From The Chicago Tribune:
Baidu has virtually copied Google’s clean-screen look, but the rest of the Baidu game plan is original. It plays to nationalist advantage by attacking Google as a foreign invader. It promotes itself in such splashy ways as a huge neon sign on the banks of the Pearl River in Shanghai. And it has flourished by aggressively marketing itself in ways verboten at Google: Baidu lets advertisers pay for placement in its search results.
The formula is working. Despite a big marketing push from Google over the last year, Baidu is the first choice of 62 percent of Chinese users, up 15 points over 2005, according to a study released in September by the China Internet Network Information Center. Google’s share dropped eight points, to 25 percent–a rare setback. If Baidu keeps winning, local players elsewhere might copy Baidu’s tactics, disrupting Google’s plan to expand globally. [Full Text]
