Yahoo and Alibaba.com

There's a great article in the New York Times about Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba.com, whose company just signed a sweet deal with Yahoo. Here's a few details from the Times:

"At a time when Microsoft, Google and eBay are seeking to expand their operations in China, Yahoo agreed to the largest Internet investment ever made here when it bet $1.7 billion on the future of Alibaba.com and its founder, Mr. Ma.

Yahoo said on Thursday that it would invest $1 billion in the privately held Alibaba.com, which operates not only its namesake, a business-to-business auction site that mostly purveys Chinese goods to a worldwide market, but also the consumer auction site Taobao.com, a strong rival here to eBay."

The article goes on to give some fascinating background about Ma; I found the story about his first forays into the world of the Net especially interesting.

Related:

• China's search market is big and getting bigger.
• The Yahoo campus is cool; I got to see a bit of it last week. Oh, and I went to Search Engine Strategies too. Anyway, back to the tour. There's buckets of free candy everywhere in the main cafeteria, no joke. No wonder they're all so happy working there.