Photo by flylosky
When we attended the Club eLuxe
International Summit in Paris, we learned about the Baidu business
model. Baidu,Inc (pronounced By- doo in English) is the Chinese
equivalent of Google whose user interface is very similar to Google. The
name “Baidu”, according to the company, was inspired by a poem that was
written during the Song Dynasty, 800 years ago. The literal meaning of
Baidu is “hundreds of times represents persistent search for the ideal.”
Baidu ranks as one of the top 10 sites
in the world according to Alexa.com, with a 98% share of the Chinese
market. In December of 2007, it became the first Chinese company to be
included in the NASDAQ-100 Index.
Just today, Bloomberg said
the company has struck a deal “for $1.9 billion to acquire the majority
stake in China’s most popular third-party store for smartphone apps.
This move mimics Google Inc. when they backed the Android operating
system and started its own app store to gain share against Apple Inc.”
Their business model is very simple:
“No Money, No Honey!” There is no search engine optimization with Baidu,
no convoluted algorithms, no “natural”, or “organic” search engine or
social media contortions to gain a higher ranking. Baidu generates
revenue from its pay for placement platform (P4P). The P4P platform is
an online marketplace that introduces Internet search users to those
businesses who bid the most money for top placement with defined
keywords.
From our perspective a Baidu business
model could be a colossal time saver. Many would be writing blogs for
enjoyment, instead of writing posts for search engine robots and
artificial results. Social media as we know it today would be social and
not another means of high ranking on Google.
Perhaps, there are many people who do
not realize that time is money. The belief is that it is “free” to write
unoriginal, keyword-laden blog posts, and “free” to keep up with
Google’s ever-changing algorithms, an exhausting pursuit. Also, one
would not need to be present and accounted for on every social media
platform.
How
much is your time worth? That is the real question. Would it be easier
and ultimately less expensive to just pay to be #1 on Google, free up
more quality time for yourself, your friends and your family where the
real honey is? What do you think?
Written by Ron & Alexandra Seigel-
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