focused Chinese language search and the qualified team we have on the ground in Japan, and given the success we have already encountered after nearly one year of testing our beta site, we are confident that we can provide a high quality Japanese language search engine.

Singapore launches contest for next-generation search engine from PhysOrg.com reports Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology, and Research is managing a contest to build out “a next-generation multi-media online search engine.”

What I find humorous about the contest is that they expect $100,000 and eight months to be enough time and money to be enough to pull off a major multimedia search engine.

Singapore is not the first country to put government funds into the challenge against Google. Germany has its Project Theseus, France is doing its Project Quaero, and Japan has an effort, too.

Hat tip to Truemors for finding the story..

In what is widely expected to be the biggest technology IPO since Google and the biggest Internet IPO by a Chinese firm, Alibaba.com is ready to sell just over 850 million shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Those shares could fetch as much as $1.49 billion. Yahoo owns 39 percent of Alibaba Group, the parent of Alibaba.com, and has said it will buy about $100 million worth of shares in the offering. Trading is set to begin the first week of November.

Japan to fight Google search dominance from the Financial Times covers Japan’s continuing efforts to subsidize new generation search technologies tied to gadgets and hardware, in part to be competitive against US-based search companies like Google. From the report:

The Japanese project is comprised of 10 partnerships, each tasked with a specific next-generation search function. For example, the government has matched NTT Data with Toyota InfoTechnology Center and Toyota Mapmaster to create an interactive, personalised car navigation system. Other partnerships involve NEC, Hitachi and Sony Computer Science Laboratories. The ministry of trade has allocated Y14bn-Y15bn (€89m-€95m) to the project.

While the story is new, the project is not, having kicked off in December 2005.

The EU is also backing a German project named Theseus, with a $165 million grant. The French project, Quaero, broke off from Theseus, to go at it solo in December 2006.

Gary Price at ResourceShelf alerted us to the fact that enhanced directory assistance provider 118 218 in France is now offering a much broader service using content and results from search engine Exalead. In principle, this is comparable to enhanced directory assistance/mobile voice search services being offered in the US by Tellme, 1-800-YellowPages, Jingle Networks and Google (Goog411) but it’s a much broader service.

Users in France pay for 118 128 (owned by US-based InfoNXX) like traditional directory assistance in the US. By contrast, the services above (Tellme, et al) are all ad-supported — or will be. In addition to mobile voice search, 118 128 also offers a companion, Internet local search and shopping site.

EU OKs German Online Search-Engine Grant from Forbes reports Theseus, a German search research project, has received a $165 million grant from the European Union.

Theseus aims to develop an advanced multimedia search engine. The EU will allow German subsidy of the project through 2011.

We covered news in the past about this search project as well as the related Quaero project, which is being backed by France.