Jack Ma, CEO of Yahoo China and Alibaba, will give the keynote address at Search Engine Strategies, one of the top conferences in search engine marketing and optimization. Search Engine Strategies is held in eleven cities worldwide, and Ma will speak at the event in Nanjing, China, being held on March 17-18, 2006.

Alibaba operates a business auction site and owns C2C auction site TaoBao, which is fiercely competing with eBay in China. Alibaba took over Yahoo properties in China when Yahoo acquired a 40 percent stake in Alibaba last August (http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y05/m08/i11/s00). An AFX wire story today says TaoBao beat eBay China in 2005 in terms of transaction volume, according to a study from the China Internet Development Research Center (CIDRC) (http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2006/02/19/afx2538432.html).

McAnerin Networks Inc. a website promotion company, is hosting the first "China Search Marketing Tour" featuring visits to Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing. The tour takes place March 9 - 19, 2006, and participants will meet with government officials and members of China's search marketing industry in each of the cities they visit and will attend the Search Engine Strategies conference in Nanjing (http://www.chinasearchmarketingtour.com).

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