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Google Losing Ground in China?
TG writes "Yahoo is running an article about a recent study released by a Chinese Internet research group that shows Google losing market share to their Chinese rival, Baidu.com. From the article: 'The survey, conducted by the Beijing-based China Internet Network Information Center, reported that Baidu.com Inc. boosted its market share in Beijing by 10.8 percentage points to 52 percent. Google Inc.'s share was at 33 percent, as the American Internet search engine kept its customer base steady while the overall market grew, said the survey, seen Tuesday on CNNIC's Web site.'" Factual analysis or results driven by self interest?
Google hired that guy away from MS with the intention of shoring up their presence in PROC. It's quite obvious that they were willing to deal with the risk for *something*.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
a 2.6 percent stake in Baidu... Is Google hedging its bets to some extent?
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
Not to mention that Baidu tends to do better on Chinese queries. A lot of times when I'm trying to find lyrics to some song or some proverb, Google will fail but Baidu will give me results.
Coupled with the MP3 search, image search, discussion board serach, and page caching, it already offers what most people would use Google for. I know I don't bother with Google for Chinese queries now.
Can someone who knows better Chinese than me tell me what Baidu means? "Bai" sounds like "one hundred" and "du" sounds like "degree". 100 degrees makes no sense but it does sound a lot like the meaning of Googol (or Google) in Chinese. I could be way off on this one since Mandarin is not my native dialect and it's been a while since I've studied it.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
TG should've written "The Associated Press has an article about a recent study (English PDF) released by a Chinese Internet research group that shows Google losing market share to their Chinese rival, Baidu.com. From the article: 'The survey, conducted by the Beijing-based China Internet Network Information Center, reported that Baidu.com Inc. boosted its market share in Beijing by 10.8 percentage points to 52 percent. Google Inc.'s share was at 33 percent, as the American Internet search engine kept its customer base steady while the overall market grew, said the survey, seen Tuesday on CNNIC's Web site.'" Factual analysis or results driven by self interest? Or just another interesting article posted to Slashdot with editorial opinions but no editorial checking?
The report itself has a pie chart with the following breakdown: Baidu 51.5%, Google 32.9%, Sohu 4.6%, Sino 4.0%, Yahoo 3.7%, and 3.3% other in Beijing; 43.9% Baidu vs. 38.2% in Shanghai; and 48.0% Baidu vs. 28.7% Google in Guangzhou.
However, the next page breaks down searches by category, and Baidu is only in the lead (55% vs. 15% Google) in downloadable music. In all other categories, Google is in the lead. Indeed, 60% of users who use Google primary and Baidu secondary say that the reason is Baidu's music search.
This confirms that Google is a better (more popular at least) search engine, of course, but Baidu is either better at searching Chinese music or, as another poster said, Baidu can link to MP3s without the RIAA being able to do anything about it.
If you go to baidu.com and click MP3, you actually get to search for MP3s!!! No, no need to call captain obvious, I get why you're rolling your eyes.
Seriously though, I "baidued" jackson and I fond real honest to goodness songs of michael jackson, mp3 encodes available via http! It's like being in 97 all over again!
There are simply no comparison between Google and Baidu. Google still try to do everything correctly, while Baidu think more fitting for the Chinese Culture, for example. If you type in the name of the singer and the song title, Baidu is willing to lead you to dozen of direct MP3 link to the download of that song without even touching any other site at all. There are simply no way Google can do that. The only reason Google will lose to Baidu is because Google can't have a fair fight with Baidu.
I'm a chinese, google's "cached" does not work in china (maybe not the whole china but in most of the cities), and if you do some searching at google, the TCP link could be reset (maybe for some "bad words" on some pages).
This is a big reason why many people no more use google.
Socialism is about putting cooperation over competition for the good of all, and in Marxist ideology a majority rule over a capitalist minority (and the eventual disintegration of the capitalist class which in Marxist ideology would lead to the end goal of communism, where the state whithers away as a means of power)
The problem China faces, that the Soviet Union also faced, was that they quickly descended into an oligarchy once it became clear that the revolutionary movements didn't have the mass support they needed.
It all boils down to both Lenin and Mao believing (mistakenly) that they could gain the support of the peasant populations that would have been needed for a socialist majority rule, and then their and their parties refusal to accept they were wrong.
Unfortunately this is a common theme in most revolutions - the most radical elements tend to also be the ones most willing to use violence to grab and hang onto power in part because they've had to get used to facing opposition that would do anything to get rid of them, and have had to spend a lot of time politically isolated from the mainstream but still keeping their faith in ultimate victory. It happened in the French revolution, it happened in Britain (during the civil wars in the mid 1600's), and it's happened in nearly all the Marxist inspired revolutions.
In nearly all such cases, these regimes paradoxically tend to start applying the same oppressive methods of the regimes they ousted as part of their effort to carry out their programmes of changes that often go much farther than what the general population - even those initially supporting a revolution - would support, and end up transforming into regimes with more in common with their old oppressors than with what they were struggling to become as a result of the fact that they see opposition as counter revolutionaries trying to revert to the old and themselves as liberators, ignoring the fact that these "counter revolutionaries" may very well enjoy as much or greater support than they do (see for example the Bolchevik oppression of the Mecheviks and Social Revolutionaries who managed to grow significant popular support after the Russian revolution).
The result in both the Soviet Union and China were that instead of getting a socialist majority rule nationalising the means of production for the benefit of all, the governments rapidly turned into stale oligarchic structures as the efforts at weeding out counter revolutionary forces quickly turned into an elimination of all opposition - whether or not it enjoyed support from the public - and as a result the nationalised industries quickly came under control of people that were able to put their personal interests first.
Paradoxically, considering these regimes claimed their basis in Marxism, is that Marx specifically warned about this. In "The German Ideology" he stated roughly that unless a revolution would happen in a country well developed enough to fullfill the needs of the masses without need, the "same shit" would happen all over again. And it did - only using different symbols and different language.
The Chinese government can pretend to be socialist all it wants, but given that they never removed the upper class, merely shifted the values around, and for decades have been slowly moving to a capitalist economy and introducing even larger economic differences, that is a rather silly charade.