BIDU
In-depth analysis and expert insight into China’s most popular search engine.Gowalla Update: Talent Acquisitions and Fiduciary Responsibility
Last week’s Gowalla acquisition illustrated another weird facet of talent acquisitions: the potential conflict that arises when a talent acquisition gives founders a good job, and investors a low payout. A Gowalla investor chimes in to say that, basically, he’s not upset enough to do…
Baidu’s Cargo-Cult OS Strategy
Google’s move into operating systems makes sense: reducing Microsoft’s leverage over them, and increasing the aggregate number of Internet users are both great for their business, and they both directly benefit Google over competitors. None of those advantages really apply to Baidu’s decision to enter the OS market.
Fortunately, Baidu doesn’t…
People Are Easy to Uniquely Identify
This research indicates that people can be uniquely identified with a tiny set of data: “87% of the U.S. Population are uniquely identified by {date of birth, gender, ZIP}.” That’s what you get as a proof of concept—imagine how much more precise it is when there are ad dollars at…
Is Baidu heading toward death by a thousand cuts?
There isn’t a lot in Baidu’s immediate future to be worried about: the Chinese search giant has 75% of China’s search market share, reported a 95% surge in profits for the second quarter, and with Google long gone, no other search engine poses a credible threat….
The social media craze in China has claimed another casualty: Baidu Shuoba. The Twitter-like service, which had suspended new user sign-ups in May, announced they would completely shut down at the end of this month. Baidu was late to the game and didn’t bring anything new to the table.
Shuoba launched a year ago coinciding…
Baidu has taken a lot of flak over its failure to adequately protect intellectual property. China’s most visited website has in the past year been sued by a domestic writers guild, Japanese manga publisher, international music labels, and put on a list of “notorious market” for counterfeit and pirated goods by the US Trade Representative….
A Social Media ETF
ETF issuer Global X has announced a new social media ETF. This network is based on a third-party index that includes mostly non-US companies (there are very few pure-play SEO companies, other than the rather mangy ones trading over the counter). Since overseas social media companies tend to be…
Recent Research
Digital Due Diligence Weekly