Search engine fission (i)

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"2003 Baidu biggest change is more and more people." Baidu President Robin Li was talking to reporters on a website. At the beginning of 2003, Baidu had only about 100 people, and by the beginning of 2004, Baidu had 200 people.

"Every year we are at this rate of development. "Robin Li describes the growth rate of the company.

In fact, Baidu is only a microcosm of the rapid development of the search engine market. According to Iris Market Consulting iresearch statistics, including IE Address bar search, site landing/fixed rankings, bidding rankings, such as a variety of revenue modules in China's search engine market in 2003 reached 500 million yuan, an increase of 117% in the previous year, In the next three years, China's search engine market will be 60% to 70% annual growth rate.

"2004 will be the year of the search market melee," Li said. And in the back of the scuffle, search engine market is quietly fission.

Search is becoming a portal

December 23, 2003, in the Hui Cong group in Hong Kong after the launch of the IPO less than a week, the wisdom of the search from the Hui Cong group out of the "China Search", and claims to build Chinese search first brand. There is also a "China Search News Center" complete with search technology.

"The establishment of the Chinese search website and the launch of the News center suggest that the search has moved to the front desk, which is similar to the way its rival Baidu took a few years ago," he said. One industry analyst said.

September 20, 2001, has been behind the scenes for the portal site to provide traditional web search service provider Baidu as a direct face to end users of the search engine website officially launched. July 2003, Baidu and follow their example of Google, launched the Baidu News channel.

Baidu's strategic transfer achievements before the name is not well-known wise. In the second half of 2002, HC Search began to provide news search for Sina. Since then, Sohu, NetEase web search services, Tom's news search has also been wise into the bag.

"Portals are the commanding heights of search engine services, and the brands they accumulate over the years will become part of your brand." If you lose the portal, you lose half of it! "China search President and CEO Chen Yu is not proud of his success," Our competitors have given us too many opportunities, otherwise, in our small time has long been strangled in the cradle. ”

"Portals want to buy cheaper technology and keep the price down, and we can't afford to spend a lot of money on research and development if we don't make money." "It's not important for Baidu to provide search for a portal site," Li said. This market is too small and too small to be a promising market compared to the competitive market we are now doing. ”

"Both sides are right. For the initial stage of Chinese search, the revenue from the portal is timely, so very welcome. And for the first step of Baidu, this can only be icing on the cake. Said one industry insider.

The IPO data of HC Group show that 3.5% of the 142 million turnover in HC group up to June 30, 2003 comes from search engine service and about RMB 4.99 million. and data show that Baidu 2002 only from the search engine technology services revenue on more than 20 million yuan.

"For all search engine service providers, to provide services to the portal can only be part of their own many businesses, and the proportion of this business with the search engine provider's own development and gradually weaken." For Chinese search, to provide search for the portal is only a solution to the problem of survival, but to develop the risk of a competition with the portal to build their own search site, quickly improve their influence, with a view to quickly get rid of the dependency on the portal. "Too much reliance on portals is dangerous, and this is not a case abroad," the person said. ”

October 7, 2003, LookSmart, an internet search company based in San Francisco, announced that Microsoft's MSN Internet Division would close its license agreement with LookSmart next January. "The deal with MSN accounts for about 65% of our paid search revenue, and the deal with MSN in the second quarter of this year is almost the source of all of our licensed revenue," LookSmart said. "The news, LookSmart's share price is crazy dive, within a day fell 56%, from 3.02 U.S. dollars down to 1.32 dollars."

According to the third party agency U.S Bancorp Piper Jaffray statistics, LookSmart in 2002 the world's top ten search engine revenue ranked sixth, and remove the top ten search engine portal Yahoo, MSN, AOL, LookSmart is the third largest independent search service provider after Overture and Google. 2002 annual income of 75 million U.S. dollars, 2003 annual revenue is expected to reach 150 million U.S. dollars.

"There is a chance that such things will happen at home at any time." In fact, because of the search engine's prospects, several major domestic portals have been seen as the same as advertising, games, SMS, the same important core business. and whether Sina, Sohu, or NetEase are like foreign MSN, Yahoo as in the intensification of the development of their own search engine technology, in order to grasp more in the market Competition initiative. "In this sense, even for survival, Chinese search engines have to make their own way," said another industry insider. ”

And Google's success has certainly shown a role model. When Yahoo CEO Terry Semel announced that it would be in the first quarter of 2004 to work with Google to pick up its own search technology, Google seemed rather relaxed. Data show that Google in 2001 to provide search services from Yahoo to make 7.1 million of dollars, but Google is expected to come from the search business in 2003 revenue will reach 1 billion U.S. dollars.

Google's news search, launched in 2002, also gave hope to Baidu's news channel and China's search News center. Google captures news sources including the BBC, Businessweek, the Wall Street Journal, and the world's other news organizations, which have more than 4,000 news sites worldwide, and look at news pages on the surface as well as other news portals. These news pages are popular with many people because of the timeliness of updates and the lack of artificial selection restrictions. Data show that Google News is very popular, in June 2003 its independent visitors about 2.5 million, which undoubtedly makes the news content of the portal is facing challenges.

More than that, search engines have included MP3, pictures, Flash, online shopping, catalogs, newsgroups/discussion areas, personal blogs, book content, and more. These are all threats to the portal site. From this point of view, the search engine's great charm and the search engine technology to bring another layer of vision.

Historically, from the beginning of birth, search engines and portals have forged an indissoluble bond. Many famous portals are derived from early classified search engines, such as the famous Yahoo, Lycos, and Sohu in China. And now, search has risen again. According to a new survey by Cyberatlas, an internet research firm, 75% of the Web site's visits are based on recommendations from search engines. And the search engine itself traffic is also very large. Third-party flow agencies aleax statistics show that in the global Chinese web site traffic rankings, providing search services 3721 ranked fourth, after three major portals Sina, Sohu and NetEase. Baidu ranked sixth. And Chinese search because there is no independent site before, ranking more behind.

In fact, both Baidu and Chinese search have consciously or unconsciously accepted the media about its new portal title.

"The portal's biggest competitor must be the portal site, not the search engine." "Li is not too willing to admit the competition between search engines and portals, but he says," search engines are media. ”

"Although the main source of revenue for the portal is network advertising, games and text messages, search engine current main revenue source is to provide technical services, selling fixed rankings, bidding rankings, but the search engine's media characteristics determines it will enter the portal of the traditional network of advertising, and has a wolf, The continuous opening of the extension of the portal will not miss any of the search engine involved in any business block, so in the long run, the overall conflict between the two sides is inevitable. "Don't forget that today's portals can accumulate national news sources using traditional media, with only a handful of editors, without a journalist, and that existing search engines don't need a single editor to accumulate resources across the country," says one industry veteran. Who else can guarantee that new search engines cannot generate new portals? ”