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Baidu () () is a Chinese search engine which can search text and images. As of May 2006, it is fourth in Alexa's internet rankings. The Chinese word "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.
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.
Services
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.
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 (similar to Google Base)
- Baidu Baike: A wikilike encyclopedia
Public offering
Baidu.com had its initial public offering (IPO) the morning of Friday, 5 August 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 has been called the "Google of China". Google was a shareholder in Baidu.com and owned 2.6% of the company until June 2006.
On September 14 2005, the stock plunged 24% on the Nasdaq after two analysts said it was "overpriced."
References
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External links
Internet search engines Companies of the People's Republic of China
"Baidu"