Baidu
| File:Baidu logo.gif | |
| Company type | Public (Nasdaq: BIDU) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Internet information providers |
| Founded | 2000 |
| Headquarters | Beijing, China |
Key people | Li Yanhong, founder, chairman, CEO Shawn Wang, CFO Zhu Hongbo, COO |
| Products | search engine |
| Revenue | $13.401 million USD (2004) |
| $1.330 million USD (2004) | |
| $1.450 million USD (2004) | |
Number of employees | 328 |
| Website | http://www.baidu.com |
Baidu (Chinese: 百度; pinyin: bǎi dù) (Nasdaq: BIDU) is a Chinese search engine which can search text and images. As of December 2005, it is the fourth most visited site on the Internet.[1] Baidu translates to "hundreds of times" in English.
Baidu provides an index of over 740 million web pages, 80 million images and 10 million multimedia files.[2]
In May 2006 Baidu launched an online, user-generated encyclopedia modelled on Wikipedia, which is blocked by Beijing. The new service, Baidupedia, is heavily self-censored to avoid offending the Chinese government. Wikipedia had become increasingly popular in China until it was blocked in 2005.
Name
The name of Baidu was inspired by a poem constructed in the ci form by the poet Xin Qiji, written more than 800 years ago during the Song Dynasty. The poem compares the search for a retreating beauty amid chaotic glamour with the search for one's dream while confronted by life's many obstacles. hundreds and thousands of times, for her I searched in chaos, suddenly, I turned by chance, to where the lights were waning, and there she stood. (眾裡尋他千百度。驀然回首，那人卻在，燈火闌珊處。) Baidu, literally meaning hundreds of times, represents persistent search for the ideal.
MP3 Search
Baidu's most popular feature is its support for multimedia search, called "MP3 Search". It can locate file formats such as MP3, WMA and SWF. The multimedia search feature is mainly used in searches for Chinese pop music. While such works are copyrighted under Chinese law, intellectual property laws have garnered little support in China, whether by the copyrighted work's makers, its consumers or China's various administrative agencies, and there has been little enforcement of the pertaining laws.
See: Intellectual property in the People's Republic of China
Yahoo China recently offered a similar service.
Public offering
Baidu.com had its initial public offering (IPO) the morning of Friday, Aug 5, 2005. Baidu.com opened at $27/share. At the close of Nasdaq trading on that Friday, Baidu.com shares closed at $122.54, up $95.54 from its opening price (a gain of 353%). However, over the next few trading days, Baidu stock pulled back rapidly, closing at $91.75 on August 10. Baidu.com is often called the "Google of China" due to its resemblance and similarity to Google. In fact, Google is one of the shareholders of Baidu.com, owning 2.6% of that company's shares.
On September 14, 2005, the stock plunged 24% on the Nasdaq after two analysts said it was "overpriced."[3]
Baidu services
Other than images and text search, Baidu provides several other services:
- Baidu Zhidao: A Q&A service.
- Baidu Post: A discussion group service based on keywords. Upon entering a keyword, the user is taken to an existing discussion thread, or given the option of creating a new thread.
- Baidu Baike: A wikilike encyclopedia service
References
- ^ "Alexa Web Search - Top 500". Retrieved 2006-05-11.
- ^ "MSN Money - BIDU". MSN Money. Retrieved 2006-05-11.
- ^ "Bloomberg.com - Asia". Retrieved 2006-05-11. (as of last access date appears to be a blank page)