In China Baidu is what Google is elsewhere. At one time, in fact,  Google bought part of Baidu but decided, in the end, to do China itself. It now lags a very poor second.

Baidu is now showing one way in which Google might, perhaps, extend its services. Baidu is to become an online news portal as well as being a major search engine. It will not just present links to the news. It will report news as if it were a newspaper or radio station or whatever.

China’s State Council Information Office has granted Baidu an Internet news content service license allowing Baidu to do its own reporting rather than simply show news search results at present. This, according to most experts, will give Baidu a clear edge in terms of content over competitors who lack the permit.

Doug Crets, a Hong Kong-based researcher at Media Partners Asia, said, ‘This is definitely competition for Google. In most of these online sites, we’re going to see an increasing amount of content, and content is going to drive revenue, or consumership of those sites.’

Baidu has already started preparing its news department and is ready to hire news-related staff. The company also changed the logo and name of its ‘Information’ channel to ‘News’ channel in Chinese characters early last week.

China’s largest Internet portal, Sina.com, obtained a news service permit a few years ago and carries its own reports. But Baidu is the first online search engine in China to win such a license.

A government source said, ‘A news license is a rare resource to Internet companies in China. So far only very few Websites are allowed to report news legally in the country. Obviously, applying for the license also shows that Baidu has ambitions as a content service provider rather than merely being a search tool.’

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Entry was posted on Thursday, January 25th, 2007 at 2:44 am under Google, Internet, Web2.0.

Read more entries by Gareth Powell.
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