ByteDance buys Baike.com: competition with Baidu grows

The acquisition of the Chinese response to Wikipedia has intensified the rivalry between ByteDance and Baidu

The Chinese giant Internet ByteDance has completed its acquisition of the local online encyclopedia service Baike.com. This is confirmed by the local media, who believe the acquisition of a service similar to Wikipedia is fundamental for the ambition of ByteDance to compete with Baidu in the profitable Chinese market of online research.

The agreement was completed in a short time. On August 14, ByteDance acquired 22.22% of Baike‘s capital to become the largest shareholder. The move was followed by the acquisition of the remaining 77.78% on August 27, making ByteDance the new owner of one of the major Chinese responses to Wikipedia.

Owning an online encyclopedia means forfeiting all online search traffic

Google and Wikipedia stand out as separate and independent businesses in the United States, while Baidu and Baidu Baike – in China – work in pairs. The significance, for a search engine like Baidu, of having a service similar to Wikipedia, means that all online search traffic is contained in its own ecosystem.

At the beginning of August, ByteDance officially launched its search portal dedicated exclusively to mobile devices called Toutiao Search, according to which the search results come from Web pages and contents of the ByteDance apps.

Baidu held almost 77% of the search engine market

Launched in 2005, Baike.com based in Beijing is Baidu’s main rival. Concluding the acquisition, ByteDance is intensifying its threat to compete with Baidu, which has enjoyed a monopoly in the Chinese online search market since its release from Google in 2010.

Baidu held almost 77% of the search engine market, according to the latest data. Sogou supported by Tencent, and Shenma, supported by Alibaba, followed in the rankings respectively at 11% and 4.41%.

However, in recent years, revenues have decreased. In fact, Baidu reported a net profit of $ 351 million in the second quarter of this year, down 62% year-on-year. Instead, in the first quarter, it recorded a net loss of $ 49 million; the first time since it was made public in 2005.

Sogou, a new partnership for an e-book reader

Sogou has already used artificial intelligence technologies, including speech synthesis and image detection

Soon our e-reader reader will also become intelligent. Sogou, the second largest search engine in China, has entered into a strategic partnership with Zhangyue Technology, listed in Shanghai and the developer of iReader, an e-book reader like the Kindle, an app that offers pay-novels to-view. For this reason, Sogou will develop two readers of AI videos based on Zhangyue. The goal is to apply artificial intelligence technologies in the field of online literature.

Sogou has already used artificial intelligence technologies, including speech synthesis and image detection with the Xinhua news agency. An English-language news presenter and a Chinese-language artificial intelligence are in daily use on Xinhua’s website since November 2018.

Sogou’s explorations beyond the media sector can be seen as an attempt to commercialize his artificial intelligence technologies

The company, which has Tencent as one of its largest shareholders, reported revenues of $ 303.6 million in the second quarter of this year, an increase of 1% on an annual basis, of which $ 276.2 million from research and related revenues, which represent a 2% year-on-year increase.

However, the commercialization of advanced artificial intelligence technologies is still a challenge for startups and large companies like the largest Chinese search engine Baidu. It is in fact trying to market its autonomous driving technologies with a fleet of 10-vehicle robo-taxis in Changsha, the capital of the Hunan province of central China.

Bytedance challenges Baidu with the in-app search engine

A move to challenge Baidu’s monopoly in the Chinese search engine market

There are giants, like Baidu, who have a monopoly on some services. Yet, ByteDance, a company that owns TikTok, has introduced an in-app search engine for its popular Jinri Toutiao news feed app. A move to challenge Baidu’s monopoly in the Chinese search engine market.

However, it is not the first challenge between the two companies. The two companies are rapidly forming a rivalry in online services. Baidu moved to the Toutiao market when he changed his offer of newsfeeds and Bytedance reacted with the addition of a search engine.

Baidu, moreover, was recently accused of stacking his research results with pages hosted on his Baijiahao service, a newsfeed platform similar to Jinri Toutiao, which brought poor quality content to the top of the research.

The current Bytedance search functionality is not in direct competition with the Baidu offer

As for Bytedance, in-app search can serve as a shortcut to build a rival to Baidu, as its apps have already accumulated 1.5 billion monthly active users starting in July. The in-app search engine developed offers search results from the company’s popular apps like Jinri Toutiao and the short video app Douyin and Xigua, as well as general internet content.

The current Bytedance search feature, however, is not in direct competition with Baidu’s offer as it is more like a tool that improves Toutiao’s in-app browsing, rather than a dedicated search engine.

Chinese online users are becoming increasingly familiar with in-app search engines

As for market trends, Chinese online users are becoming increasingly familiar with in-app search engines while Tencent has launched such a service for the WeChat instant messaging app, allowing them to search for articles and content in subscription from the entire Web.

Bytedance, for its part, said that the search function was in line with Toutiao’s mission to use “information to create value”.