Overture's foray into Greater China should boost online market
The internet advertising market in China should get a boost from the arrival of United States search-based advertising agency Overture.
The company last week launched in Taiwan and plans to launch in Hong Kong and the mainland in the first quarter of next year.
Its Taiwan launch includes strategic alliances with Yahoo!, MSN and Taiwan sites Seednet, ChinaTimes.com and UDN.com, giving it access to 80 per cent of the island's internet market.
The firm's entry into the mainland is expected to help boost the sleepy online advertising market.
Overture gained prominence last year when it was bought by Yahoo! for US$1.8 billion, a move designed to give Yahoo! access to a niche dominated by search engine Google.
Overture's business model is to match search queries with client offerings, allowing for more targeted advertising, a model made famous by Google which has no banner ads on its site and which provides topic-based ads to other sites.
