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Baidu Receives $50 Million To Build Video Site

The creation of the Chinese equivalent of Hulu is now officially underway.  Providence Equity Partners, which invested $100 million in the original American video site, will give Baidu $50 million to create Qiyi.com.  Qiyi should similarly offer premium content and rely on ad revenue. Qiyi will indeed be a completely by-the-book operation, judging from an "About Us" section that’s...

Baidu’s Stock Rises On Analysts’ Comments

The odds of Google leaving China appear to have been raised today.  Two financial experts made positive comments about Baidu, and while neither issued any carved-in-stone predictions about its competitor departing, investors are now buying more shares of the Chinese company’s stock. For what it’s worth, Credit Suisse analyst Wallace Cheung actually believes Google will stay in China. ...

Motorola Offers Baidu Search To China Mobile Users

Motorola is allowing Internet users in China to use Baidu or other search engines on its handsets with Google’s Android operating system. Baidu is Google’s chief rival in the search market in China. "Users will be able to select their search experience from a number of providers including Baidu and others, with whom Motorola has signed strategic agreements," the company said. Motorola...

Baidu CTO’s Resignation Announced

It appears that not all is well (or at least normal) at Baidu.  Last week, the company’s COO abruptly resigned, and today, its CTO followed suit.  Both men cited "personal reasons" for their departures, and Baidu’s made little other information available. Either exit might have been considered unremarkable on its own.  The COO, Peng Ye, left before Google made its...

China Responds to Google Situation

Update:  Chinese government officials have responded to Google’s proposed actions. As reported by Bloomberg: "The Chinese government administers the Internet according to law and we have explicit stipulations over what content can be spread on the Internet," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular briefing in Beijing today. Chinese law prohibits hacking and other...

Baidu’s Stock Soars Following Google China News

Reactions to Google’s announcement about a possible withdrawal from China have been mixed so far; there have been objections from individuals who think its absence will deprive the Chinese people of information, while others approve of what they consider a moral stand.  But Baidu’s investors probably aren’t too conflicted, as the company’s stock imitated a bottle rocket...

Baidu’s COO Resigns

Several changes in Baidu’s executive lineup occurred today, and fans can take heart in the fact that two of them came about as the result of promotions.  The third is a little more troubling, insofar as Baidu’s chief operating officer resigned "for personal reasons." The term "personal reasons" has represented any number of realities, of course. A person may be...

Hulu Investor May Help Launch Similar Site In China

An investment group with significant ties to Hulu may now be ready to help a similar site launch in China.  A report’s connected Providence Equity Partners to both Baidu and a new online video destination. Let’s start with a little history.  Once upon a time (or in mid-2007, to be more exact), Providence Equity Partners invested $100 million in Hulu, giving it a ten percent stake...

Baidu Readying Mobile App

All sorts of corporations and individuals have agreed that the mobile market is key in China; many more people can afford Internet-enabled phones than PCs.  Baidu may be onto something, then, as it intends to have an app loaded onto phones before they’re made available for sale. If Baidu can get a solid mobile app in front of a lot of people right from the start, it’ll decrease the...

Baidu Pummeled Following Low Forecast

Baidu shared its third quarter earnings report last night, and the part that actually concerned the third quarter was quite positive – the Chinese search giant reported higher revenues and profits than most experts expected.  Unfortunately for the company, its forecast for the fourth quarter then caused what can only be described as panic. We’ll start with the good news, at least. ...

Baidu Goes Wireless in Japan

Baidu announced that it has launched a new mobile search service in Japan. The company says Baidu Japan wireless search will build upon the existing Baidu.jp services, which include web search, image search, and video search, and have special features tailored to Japanese users. The company has already been offering wireless search in its home country China. There, it has partnerships with carriers...

Global Search Market Grows Tremendously YOY

comScore has released some new numbers for the global search market. The highlight of the findings is that the market draws over 100 billion searches per month. To be more specific, over 113 billion searches were conducted in July. This is a whopping 41% increase from a year ago. Obviously, Google sites received the bulk of these searches. Searches on Google sites represented 76.7 billion searches,...

Google, Baidu Swap Market Share In China

The second quarter of this year didn’t go so well for Google in China.  According to a new report, the American search giant’s market share shrunk a bit, while that of its Chinese equivalent, Baidu, managed to get larger. iResearch found that over three-fourths of all searches in China (specifically, 75.7 percent) were performed using Baidu in the second quarter of 2009.  This...

Baidu Partners With Discovery

Discovery Communications, parent company of the Discovery Channel, and Baidu, China’s largest search engine, have partnered to launch a new website focused on science and technology. "The launch of discovery.baidu.com represents an important step in building stronger brand awareness and consumer loyalty for Discovery in the key Chinese market," said Greg Ricca, President and CEO, Discovery...