In a hit to both Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and major shareholder Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), Yahoo Japan says it will use Google (NSDQ: GOOG) to power search on its site. In passing over Microsoft, Yahoo Japan CEO Masahiro Inoue said the company’s search technology was not “sufficiently strong enough for its…

Sir Martin Sorrell regularly identifies the two big growth opportunities as being digital and the BRIC countries. So it’s no surprise WPP is making another acquisition in both of those spaces. Through WPP Digital, it’s taking a minority stake in Leading Smart Holdings, which itself has a controlling stake in…

China’s Ministry Of Information has renewed Google’s license to operate in the country - but only after the search engine agreed to no longer automatically redirect users to its uncensored Hong Kong site.

Digital Sky Technologies, Naspers and Tencent are amongst the hottest digital media investment actors in Russia, South Africa and China. And now they’re moving in on western markets, starting with eastern Europe and including stakes in Facebook, Zynga and Groupon.

Google (NSDQ: GOOG), which has been redirecting Google China visitors to its search page in Hong Kong for three months now in order to avoid censoring its results, is trying a new strategy. The company says it can no longer automatically redirect Google.cn users to Google.com.hk lest its commercial website…

The Rubicon Project is doing a mix of hiring and firing as it brings in more automated services to meet clients’ demand for real-time bidding services, the company told paidContent. The company is letting go three staffers in the U.S. as well as two others in Hong Kong, as Rubicon…

According to separate reports from Nikkei, Bloomberg and *Reuters*, gaming-company-on-a-tear Zynga has raised a huge $147 million round from Softbank, for expansion into Asia. This deal has been in the works for a few months, with initial talks centered around Softbank, one of the largest telecom operators in Japan, being…

Indian ad net Komli Media has acquired Australian online rep firm PostClick. The deal is intended to expand Komli’s reach across the Asia Pacific region, which still has a lot of potential for online ad spending to grow. The combination of Komli and PostClick gives the two companies a reach…

RockYou, the big social networking app developer, has raised $10 million more in funding from SoftBank, which it says it will use to expand in Asia. The company is buying a majority stake in its Asian joint venture, RockYou Asia, which was set up one-and-a-half years ago to bring social…

Publicis Groupe’s digital unit VivaKi is opening its online video research initiative, The Pool, in China with a long list of marketers and content sites. The Pool launched in the U.S. only in January ‘09 and this makes China the second market to be included in the project, which is…

Social gaming giant Zynga is making a major push into Asia, through the acquisition of Beijing-based social gaming developer XPD Media. In a release, Zynga says XPD Media CEO Robin Chan will now be Zynga’s GM of Asian business development and lead a group of 40 engineers there, “giving it…

Online video services provider KIT Digital has acquired Benchmark Broadcast Systems for $9.5 million. This is the Prague, Czech Republic-based company’s second acquisition within the past two months. In March, it bought rival video player Multicast, which was its sixth purchase within the last few years. Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, KIT…

Alibaba Group, the part-Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) owned Chinese e-commerce giant, has a new investor in George Soros. Alibaba says Soros’ Soros Fund Management is now one of the top three shareholders of its Alibaba.com subsidiary, according to a report in the WSJ. Yahoo is the top shareholder in Alibaba Group…

Maurice Levy’s French advertising group Publicis is laying down €217.5 million to buy back its shares from Japanese advertising agency Dentsu. Announcement. Dentsu blamed its first annual loss since 1978 last year on having to write down €38 billion (now €233 million) from its Publicis investment - so this is…

58.com, a Chinese classified ad site, has raised $15 million in a round of funding. 58.com—which is currently in 320 cities in China and has more than 20 million registered users—says it will use the new cash to expand in “second- and third-tier cities” according to a brief by China-focused…

South Korean internet firm NHN has bought up Japanese internet portal Livedoor for $68 million. Livedoor was once Japan’s hottest internet startup—and at its height even started a baseball team—but had its stock delisted after a financial scandal several years ago (Time neatly sums up the history here). Livedoor remains…

Digital Sky Technologies, which has been busily investing hundreds of millions in American social media firms in recent months, now has a new backer of its own. Tencent, the big Chinese internet company, is investing $300 million in DST in exchange for a 10.26 percent stake; Tencent is also getting…

Two months after bids started ramping up for AOL’s instant messaging service ICQ came rushing in, it looks like the competition to own it is down to three companies, Reuters reports, citing Vedomosti, a Russian business news outlet. As Rafat reported in February, two of the possible bidders included Russian…

Reliance Big Entertainment, which owns Indian gaming firm Zapak, is buying a 50 percent stake in British video game maker Codemasters. Balderton Capital, which had accumulated a large stake in Codemasters between 2005 and 2007, is the other major shareholder; Balderton bought the Codemasters shares it didn’t already own in…