It was only a matter of time before Google, already the world’s most popular search engine, would start expanding into vertical markets. The first is the $80bn (€60bn) online travel-search sector, which Forrester Research sees growing to $111bn (€85bn) by 2014.

In July, Google plonked down $700m (€535m) to buy the biggest airline search software company, ITA Software, a move that prompted a predictable flurry of monopolistic concerns. ITA competes with the likes of Sabre, Amadeus, Travelport and European start-up Everbread, to collect data on airfares, flight availabilities and schedules. This information is then delivered to several clients, including two travel websites, Expedia and Kayak, who also tried to buy their key supplier. Intriguingly, another ITA customer is Bing, Microsoft’s revamped search engine that has used travel recommendations as one of its key differentiators.

Even though ITA counts Alitalia, TAP Portugal, LOT Polish Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic among its customers, ITA’s European sales are considered too light to warrant scrutiny from Brussels. In the US, however, where 50% of airfare searches are said to use ITA software, Google is bracing itself for probes by the Department of Justice. Most analysts believe the union will eventually pass muster with Washington watchdogs, particularly if Google sticks to its promise of honouring ITA’s existing partnership agreements, and provided it refrains from actually selling airline tickets online.

Despite such short-term assurances, the deal certainly poses long-term worries for online travel agencies that have to come rely on ITA’s data.

Google will make its money from the deal by pointing customers to the best airfare available – integrating that information with its maps and possibly hotel data – and then selling ads against those search inquiries.

ITA claims the acquisition will “benefit passengers, airlines and online travel agencies by making it easier for users to comparison shop for flights and airfares”. But it is not clear that Google would want to allow those agencies, which include Travelocity, Kayak, Orbitz, Expedia, TripAdvisor and Bing, to be able to set themselves apart through additional data streams and services. Why would it risk losing precious advertising revenue to other destination sites?

In the meantime, analysts are trying to predict which vertical market – mortgages, credit cards, car and home insurance or healthcare – will find itself in Google’s crosshairs next. The search is on.

The word from…New Delhi

By Mike MacEacheran

For years, India’s painted elephants have been one of the country’s most iconic status symbols. But as next month’s Commonwealth Games looms, New Delhi could soon be on a crash course with a much larger white elephant.

Despite the mounting excitement at street level over the sub-continent’s biggest ever sporting event, it is the rising deficit and budget shortfall that is being frantically debated at India’s parliament house, Lok Sabha.

Proving to be as controversial as it is costly, the October jamboree is expected to rise beyond the current estimate of €2bn, making it the most expensive branding exercise India has ever indulged in. Some estimates have even put the bill at €6bn, more than six times the cost of the 2006 Melbourne Games. With rich sponsors in short supply (most domestic advertisers are tied up with the IPL cricket franchise) the government has stepped in to ask for last-minute support from the country’s top performing state-owned firms on the basis that it’s a “good cause”.

Ministers are also raining down on the neck of every hotelier, labourer and engineer to get the infrastructure finished in time. With weeks to go, Connaught Place, the city’s commercial and business showpiece, still lies under layers of dust and forests of scaffolding; tree-lined avenues are still being dug up; and the hyped metro extension is causing more congestion than ever before. Moreover, with deadlines to hand over stadia and key venues to organisers by last December having long since passed, the Commonwealth Games Federation is starting to sweat about the level and standards of completion.

All of which puts Delhi in a very embarrassing position, especially as the Games’ many local detractors have hardly been shy in pointing out that while the colonial buildings, a legacy of the British Raj, are enjoying their facelift, Delhi’s citizens continue to suffer from vast economic disparity. Indeed, the government’s fear of failure on the world stage could ultimately tarnish India’s image as a huge success story.

Of course, progress has been made. Cue Delhi’s shiny, new, sky-lit Terminal 3 built at a cost of €2bn to coincide with the hosting of the 19th Games and to lure overseas investment. As a symbol of India’s new economic potential and surging growth it offers hope that, before the starter gun fires, Delhi’s infrastructure will be delivered on time if not to budget. Here’s hoping they can pull a painted elephant out of the hat.

This won’t hurt a bit

● For the last two decades, transdermal drug delivery has been most readily associated with those nicotine patches that smokers wear in the hope of kicking their habit. Although very effective for administering drugs into the bloodstream without the need for needles, only 35 patch products have been approved by the Federal Drug Administration in the US – mainly because only the smallest molecules are able to pass the tough outer skin slayers to reach the blood capillaries. However, a new laser-based skin poration method developed by Luxembourg-based Pantec Biosolutions AG is set to expand the range of medicine that can be absorbed.

The company’s Painless Laser Epidermal System (P.L.E.A.S.E), which has just won marketing authorisation in the EU, will make a wider menu of therapies far more painless, including IVF-hormone injections to help with infertility. With increasing numbers of women experiencing difficulties in getting pregnant, the IVF market alone is already worth $2bn (€1.5bn) annually, and is growing at 10% a year despite all the attendant agonies.

GREENTECH SECTOR COOLS OFF

● Even before the BP spill, the market for cleaner alternatives was enjoying its own global warming, with greentech seeing the biggest VC haul of any sector last year, according to new tech analyst GigaOM Pro, and the hottest IPOs, including the $2.2bn debut of Chinese wind power producer Longyuan Electric Power Group.

Europe, the Middle East and Africa led the way, investing $42bn according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, but don’t expect that to continue. Europe’s fiscal crisis has had a chilling effect on renewable energy plans in Greece, Spain, Italy and even Germany, where subsidies for new solar plants were slashed in May. In the US, where the Department of Energy has given some $60bn in stimulus grants to the sector, there are questions about what happens when the funding stops, particularly if Congress swings to the Republicans in November. All of which leaves China, with its skyrocketing electricity demands, as the driving force – a irony further compounded by rumours of a BP takeover by PetroChina.

Making hay while the sun shines

● While it hardly lacks for sunshine or financial resources, the Middle East has been a laggard in solar energy. The blame has been pinned on a lack of local expertise, not to mention an abundance of cheap conventional fuel sources. But, in typical Gulf State fashion, construction starts this month on a project that will leapfrog the region above all others – using European expertise.

Abu Dhabi has teamed up with Seville-based Abengoa Solar and French oil giant Total SA to build the world’s largest concentrating solar power (CSP) plant at a cost of $600m (€460m). Spanning 2.5km2 and using 768 parabolic mirrors that heat up fluid-filled vessels, the Shams 1 facility will help power Masdar City, the $22bn (€17bn) zero-carbon, waste- free city designed by UK firm Foster + Partners. Scheduled for completion in two years, it will have a capacity of 100MW.

Not to be outdone, Jordan is now planning a similar CSP facility, using German knowhow, and there are plans across Australia, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa and the US – basically any place with a desert.

IF YOU CAN MAKE IT THERE...

● As the city that never sleeps, New York is the ideal breeding ground for mobile applications such as Foursquare that promote incessant socialising. Other locally-based start-ups, such as Gilt Groupe, Etsy, Tumblr, and Hunch, have also successfully played to the city’s strengths in media, fashion and commerce. Together, these info-tech supernovas are helping NYC turn up heat again on the US West Coast – nearly a decade after the first “Silicon Alley” bubble burst.

“We already have more information and media jobs in New York City – 315,000 and counting – than any other metropolitan area in the nation,” boasted mayor Michael Bloomberg in May, “and during the first quarter, venture capital funding increased in New York by 19% even while it went down in Silicon Valley.”

But New York is also the most expensive US city, making it a punishing environment for bootstrapped businesses. Which is why Bloomberg’s latest initiative is to provide them withearly stage capital – plugging a surprising hole in the city’s financial infrastructure: the lack of angel investors.

Teaming up with local venture capital firm FirstMark Capital, the New York City Economic Development Corp has unveiled the $22m (€17m) NYC Entrepreneurial Fund, the first fund of its kind outside Silicon Valley. MyCityWay, a mobile portal to city attractions, is the first beneficiary, receiving $300,000 (€230,000) to help it make the move from New Jersey to New York.

But the doors are also open to those with no local connections, says Bloomberg, the city’s best-known billionaire turned recruiter-in-chief.“It doesn’t matter if you’re in New Jersey or in New Delhi. If you have an idea, a product, or an app, New York City I think is the city for you.”

MAO’S LONG MARCH TO CAPITALISM

● Underscoring China as the global leader in initial public offerings, the Agricultural Bank of China raised $22.1bn from the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges this summer – once overallotment options had been exercised – giving it claim to the largest IPO in history. The previous record was held also by a Chinese lender, Industrial & Commercial Bank, which raised $21.9bn in 2006.

To put AgBank’s offering in perspective, the amount raised is 33 times that of the largest IPO pulled offso far this year in the US, when Canadian whiteboard maker SMART Technologies went public in mid-July. The bank, founded by Mao for China’s rural peasants, is now worth more than Wall Street’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase.

Little wonder then that a global survey of VC firms, for whom IPOs are lucrative, points to shift in the financial centre of gravity after years of dominance by developed nations. The report by Deloitte and the National Venture Capital Association predicts a contraction in the US VC sector over the next five years, while emerging markets, including China, India and Brazil, will see expansion in the number of VC firms; Asia’s prosperity, typified by Singapore’s 15% growth this year, may also prove ominous for the West’s economic future.

Brand positioning

● China Mobile, the biggest wireless network provider in the world, has been named as the most valuable brand in China by a new report. According Interbrand, a consultancy which is part of Omnicom Group, the China Mobile brand is worth 202.8bn yuan ( €23.9bn). The telecoms firm had 549 million customers as of May 2010.

China Life Insurance took second spot on 99.5bn yuan, with the financial sector as a whole dominating the top 10; China Construction Bank, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, Ping An Insurance, China Merchants Bank, and China Pacific Insurance all featured. Rounding up the top 10 were Tencent, which operates a range of web portals, and Kweichow Moutai, the liquor specialist.

The most valuable consumer electronics brands were Midea, Suning, Haier, Gree, Gome, Hisense and Lenovo, the IT giant that acquired IBM’s computing arm in 2005. Baidu, China’s main search engine, was well regarded, while Alibaba, the B2B e-commerce property, and Ctrip, a travel site also featured. Wuliangye, Tsingtao and Changyu Pioneer were the leading alcoholic drinks players, with Mengniu and Yurun among food and drink manufacturers. BYD Auto, Dongfeng Motor and Geely Holdings stood out in the rapidly emerging automotive sector. Bosideng International and Metersbonwe Fashion were the most valuable fashion brands, with sportswear represented by Anta, 361 Degrees, Peak and Li Ning.

Apping the future

● The demand for mobile apps will continue to rise in the next three years, during which time smartphones in use worldwide will increase to one billion.

According to Booz & Co, the revenues related to application downloads will reach €17bn across the globe by 2013, a figure that is likely to be topped up by advertising spend and the sale of games. By this date, it is predicted there will be more than a billion web-enabled smartphones in circulation, with the surge in popularity of these handsets driving an annual growth rate of 73% in app purchases. However, the direct distribution of applications is expected to be worth just €5.4bn by 2013, with the remainder of the total attributable to broader benefits resulting from greater brand loyalty and reduced churn.

Apple is set to generate a turnover of €2.3bn from its App Store in 2010, and Booz & Co suggested it was imperative for its competitors to catch up before it is “too late”.

NASPERS HOISTS ITS OWN WORLD CUP

● The winner of the World Cup can typically expect a 10% year-on- year stock market bump, which is welcome news for the lagging Spanish economy; South Africa, on the other hand, is already grumbling that the benefits of hosting the football finals pale next to the profits reaped by organising body FIFA.

But whatever the net costs of building all those gleaming stadia, it may be nothing compared to the spoils that may come South Africa’s way through one its shrewdest companies: Naspers.

Two days after the Spanish team took to the streets in Madrid in victory celebrations, the venerable Cape Town media firm acquired a 28.7% stake in Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian venture capital fund that owns chunks of the world’s fastest-growing online companies. The deal also aligns Naspers’ internet ambitions with those of Tencent, the Chinese giant that bought a 10% stake in DST after growing huge selling virtual bling.

Naspers already had an impressive portfolio that included full ownership of Poland’s leading instant messaging service, Gadu-Gadu, and a 91% stake in BuscaPé, which supplies online comparison-shopping technology to more than 100 Latin American websites. To that list can now be added interests in Groupon, Zynga, ICQ and Facebook, the unstoppable social network that added its 500 millionth user this summer and is now targeting a global audience of one billion.

Almost overnight, a tripartite, emerging-markets axis has been created that looks certain to wield enormous control over tomorrow’s communications channels right around the world. No vuvuzelas necessary.