According to the Brazilian news magazine Exame, Google has made Brazil the center of its Latin American operations, placing former country director Alexandre Hohagen at the helm.
Google is understood to have chosen Brazil for its superior regional performance. While the Mountain View, California-based search giant doesn’t comment on regional numbers, the article claims that Brazil is Google’s fastest growing market (hard to verify, but it’s certainly one of the fastest growing), generating an estimated $500 million per year in revenues. This is all the more impressive considering the Brazilian office was opened just three years ago and has only 200 employees.
The decision to run Latin American operations from Brazil comes soon after another decision to move all development and management of Orkut to that country, with most of the engineering in the city of Belo Horizonte. Orkut is Google’s social network, which enjoys most of its popularity in Brazil and India.
Brazil is also said to have the second largest number of Gmail accounts, perhaps because of the popularity of Orkut. Google’s biggest white labeled Gmail customer may also be in Brazil: iG, a portal with over 9 million accounts.
Google is still in the process of replacing Hohagen with a new country director for Brazil.
Let’s hope they’ll grab the attention of the region for internet advertising. If all our traffic from Brazil would monetize as well as the US traffic does, it’d be amazingly profitable to keep growing in the area, as of now clicks from there are worthless.
well, you should be looking at other ways of monetizing that traffic. The 500MM mentioned above are generated by advertisers IN Brazil.
Obviously it’ll be a much harder to sell your inventory of Brazilian users (or from any other country with large traffic, like China or India) to advertisers in the US…
Why they are doing?
time to outsource google to brazil
We’ve got most of Brazil blocked on our servers. Too many 3rd world script kiddies down there keep trying to hack our shit.
With America in its glorious military and Economic shape, I wouldn’t be using the word 3rd world to describe anyone these days, brother.
brilliantly put, Alex.
Brazil has a huge market to be explored. Also, lots of Linux Dist have their products translated to pt-BR because of high demand there for FOSS. Another news that came from the same magazine months ago is that the number of millionaries in Brazil grew substantially in financial and tech field (percentage growth speaking, more than US last year).
They should have Arnold give them a tour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uerFZ2Z42nc
Visitors are always welcome, specially in that strip joint.
There is a man here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE) saying that US should declare on Brazil. LOL
ooops .. declare war on Brazil.
Comic About Orkut:
http://img138.imageshack.us/im.....dnpkn2.jpg
translation:
1) In the beginning Orkut was a temple of learning and exchanging knowledge (saber = knowledge;… In 1944 the Russians where near Berlim…)
2) Then a crowd of stupid young people destroyed the flame of knowledge (kiss or bite game…)
3) In few time spammers owned everything ( topless girl says to escaping knowledge:- “me and my friends will drive you crazy…”)
Does this mean Google isn’t planning to relaunch Orkut in the American Market? left it all to Facebook? I know Google is trying to make their Apps more social inside the Apps themselves (Gmail, Calendar, Docs) according to Rishi Chandra, product manager for Google Enterprise.
It’s strange, until now Argentina was the center of operations for Latin America:
Google goes to Argentina: Opens regional HQ in Buenos Aires
http://www.theinquirer.net/en/.....-argentina
And Argentina is the only Latin American country with a Google Code Jam: http://www.google.com/press/pr.....nners.html
Expecting clarifications soon…
Mark,
in Brazil there are the central of LatAm engineering not the “operations” for Latin America which are, like srw pointed out, based on Buenos Aires.. in fact in Buenos Aires are where the adsense/adwords regional temas are based.
Wrong guess mariano, Adsense/Adwords is in Sao Paulo and LatAm engineer too. Google has a small office in Bueno Aires too. The problem is that stupid americans think Buenos Aires is in Brazil.
Wait! Buenos Aires isn’t in Brazil???!!!
kidding…
I’d like to know if they are hiring! If only Belo Horizonte had a beach…
abraços
According to the article on Exame, the head of ops, Alexandre Hohagen is Brazilian, with a Masters from USP (University of São Paulo). He also formerly ran HBO Brasil.
It says that due to facilitation of pedophilia charges brought against Google’s Orkut, Hohagen stayed away from dealing with the issue for a year even though it was being processed in the Brazilian court system. Google’s image in Brazil became that of one which doesn’t care to follow the laws. On July 2nd, Hohagen finally signed a bill saying he would actually deal with Orkut’s legal issues…just as he was poised to take his new position. Good timing..
is Mike in Brazil
Monday, August 4, 2008
Raise the issue of Dr. Afia :Make a difference
Dr. Afia Siddiqui, was arrested along with her three children by a Pakistani intelligence agency in early 2003 and has been missing since then. American and Pakistani intelligence agencies confirmed that she had been arrested in connection with Al-Qaeda, the terrorist organisation run by Osama Bin Laden. However, later both agencies denied that she had been arrested. Dr. Afia’s whereabouts remain unknown but it is suspected that she is being held in an American detention centre.
CASE DETAILS:
The press reports claimed that Dr. Afia had been picked-up by Pakistani intelligence agencies while on her way to the airport and initial reports suggested that she was handed over to the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). At the time of her arrest she was 30 years and the mother of three sons the oldest of which was four and the youngest only one month.
A Monthly English magazine of Karachi in a special coverage on Dr. Afia reported that one week after her disappearance, a plain clothed intelligence went to her mother’s house and warned her, “We know that you are connected to higher-ups but do not make an issue out of your daughter’s disappearance.” According to the report the mother was threatened her with ‘dire consequences’ if she made a fuss.
Whilst Dr. Afia’s whereabouts remain unknown, there are reports of a woman called ‘Prisoner 650′ is being detained in Afghanistan’s Bagram prison and that she has been tortured to the point where she has lost her mind. Britain’s Lord Nazeer Ahmed, (of the House of Lords), asked questions in the House about the condition of Prisoner 650 who, according to him is physically tortured and continuously raped by the officers at prison. Lord Nazeer has also submitted that Prisoner 650 has no separate toilet facilities and has to attend to her bathing and movements in full view of the other prisoners.
Also, on July 6, 2008 a British journalist, Yvonne Ridley, called for help for a Pakistani woman she believes has been held in isolation by the Americans in their Bagram detention centre in Afghanistan, for over four years. “I call her the ‘grey lady’ because she is almost a ghost, a spectre whose cries and screams continues to haunt those who heard her,” Ms Ridley said at a press conference.
Ms Ridley, who went to Pakistan to appeal for help, said the case came to her attention when she read the book, The Enemy Combatant, by a former Guantanamo detainee, Moazzam Begg. After being seized in February 2002 in Islamabad, Mr Begg was held in detention centres in Kandahar and Bagram for about a year before he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay. He recounted his experiences in the book after his release in 2005. Mr. Imran Khan, leader of Justice Party (T.I) suspects that prisoner 650 is the Dr. Afia Siddiqui and USA and Pakistani authorities are hiding facts of ‘Prisoner 650′.
SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please write to the relevant authorities listed below and request them to investigate immediately. Dr. Afia’s whereabouts must be confirmed and the safety of her children assured. Regardless of whether Dr. Afia is Prisoner 650 or not the fact is that she has been missing, along with her children for five years. The governments of the USA and Pakistan at first confirmed her arrest and then denied it. Both governments have a duty to report any information they might have on the matter.
SAMPLE LETTER:
Dear________,
PAKISTAN/USA: A lady doctor is missing with her three children since five years after her arrest
Name of victim: Ms. Dr. Afia Siddiqui and her three children
Block 7, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi, Sindh province
The units of the alleged perpetrators: Intelligence agencies of Pakistan and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI-US)
I am shocked to know that Dr. Afia Siddiqui, a Pakistani citizen has been missing with her three children since April 2003, after her arrest by intelligence agencies of Pakistan. The whereabouts of children is also unknown, which is a serious act of negligence on the part of the government with regard to its responsibility to protect the citizen of the Pakistan.
According to the information I have received Dr. Afia was picked-up by Pakistani intelligence agencies while on her way to the airport and initial reports suggested that she was handed over to the American FBI. A few days later an American news channel, NBC, reported that Afia had been arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of facilitating money transfers for terror networks of Osama Bin Laden.
On April 1, 2003, a small news item was published in an Urdu daily with reference to a press conference of then Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat when, in reply to a question regarding the arrest of Dr. Siddiqui, he said she has not been arrested. But in another report the minister for interior said,”You will be astonished to know about the activities of Dr. Afia.” A weekly English magazine in its special coverage on Dr. Afia reported that after one week of the incident, an intelligence agency official, a motor cyclist in plain clothes, came to the house of her mother and warned “We know that you are connected to higher-ups but do not make an issue out of her daughter’s disappearance” and threatened her with dire consequences. After this development the whereabouts of Dr. Afia and her children are yet unknown.
What is also of grave concern to me is that when she was arrested by Pakistani intelligence authorities she was handed over to American intelligence agencies without being tried in Pakistan, I do not find any rationale in sending her along with her children to other country when there are Pakistani laws to deal with the suspected terrorists. It is known that President Musharraf handed over 600 suspected terrorists to America.
There are reports that in Afghanistan’s prison of Bagram there is a woman prison known as Prisoner 650 and that she has been severely tortured. It is also widely suspected that Prisoner 650 is Dr. Afia Siddiqui. This prisoner has reportedly lost her mind due to constant rape and ill treatment.
I remind you that this is the duty of coalition government under Prime Minister Mr. Yousaf Raza Gillani to probe cases of those Pakistani suspected terrorists who have been handed over to foreign forces in the name of war on terror. The government should also inform Pakistani citizens about the whereabouts of Dr. Afia Siddiqui and her children. I also demand that government should also ensure the safety of her children.
Yours sincerely,
————-
PLEASE SEND YOU LETTERS TO:
1. The Chief
Allied Joint Force Command
Head Quarters Brunssum,
Public Affirs office, P.O. BOX 270
6440, AG, Brunssem
THE NETHERLANDS
Tel. No.: +31 45 526 2409
Email: pio@jfcbs.nato.intHeadquar
t
2. Mr. George W. Bush
President of the United State of America (USA)
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW,
Washington, DC 20500
USA
Email: presidents@presidentsusa.net
3. Mr. Hamid Karzai
President of Afghanistan
Gul Khana Palace
Presidential Palace
Kabul
AFGHANISTAN
Email: president@afghanistangov.org
4. General Pervez Musharraf
President of Pakistan
President’s Secretariat
Islamabad
PAKISTAN
Fax: +92 51 922 1422 / 4768; 920 1893 or 1835
E-mail: (please see: http://www.presidentofpakistan.....ssage.aspx)
5. Mr. Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani
Prime Minister
Prime Minister House, Islamabad,
PAKISTAN
Fax: +92 51 922 1596
Tel: +92 51 920 6111
E-mail: webmaster@infopak.gov.pk or infominister@pak.gov.pk
6. Mr. Farooq Naik
Minister of Law, Justice and Human Rights
S Block Pakistan Secretariat
Islamabad
PAKISTAN
Fax: +92 51 920 2628
E-mail: minister@molaw.gov.pk
7. Mr. Rehman Malik
Advisor for Ministry of Interior
Room No. 404, 4th Floor, R Block,
Pak Secretariat
Islamabad
PAKISTAN
Fax: +92 51 920 2624
Tel: +92 51 921 2026
E-mail: minister@interior.gov.pk
Thank you
Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission (ua@ahrchk.org)
Posted by Insouciant at 3:50 PM
Expect more to come.