Thursday, 6 December 2012

Baidu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu
For the Ilkhanate ruler, see Baydu.
Baidu, Inc.
Type Public
Traded as NASDAQ: BIDU
NASDAQ-100 Component
Founded 1987
Headquarters Beijing, China
Area served China, Japan, Thailand, Egypt, India
Founder(s) Robin Li, Eric Xu
Key people Robin Li (Chairman and CEO)
Industry Internet
Services Internet search services
Revenue Increase CN¥ 14.500 billion (2011)[1]
Operating income Increase CN¥ 7.576 billion (2011)[1]
Profit Increase CN¥ 6.638 billion (2011)[1]
Total assets Increase CN¥ 23.340 billion (2011)[1]
Total equity Increase CN¥ 15.291 billion (2011)[1]
Employees 16,082 (2011)[1]
Subsidiaries Baidu, Inc. (Japan)
Website www.baidu.com
Alexa rank Steady 5 (August 2012)[2]
Type of site Web search engine
Advertising Pay per click
Registration Optional
Available in Chinese
Japanese
Launched October 11, 1999
Current status Active
Baidu
Baidu Campus.jpg
Baidu headquarters, Haidian District, Beijing
Chinese 百度
Baidu, Inc. (Chinese: 百度; pinyin: Bǎidù, pronounced BY-doo in English), incorporated on January 18, 2000, is a Chinese web services company headquartered in the Baidu Campus in Haidian District, Beijing, People's Republic of China.[3]
Baidu offers many services, including a Chinese language search engine for websites, audio files, and images. Baidu offers 57 search and community services including Baidu Baike, an online collaboratively built encyclopedia, and a searchable keyword-based discussion forum.[4] Baidu was established in 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu. Both of the co-founders are Chinese nationals who studied and worked overseas before returning to China. In October 2012, Baidu ranked 5th overall in the Alexa Internet rankings.[5] During Q4 of 2010, it is estimated that there were 4.02 billion search queries in China of which Baidu had a market share of 56.6%. China's internet-search revenue share in second quarter 2011 by Baidu is 76%[6] In December 2007, Baidu became the first Chinese company to be included in the NASDAQ-100 index.[7]
Baidu provides an index of over 740 million web pages, 80 million images, and 10 million multimedia files.[8] Baidu offers multimedia content including MP3 music and movies, and is the first in China to offer Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and personal digital assistant (PDA) based mobile search. Baidu released its low-cost smartphone, Changhong H5018.[9]

Contents

Name

“ Many people have asked about the meaning of our name. 'Baidu' was inspired by a poem 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.' Baidu, whose literal meaning is hundreds of times, represents persistent search for the ideal. ”
The name "Baidu" is a quote from the last line of Xin Qiji's classical poem "Green Jade Table in The Lantern Festival" saying: "Having searched thousands of times in the crowd, suddenly turning back, She is there in the dimmest candlelight."
The context of the poem is that in ancient China, girls had to stay indoors and the Lantern Festival was one of the few times they could come out. In the sea and chaos of lantern lights, they would sneak away to meet their love and exchange promises to meet again next year.
A summary of the entire poem: Flowers bursting into bloom in the sky, stars falling like rain (fireworks/meteor shower), Whole streets filled with perfume, jeweled horses pulling ornate carriages, fish and dragon lanterns dancing throughout the entire night. A body decorated with golden thread and butterfly trinket, laughter that has a subtle fragrance. Having searched for this person until exhaustion, when suddenly turning back by chance, I find her standing lonely in the far end of the street in the waning light.

Development

In 1994, Robin Li joined IDD Information Services, a New Jersey division of Dow Jones and Company, where he helped develop a software program for the online edition of The Wall Street Journal.[11] He also did work on better algorithms for search engines and remained at IDD Information Services from May 1994 to June 1997.
In 1996, while at IDD, Li developed the RankDex site-scoring algorithm for search engines results page ranking[12][13][14] and received a US patent for the technology.[15] He later used this technology for the Baidu search engine.
On 31 July 2012, Baidu announced they will team up with Sina to provide mobile search results.[16]
On the 18th of November, 2012, Baidu announced that they would be partnering with Qualcomm to offer free cloud storage to Android users with Snapdragon processors.[17]

Services

Baidu offers several services[18] to locate information, products and services using Chinese-language search terms, such as, search by Chinese phonetics, advanced search, snapshots, spell checker, stock quotes, news, knows, postbar, images, video and space information, and weather, train and flight schedules and other local information. The user-agent string of Baidu search engine is baiduspider.[19][20] Also, a Baidu application for Apple's iOS is available.[21]
  • Baidu Map
  • Baidu started its Japanese language search service, run by Baidu Japan, the company's first regular service outside of China.[22] It includes a search bar for web pages and image searches, user help and advanced services.[23]
  • Baidu Post Bar provides users with a query-based searchable community to exchange views and share knowledge and experiences. It is an online community bound tightly with Baidu's search service.
  • Baidu News provides links to a selection of local, national and international news, and presents news stories in a searchable format, within minutes of their publication on the Web. Baidu News uses an automated process to display links to related headlines, which enables people to see many different viewpoints on the same story. Chinese government and Chinese industry sources stated that Baidu received a license from Beijing, which allows the search engine to become a full-fledged news website. Thus Baidu will be able to provide its own reports, besides showing certain results as a search engine. The company is already getting its news department ready. Baidu is the first Chinese search engine to receive such a license.[24]
  • Baidu Knows (百度知道) provides users with a query-based searchable community to share knowledge and experience. Through Baidu Knows, registered members of Baidu Knows can post specific questions for other members to respond and also answer questions of other members.
  • Baidu MP3 Search provides algorithm-generated links to songs and other multimedia files provided by Internet content providers. Baidu started with a popular music search feature called "MP3 Search" and its comprehensive lists of popular Chinese music, Baidu 500, based on download numbers. Baidu locates 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, Baidu claims on its legal disclaimer that linking to these files does not break Chinese law. This has led other local search engines to follow the practice, including Google China(Hong Kong), which uses an intermediate company called Top100 to offer a similar MP3 Search service.
  • Baidu Image Search enables users to search millions of images on the Internet. Baidu Image Search offers features such as search by image size and by image file type. Image listings are organized by various categories, which are updated automatically through algorithms.
  • Baidu Video Search enables users to search for and access through hyperlinks of online video clips that are hosted on third parties’ Websites.
  • Baidu Space the social networking service of Baidu, allows registered users to create personalized homepages in a query-based searchable community.[25] Registered users can post their Web logs, or blogs, photo album and certain personal information on their homepages and establish their own communities of friends who are also registered users. By July 2009, it had reached 100 million registered users
  • Baidu Encyclopedia, is China's largest encyclopedia by users and page views/web traffic; second largest encyclopedia by article count (after Hudong).
    • China Digital Village Encyclopedia (中国数字乡村大百科全书), in June 2009, Baidu announced it would compile the largest digital rural encyclopedia in China, according to China Securities Journal. It is expected to include 500,000 administrative villages in China, covering 80% of the total 600,000 villages in China. Baidu is creating the content of this encyclopedia largely from participants of its 'rural information competition' (乡村信息化大赛) (xiangcun.baidu.com), on which it has spent roughly five million yuan on incentives. Baidu sees China's rural areas as great potential for electronic business (e-business), evidenced by the fact that revenue grew the fastest from agriculture, forestry, animals and fishery in the company's keyword promotion project, a crucial source of Baidu's total revenue. In addition to Baidu Encyclopedia, the company will scale up keyword promotion and take advantage of other products, such as Baidu Zhidao and Baidu Youa, to provide consultation, brand ad exhibitions and online network marketing/sales platform support, marketing information for rural tourism and promoting local products.[26]
  • Baidu Search Ranking provides listings of search terms based on daily search queries entered on Baidu.com. The listings are organized by categories and allow users to locate search terms on topics of interest.
  • Baidu Web Directory enables users to browse and search through websites that have been organized into categories.
  • Baidu Government Information Search allows users to search various regulations, rules, notices and other information announced by People's Republic of China government entities.
  • Baidu Postal Code Search enables users to search postal codes in hundreds of cities in China.
  • Educational Website Search allows users to search the Websites of educational institutions. Baidu University Search allows users to search information on or browse through the Websites of specific universities in China
  • Baidu Legal Search enables users to search a database that contains national and local laws and regulations, cases, legal decisions, and law dictionaries.
  • Baidu Love is a query-based searchable community where registered users can write and post messages to loved ones.
  • Baidu Patent Search enables users to search for specific Chinese patents and provides basic patent information in the search results, including the patent’s name, application number, filing date, issue date, inventor information and brief description of the patent.
  • Baidu Games is an online channel that allows users to search or browse through game-related news and content.
  • Baidu-Hexun Finance, a financial information Website,[27] with partner Hexun.com, a financial information service provider in China with news reporting and securities consulting licenses. Users can search or browse through economic and financial news, information relating to personal wealth management and related market statistics.
  • Baidu Statistics Search enables users to search statistics that have been published by the Government of the People's Republic of China
  • Baidu Entertainment is an online channel for entertainment-related news and content. Users can search or browse through news and other information relating to specific stars, movies, television series and music.
  • Baidu Tongji is Baidu's web analytics platform. It provides users with many reports about visitors to their website, such as a report on the source of visitors to their website, a user demographics report, reports on content viewed on site, and a heat map report.[28]
  • Baidu Dictionary provides users with lookup and text translation services between Chinese and English.
  • Baidu Youa, an online shopping/e-commerce platform through which businesses can sell their products and services at Baidu-registered stores.[29]
  • Baidu Desktop Search, a free, downloadable software, which enables users to search all files saved on their computer without launching a Web browser.
  • Baidu Sobar, a free, downloadable software, displayed on a browser's tool bar and makes the search function available on every Web page that a user browses.
  • Baidu Wireless provides various services for mobile phones, including a Chinese-input front end processor (FEP) for various popular operating systems including Android, Symbian S60v5, and Windows Mobile.
  • Baidu Anti-Virus offers anti-virus software products and computer virus-related news.
  • Baidu Safety Center, launched in 2008, provides users with free virus scanning, system repair and online security evaluations
  • Baidu Internet TV (known as Baidu Movies) allows users to search, watch and download free movies, television series, cartoons, and other programs hosted on its servers
  • Chinese-language voice assistant search services for Chinese speakers visiting Japan was launched in 2008, with partner Japanese personal handy-phone system operator Willcom Inc.
  • Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific,[30] joint venture with Discovery Communications, focusing on science, technology, space, natural history, engineering, paleontology, archaeology, history and culture.
  • Baidu Index (known as 百度指数) allows users to look up the search volume and trend for certain hot keywords and phrases. It can serve as a Baidu keyword research tool.
  • Baidu Bookmarks (known as Baidu Soucang) is a social bookmarking service supported by Baidu.com
  • Baidu Browser is a web browser first released as a beta in July 2011.[31] It has been noted that the user interface looks very similar to Google Chrome/Chromium.[32]
  • Baidu Yi is a smartphone operating system based on Android OS, announced in September 2011.[33]
  • Baidu Library is an open online platform for users to share documents. All the documents in Baidu Library are uploaded by the users and Baidu does not edit or change the documents. Users can read and download lecture notes, exercises, sample exams, presentation slides, materials of various subjects, variety of documents templates, etc. However, it is not completely free. In order to download some documents, users should have enough Baidu points to cover the points asked by the uploaders. Users could gain Baidu points by making contribution to Baidu Library and other users, such as uploading documents, categorizing documents, evaluating documents, etc.[34]
  • Baidu Experience is a product of Baidu primarily focusing on supporting the users with practical problems. In other words, it helps the users to solve the "how to do" problem. It was launched in October 2010. In architecture, Baidu Experience has integrated and reformatted Baidu Encyclopedia and Baike Knows. The first difference between Baidu Experience and Baidu Knows is that the former concentrates on specific "how to do" problems while the later contains a wider range of problems. The second difference is that users could share their experience without being asked on Baidu Experience.[35]
  • Baidu around You is a searching and sharing platform aiming at supporting the users with making their consumption decisions. There are currently 7 main categories of information on Baidu around You, including food, shopping, recreation, hotels, fitness, beauty and traveling. In addition, Baidu around You provides the users with convenient services and local information, partially coming from the users and searchable by cities.[36]

P4P

Baidu focuses on generating revenues primarily from online marketing services. Baidu's pay for placement (P4P) platform enables its customers to reach users who search for information related to their products or services. Customers use automated online tools to create text-based descriptions of their web pages and bid on keywords that trigger the display of their webpage information and link. Baidu's P4P platform features an automated online sign-up process that customers use to activate their accounts at any time. The P4P platform is an online marketplace that introduces Internet search users to customers who bid for priority placement in the search results. Baidu also uses third-party distributors to sell some of its online marketing services to end customers and offers discounts to these distributors in consideration of their services.
Baidu offers certain consultative services, such as keyword suggestions, account management and performance reporting. Baidu suggests synonyms and associated phrases to use as keywords or text in search listings. These suggestions can improve clickthrough rates of the customer's listing and increase the likelihood that a user will enter into a transaction with the customer. Baidu also provides online daily reports of the number of clickthroughs, clicked keywords and the total costs incurred, as well as statistical reports organized by geographic region.

ProTheme

Baidu offers ProTheme services to some of its Baidu Union members, which enable these members to display on their properties its customers' promotional links that are relevant to the subject and content of such members' properties. Baidu generates revenues from ProTheme services based on the number of clicks on its customers' links and share the revenues with its Baidu Union members in accordance with pre-agreed terms. Baidu's fixed-ranking services allow customers to display query-sensitive text links at a designated location on its search results pages. Its Targetizement services enable customers to reach their targeted Internet users by displaying their advertisements only when their targeted Internet users browse Baidu's certain Web pages.

Baidu TV

Baidu operates its advertising service, Baidu TV, in partnership with Ads it! Media Corporation, an online advertising agency and technology company. Baidu TV provides advertisers access to the websites of its Baidu Union members, allowing advertisers to choose Websites on which they post their video advertisements with the aid of its advertisement targeting and matching system. It also offers a brand advertising service, Brand-Link. In June 2008, Baidu launched My Marketing Center, a customized platform integrating industry information, market trends and business, and industry news and reports to assist existing customers in their sales and marketing efforts. Other forms of its online advertising services allow customers to display query sensitive and non-query sensitive advertisements on its websites, including graphical advertisements.

Baidu Union

Baidu Union consists of several third-party websites and software applications.[37] Union members incorporate a Baidu search box or toolbar and match its sponsored links with the content on their properties. Their users can conduct search via the Baidu search box or toolbar and can click the sponsored links located on their properties. Baidu has also launched programs through which it displays the online advertising of its customers on Baidu Union websites, and share the fees generated by these advertisements with the owners of these Baidu Union websites. As of May 2011, there were 230 thousand partner websites that displayed Baidu Union ads on their websites.[38]

Competition

Baidu competes with Google Hong Kong, Yahoo! China, Microsoft's Bing and MSN Messenger, Sina, Sohu's Sogou, Wikipedia, NetEase's Youdao, Tencent's Soso.com and PaiPai, Alibaba’s Taobao, TOM Online, Xunlei's Sogou and EachNet.
Baidu is the No. 1 search engine in China, controlling 63 percent of China's market share as of January 2010, according to iResearch.[39] The number of Internet users in China had reached 513 million by the end of December 2011, according to a report by the China Internet Network Information Center.[40]
In an August 2010 The Wall Street Journal article,[41] Baidu has played down its benefit from Google's moving its China search service to Hong Kong, but Baidu's share of revenue in China's search—advertising market grew six percentage points in the second quarter to 70%, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys International.
It is also evident that Baidu is attempting to enter the internet social network market. As of 2011, it is discussing the possibility of working with Facebook, which would lead to a Chinese version of the international social network, managed by Baidu.[42] This plan, if executed, would face off Baidu with competition from the two popular Chinese social networks Renren[43] and Kaixin001[44] as well as induce rivalry with instant-messaging giant, Tencent QQ.[45]
On February 22, 2012 Hudong submitted a complaint to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce asking for a review of the behavior of Baidu, accusing it of being monopolistic.[46]

Censorship

According to the China Digital Times, Baidu has a long history of being the most proactive and restrictive online censor in the search arena. Documents leaked in April 2009 from an employee in Baidu's internal monitoring and censorship department show a long list of blocked websites and censored topics on Baidu search.[47] In May 2011, pro-democracy activists sued Baidu for violating the U.S. constitution by the censorship it conducts in accord with the demand of the Chinese government.[48]

Domain name hacked

On January 12, 2010, Baidu.com's DNS records in the United States were altered such that browsers to baidu.com were redirected to a website purporting to be the Iranian Cyber Army, thought to be behind the attack on Twitter during the 2009 Iranian election protests, making the actual site unusable for four hours.[49] Internet users were met with a page saying "This site has been attacked by Iranian Cyber Army".[50] Chinese hackers later responded by attacking Iranian websites and leaving messages.[51] Baidu later launched legal action against Register.com for gross negligence after it was revealed that Register.com's technical support staff changed the email address for Baidu.com on the request of an unnamed individual, despite their failing security verification procedures. Once the address had been changed, the individual was able to use the forgotten password feature to have Baidu's domain passwords sent directly to them, allowing them to pull off the domain hijacking.[52][53]

Baidu Advertising

Baidu's primary advertising product is called Baidu Tuiguang and is similar to Google Adwords and Adsense. It is a pay per click advertising platform that allows advertisers to have their ads shown in Baidu search results pages and on other websites that are part of Baidu Union.
Baidu sells its advertising products via a network of resellers.[54]
Baidu's web admistrative tools are all in Chinese, which makes it tough for non-Chinese speakers to use. Recently, a third party company began to develop a tool with an English-language interface for Baidu advertising programs.[55][56]

DNA Copyright technology

In April 2012, Baidu applied for a patent for its breakthrough in DNA copyright recognition technology. This technology will automatically scan files that are uploaded by internet users, and recognize and filter out content that may violate copyright law. This will allow Baidu to offer an infringement free platform. [5] [57]

Baidu workers arrested

On August 6, 2012 the BBC reported that three employees of Baidu were arrested on suspicion that they accepted bribes. The bribes were allegedly paid for deleting posts from the forum service. Four people were fired in connection with these arrests.[58]

See also

Portal icon People's Republic of China portal
Portal icon Beijing portal
Portal icon Companies portal
Portal icon Internet portal

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "2010 Form 20-F, Baidu, Inc.". Google.
  2. ^ "Baidu.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2012-08-02.
  3. ^ "IR Contacts." Baidu. Retrieved on December 27, 2010. "Address: Baidu Campus, No. 10, Shangdi 10th Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100085 People's Republic of China."
  4. ^ "Baidu's 57 Products/Services: Introduction and History". China Analyst (CNAnalyst.com).
  5. ^ "Alexa Top 500 Global Sites". Retrieved November 12, 2011.
  6. ^ "The China Perspective, "China Economic Watch"". }
  7. ^ Chmielewski, Dawn C. (December 10, 2007). "Search site moves at the speed of China". Los Angeles Times.
  8. ^ "MSN Money – BIDU". MSN Money. Archived from the original on May 01 2006. Retrieved 2006-05-11.
  9. ^ "Baidu Smartphone". Retrieved 2012-05-16.
  10. ^ "The Baidu Story". Baidu.
  11. ^ Taipei Times: "Robin Li's vision powers Baidu's Internet search dominance" (Sep 17, 2006)
  12. ^ Greenberg, Andy, "The Man Who's Beating Google", Forbes magazine, October 5, 2009
  13. ^ Yanhong Li, "Toward a Qualitative Search Engine," IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 24–29, July/Aug. 1998, doi:10.1109/4236.707687
  14. ^ "About: RankDex", rankdex.com
  15. ^ USPTO, "Hypertext Document Retrieval System and Method", US Patent number: 5920859, Inventor: Yanhong Li, Filing date: Feb 5, 1997, Issue date: Jul 6, 1999
  16. ^ Sina http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19061997 "Sina and Baidu team up in China to focus on mobile" date: July 31, 2012
  17. ^ http://www.geekshut.com/baidu-and-qualcomm-partner-to-offer-free-cloud-storage/6788
  18. ^ Baidu products
  19. ^ "关于baiduspider". baidu.com. March 18, 2009.
  20. ^ "Baiduspider User-Agent String". HttpUserAgent.org. March 17, 2009.
  21. ^ Baidu MobileBy Beijing Baidu Netcom Science & Technology Co.,Ltd
  22. ^ Baidu Japan Inc.
  23. ^ "China's Google in Japan". Infoniac.com. March 23, 2007.
  24. ^ "Google's Lookalike is Expanding in China". Gadget4boys.com. January 23, 2007.
  25. ^ Baidu
  26. ^ [1] Baidu will compile the rural digital Encyclopedia
  27. ^ Baidu-Hexun Finance
  28. ^ Lawton, Tait. "A Thorough Guide to Baidu Analytics (Baidu Tongji)".
  29. ^ Youa.com
  30. ^ Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific
  31. ^ China's Baidu Joins Browser Battle, Wall Street Journal, July 20, 2011
  32. ^ Baidu’s New Browser Looks Strikingly Familiar, China Real Time Report – WSJ, July 19, 2011
  33. ^ "Baidu Looks To Leapfrog Google With Cloud-Based Mobile OS (Update)". TechCrunch. September 2, 2011. Retrieved September 7, 2011.
  34. ^ [2]
  35. ^ [3]
  36. ^ [4]
  37. ^ union.baidu.com
  38. ^ Lin, Susan. "Baidu's Content Network - Baidu Union". East-West-Connect.com. East-West-Connect.com.
  39. ^ Barboza, David (January 13, 2010). "Baidu's Gain from Departure Could Be China’s Loss". The New York Times.
  40. ^ Lawton, Tait. "Pretty Graphs on Chinese Internet User Demographics, January, 2012".
  41. ^ Fletcher, Owen (August 3, 2010). "Baidu's CEO Pursues Long-Term Growth". The Wall Street Journal.
  42. ^ 传百度与Facebook签合作协议 – Baidu signed a cooperation agreement with Facebook, ThinkingChinese, April 14, 2011
  43. ^ [renren.com Renren
  44. ^ [kaixin001.com Kaixin001]
  45. ^ Baidu and QQ aren't willing to remain outside the Chinese Social Network market, ThinkingChinese, April 2011
  46. ^ Yang, Yang (杨阳 Yáng Yáng). Translated by Guo Wei. "China's "Wikipedia" Submits Complaint about Baidu ." (Archive) Economic Observer. March 4, 2011. Issue 508, Corporation, Page 28. Retrieved on October 26, 2012. Original article: "百度：我是大哥 我不叫度娘." February 25, 2011. (Archive)
  47. ^ Baidu’s Internal Monitoring and Censorship Document Leaked (1), Xiao Qiang, China Digital Times, April 30, 2009
    Baidu’s Internal Monitoring and Censorship Document Leaked (2)
    Baidu’s Internal Monitoring and Censorship Document Leaked (3)
  48. ^ China, Baidu Sued In U.S. For Internet Censorship, Jonathan Stempel, Reuters, May 19, 2011
  49. ^ "Baidu hacked by 'Iranian cyber army'". BBC News. 2010-01-12. Archived from the original on January 13, 2010. Retrieved 2010-01-12.
  50. ^ "China's top search engine Baidu hacked". People's Daily. January 12, 2010.
  51. ^ Branigan, Tania (January 12, 2010). "'Iranian' hackers paralyse Chinese search engine Baidu". The Guardian (London).
  52. ^ Baidu Sues Register.com, Alleges Negligence in Hacking Attack
  53. ^ "Baidu: Registrar 'incredibly' changed our e-mail for hacker," Computer World, February 24, 2010. Accessed December 13, 2010.
  54. ^ Lawton, Tait. "Baidu Pay Per Click: 7 Tips for a Successful Campaign". SearchEngineJournal.com.
  55. ^ http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/06/glogou/
  56. ^ http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/csj/2012-11-07/14387777422.shtml
  57. ^ "Baidu Applies for DNA Copyright Recognition Technology Patent". BrightWire.
  58. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19149185

Further reading

External links

 http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-faq_pf#26140

Investor FAQs


Corporate Information
1.When was Baidu founded?
2.Where is Baidu located?
3.Who are the members of Baidu’s board of directors?
4.Who are Baidu’s independent auditors?
5.Who is Baidu’s transfer agent?
6.How many employees does Baidu have?
American Depository Shares (ADSs)
7.When did Baidu go public and what exchange does Baidu stock trade on?
8.What was the offering price at Baidu's initial public offering (IPO)?
9.What is the ADS to ordinary share ratio?
10.Has this ratio ever changed? If so, when and how?
11.Does Baidu pay a cash dividend?
Business
12.What is Baidu’s mission statement?
13.How does Baidu generate revenue?
14.What is Baidu Union?
15.What is Phoenix Nest?
16.What is Aladdin?
17.What is Box Computing?
18.What is Baidu's sales model?
19.What are Baidu's most popular products?
20.Who are Baidu’s customers?
21.Does Baidu operate in any countries outside of China?
Financial Reporting
22.Does Baidu issue quarterly reports and how can I get them?
23.Where can I listen to past Baidu earnings conference calls?
24.When does Baidu’s fiscal year end?
Corporate Social Responsibility
25.What is Baidu doing to help the community?
Contact Information
26.How can I contact Baidu’s Investor Relations?
1.When was Baidu founded?
 Baidu was established in 2000.
back to top

2.Where is Baidu located?
 Baidu’s headquarters is in Beijing, China. The Company also has offices in Shanghai and major cities in Guangdong province as well as in Tokyo, Japan.
back to top

3.Who are the members of Baidu’s board of directors?
 Please see our board of directors page: http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-govboard to learn more about our board members.
back to top

4.Who are Baidu’s independent auditors?
 Ernst and Young Hua Ming
back to top

5.Who is Baidu’s transfer agent?
 Maples Finance Limited
back to top

6.How many employees does Baidu have?
 As of June 30, 2010, Baidu had 9,000 employees.
back to top

7.When did Baidu go public and what exchange does Baidu stock trade on?
 Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) went public on August 5, 2005 on NASDAQ.
back to top

8.What was the offering price at Baidu's initial public offering (IPO)?
 Baidu debuted at $27.
back to top

9.What is the ADS to ordinary share ratio?
 One (1) Class A ordinary share is equal to ten (10) ADSs.
back to top

10.Has this ratio ever changed? If so, when and how?
 Baidu changed the ratio of its American depositary shares ("ADSs") representing Class A ordinary shares from one (1) ADS for one (1) share to ten (10) ADSs for one (1) share, which took effect on May 12, 2010.
back to top

11.Does Baidu pay a cash dividend?
 Baidu has never declared or paid any dividends, nor does it have any present plan to pay any cash dividends on its ordinary shares in the foreseeable future. We currently intend to retain most, if not all, of our available funds and any future earnings to operate and expand our business. Baidu’s board of directors has complete discretion over whether to distribute dividends. Even if our board of directors decides to pay dividends, the form, frequency and amount of our dividends will depend upon our future operations and earnings, capital requirements and surplus, financial condition, contractual restrictions and other factors that our board of directors may deem relevant.
back to top

12.What is Baidu’s mission statement?
 Baidu’s mission is to provide the best way for people to find what they’re looking for.
back to top

13.How does Baidu generate revenue?
 Baidu generates revenue by offering performance-based online marketing services and display advertisements through both Baidu organic websites and its affiliated websites (Union business).
back to top

14.What is Baidu Union?
 Baidu Union is a program through which the company expands distribution of its customers’ sponsored links by leveraging traffic directed from Baidu Union members or by distributing Baidu’s customers’ paid links through Baidu Union members’ properties. Baidu makes payments to Baidu Union members for traffic acquisition, and recognizes gross revenue for the amount of fees it receives from its customers. Payments made to Baidu Union members are included in cost of revenues as traffic acquisition costs.
back to top

15.What is Phoenix Nest?
 Phoenix Nest is an upgraded marketing platform which Baidu launched in April 2009. Through an enhanced algorithm that generates more relevant paid links and provides customers with additional tools and information to help them better manage their spending and achieve higher ROI, Phoenix Nest is designed to improve relevance in paid search and increase value for customers.
back to top

16.What is Aladdin?
 Aladdin is a powerful open platform initiative to uncover and index useful parts of the hidden web and produce comprehensive and dynamic search results. We are working closely with webmasters for content inclusion to expand the utilities of the platform.
back to top

17.What is Box Computing?
 The box computing concept is based on our belief that as technology becomes increasingly complex, the user interface will move toward simplification. A person can type a command into a box, similar to Baidu's search box, on any device screen and our system will process the command and take an appropriate action. The action could be to return a piece of information, run a software application or connect the person to online services directly.
back to top

18.What is Baidu's sales model?
 Baidu sells its online marketing services through both its direct sales teams and its distribution network. Currently, Baidu has a direct sales presence in Beijing, Shanghai and major cities in Guangdong province while leveraging distribution networks in lower tier cities.
back to top

19.What are Baidu's most popular products?
 Baidu’s core product is web search. In addition, Baidu powers many popular community-based products, such as Baidu PostBar, the world’s first and largest Chinese-language query-based searchable online community platform, Baidu Knows, the world’s largest Chinese-language interactive knowledge-sharing platform, and Baidu Encyclopedia, the world’s largest user-generated Chinese-language encyclopedia, to name but a few. Beyond these marquee products we also offer dozens of helpful vertical search-based products, such as Maps, Image Search, Video Search, News Search, and many more.
back to top

20.Who are Baidu’s customers?
 Baidu has a diverse mix of online marketing customers, predominantly small and medium sized enterprises but including corporations of all sizes. These customers are broadly spread over all industries and geographies.
back to top

21.Does Baidu operate in any countries outside of China?
 In addition to Baidu.com, Baidu also operates a Japanese search engine at www.baidu.jp, which targets the Japanese market.
back to top

22.Does Baidu issue quarterly reports and how can I get them?
 Yes, Baidu issues quarterly earnings reports, usually in April, July, October and February. All these quarterly reports can be accessed here: http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-reportsAnnual.
back to top

23.Where can I listen to past Baidu earnings conference calls?
 Archived webcasts of our past earnings conference calls can be accessed here: http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-presentations
back to top

24.When does Baidu’s fiscal year end?
 Baidu’s fiscal year ends on December 31.
back to top

25.What is Baidu doing to help the community?
 Baidu is committed to CSR on multiple fronts. We leverage our brand, technology platform and large base of users and partners to help our community. More detailed CSR projects can be found at csr.baidu.com.
back to top

26.How can I contact Baidu’s Investor Relations?
 We love to hear from you and will always do our best to respond to queries in a timely fashion. To request additional information, you can fill out the Information Request form through the below page: http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-inforeq. Alternatively, you can email IR at ir@baidu.com. Our address and relevant numbers are below.

Baidu Campus
No. 10, Shangdi 10th Street
Haidian District, Beijing
China
100085
Tel. +86-10-5992-8888
Fax: +86-10-5992-0000


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)