Online China sourcing platform Alibaba has launched an online advertising exchange called Alimama, located at www.alimama.com. Designed to help small- and medium-sized web publishers monetize the estimated 80% of web site traffic which goes unmonetized in China, the ad exchange facilitates the trading of online inventory between web publishers and advertisers. Advertisers will via Alimama be also able to purchase advertising on Yahoo China, and since launching in beta on August 10 Alimama has signed up more than 150,000 small- and medium-sized web publishers and 135,000 personal blogs, covering more than 1 billion page views per day.

Originating from a factory producing golf carts in rural Jinhua (hours away from the nearest big city, Hangzhou), Alibaba in November listed shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange in the largest Internet initial public offering since Google, raising $1.5 billion from investors. The rise of Alibaba reflects some of the rapid economic shifts taking place in China as the country is poised to overtake the U.S. in the number of internet users, itself in part testament to the rising prominence of China's rapidly evolving middle class.