Tangos Lifestream - tagged with baidu

Baidu’s New Ads System is Still Old

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:34:00 -0800

On December 1st, 2009, Baidu closed its previous paid search ads system, and fully switched into the new Phoenix Nest system. But on December, we found that the concept of the new system is still old. Traditionally, Baidu made its paid search listings on its search result pages, most of the users of the search engine cannot differentiate ads from organic search results. They are confused by paid and non-paid results. In Nov 2008, China Central Television (”CCTV”), the largest state-owned television network in China, reported that Baidu took money from illegal medical companies for paid search results. The more they pay, the higher up their name appear in the search results page. The paid search results undermined the integrity of the search experience. Immediately after that, Baidu announced that it would introduce a new ads system, i.e. Phoenix Nest, which will more clearly separates its paid links from ordinary search results. In April 2009, Baidu pilot launched its new ads system. Phonenix Nest system is a totally new system in terms of advertising management, it is very similar to Google’s Adwords system. As to the media reports on Phoenix Nest, on its new system, the sponsored results will only be listed on the right of the search results pages, and separated from organic results. In Nov, Baidu announced that the old ads system will be totally replaced by Phoenix Nest on Dec 1st. On a report by China Daily on Nov 30, it said, “the new stem will clearly distinguish search ads from normal, or organic, search results. That means the controversial keyword advertising bidding system is going to step off the stage”. However, on Dec 1st., I found that you can still see paid results mixed with non-paid results, just as previously. This new system still allow ads to be listed on the left, even though you need to refine the quality of your ads text to make it qualified to be listed on the left. The new Phoenix Nest is still old in terms of its underlying paid search concept. An ordinary search users can still be confused by paid ads and non-paid search results.

Post tags: Baidu, Phonenix Nest

Who is Leading China’s Blog Market? (14) Voice Matters: Baidu Launches Voice Search, QQ Voice Mail Follows (3) Use Search Engine To Compare Popularity of Chinese Websites (4) The Secrets of Baidu’s Investment (4) The Coming War Between Baidu and Taobao (4)

Baidu to Build Product Database for Ecommerce

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 02:04:00 -0700

Youa.com, the ecommerce site of Baidu, announced an “Ark Plan”, which aims to build up standardized products database for online shopping. The purpose of the Ark Plan is to build an unified and structured products database, which include all the information needed when a buyer go shopping online, such as the specification of the product, price info, users’ reviews, related products and etc. The information can be used by sellers on Youa.com, then they don’t need to bother to input basic information of products. On the other hand, after the implementation of the database, sellers on Youa.com cannot list products which are not included in the database. The product database of mobile phone is online already, for example, this is the product page for Nokia N97. According to Baidu, the Ark Plan will be an open project, and collaborated by Youa.com, B2C ecommerce sites and some information portals. But we don’t know so far whether the database is open to third-parties through open API.

Post tags: Baidu, Youa

Baidu E-commerce Platform Is Finally Online (4) Who is Leading China’s Blog Market? (14) Voice Matters: Baidu Launches Voice Search, QQ Voice Mail Follows (3) Use Search Engine To Compare Popularity of Chinese Websites (4) The Secrets of Baidu’s Investment (4)

Alading: Baidu Wants Your Structured Data

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:07:00 -0700

Baidu has launched its Alading platform, which is to track the dark web. There’s lots of data on the web, which is not in form of web page, mainly those dynamic content. Users usually get those content by submitting a form query. Search engine sometimes can index dynamic links to retrieve some data, but there’s no way to fully understand them. Here’s where Alading platform comes into place. If you have some definite data, which is always up to date and publicly accessible, you can submit it to Alading. Basically it’s three steps: 1) You should prepare your data in xml format; 2) decide which query keywords should trigger those data; 3) select a template, which is provided by Baidu, to display your data in the result. In the first step, you prepared a special feeds of your data. Later on, the search engine bot will query it frequently to retrieve the latest data. The second step is a bit like keywords based search advertisement, but it’s for different purpose. The template you selected decides how your data appears in the top of the search result, including a link to your site with more details. The platform is still in early stage. I am not sure if it will make big change in short period. In the long run, it do have potential to improve the search quality of Baidu. There’s lots of dynamic data on the web, but it’s not clear if this is the best way to include them into the search index. Other search engines have been dealing with structured data too, like Google’s OneBox. It’s taking a different approach to analyze data source actively. The service is a bit like Google Base. But Google base is for your item, while Baidu describes it as integrating your service into Baidu search result. Certainly Baidu’s slogan draws more imagination. If it’s just to include some match score or cinema information, then it doesn’t worth putting so much effort into the platform. I am sure there will be some interesting integrations show up, but you just cannot imagine it before it come into being.

Post tags: Baidu

Baidu Tieba Adds Private Group

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 07:29:00 -0700

Baidu has just launched a new feature, called club, for its popular Tieba. Club is much like a public tieba. But the master of the club has more privacy controls. In Baidu’s words, club is to provide a more private communication place for special interest groups, but it’s not going to affect or compete with public tieba. Here’s Baidu’s announcement. Although they look very similar and most probably share the same back end system, they are still different. A tieba is driven by a search keyword, which becomes the name of the tieba. Most users visit tieba through search. Users can post in tieba without login. A club’s name doesn’t have to be a search keywords. Members must login to post content or probably view anything. Currently only a selected group of tieba users have got privilege to create club. You can see all the clubs on this page. If you visit Baidu Tieba and login, you will see a new tab on the tool bar on top of the page, called my club. You can find clubs you have created or joined in a drop down list.

Post tags: Baidu

Baidu Personalized Startpage

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:17:00 -0700

Baidu’s startpage is now available at my.baidu.com. The domain should be available since around April 1st. Certainly it’s not an April fool. Before that, a lot of us have seen an earlier version through a public IP address. In one word, it’s just like iGoogle or any other startpage services. You can add service widgets or RSS feeds to the page and organize them into tabs. You can re-order them through drag and drop. You can find more modules at here. There’re currently 55 modules listed. Maybe finally, those 885 modules of Baidu Space would be ported to startpage too. On the default homepage, you will find a calendar module. There’s currently no calendar service from Baidu. This module can serve as a simplified solution. Baidu has been providing calendar service for its postbar for a while now. There’s also a music module on the default page. It’s not from Baidu mp3 search, but from Qianqian, a popular music player. Qianqian was rumored to be acquired by Baidu for years. There’s no clue if Baidu will open API for the startpage or not. The current modules are mostly news and ranking list.
Update: The domain my.baidu.com is not new. Originally it’s an old version of startpage under the flag of Baidu browser bar. You can find some clue on this help page. Update2: A lot of users are complaining that the new version don’t have customized link, which is available in the old version. Customized links are static links to frequently used sites like those on hao123 and 265. Refer to the according postbar.

Post tags: Baidu

Baidu Adds Suggestions To Search

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:06:00 -0800

Baidu now has search suggestions for a couple of search products, including web search, image search, video search and maybe more. It has suggestions for both English and Chinese language. The suggested search keywords are different in different search products. Source: Tencent

Post tags: Baidu

2008软件图解 - 高少星·人因梦想而伟大

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:51:00 -0800

对各大IT/互联网公司的软件布局做了个归纳

Baidu E-commerce Platform Is Finally Online

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 08:47:00 -0700

Today, Baidu finally rolls out its much-anticipated C2C e-commerce platform, a little more than one year after Baidu announced its ambitious C2C plan. This e-commerce platform is called Youa.com, together with Baifubao.com, Baidu’s online payment platform, they are the only services by Baidu which don’t use a domain name under Baidu.com. During its private test, about 10,000 sellers has participated in the private beta, and created shops and added goods, or copy their listings from Taobao. That’s why you can already find about 1 million listings when Youa.com is online. I did not try the whole platform as a buyer, but I still feel its web design is very similar to that of Taobao, in terms of either UI of webpage, or design of transaction procedures. To be a seller on Youa.com, you need to submit the copy of you ID card to be verified by Baidu, and also to have your bank account verified. It is also similar to Taobao’s procedures. So generally, Youa.com is quite similar to Taobao. In Sept. the transaction volume on Taobao.com has exceed RMB 10 billion in a single month, it is not easy to compete with Taobao. Moreover, Youa.com is somewhat un-related to Baidu’s core business, search business, so whether Youa can be a strong challenger of Taobao, or it just make Baidu spreading itself too thin, let’s wait for another one year.

China Web2.0 Review | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Post tags: Baidu, c2c, ecommerce, Youa

The Coming War Between Baidu and Taobao (1) Baidu To Enter C2C E-Commerce Market (4) Baidu Starts To Promote C2C Service (4) Who is Leading China’s Blog Market? (14) Voice Matters: Baidu Launches Voice Search, QQ Voice Mail Follows (3)

Baidu IM Launches Web Version

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:31:00 -0700

Starting Yesterday, if you visit Baidu space, you will be able to chat with other Baidu users within your browser. If you logged in your Baidu account, you will see a little Baidu Hi logo right beside your user name. Clicking it, you will be directed to the web version. The launched product is the Web version of Baidu’s instant messenger. Baidu’s IM, launched in March this year, is sharing the same name with Baidu space and tightly integrated with it. The web version is quite simple. It doesn’t show you a buddy list, as most of your expected. To start a conversation, you just click the button on the upper left side of the screen, then input the user name that you want to chat. The user on the other side will be notified, if he is on the site as well. So it’s not a rich and fancy web product with tons of javascript to compete with other web IM. It’s good for a quick catch of someone that you really have something to say. From my point of view, it works and is enough.

China Web2.0 Review | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Post tags: Baidu