China Mobile does, and so does Twitter.
China Mobile is furiously racing to market an online search engine, due out early next year to compete with Baidu, the Chinese equivalent of Google, in Asia.
Recently Twitter also rolled out new fnctionality and changes somewhat out of the blue.
China Mobile’s specialty is, obviously by its name, cell phones and communications. However, in a bid to stay viable, China Mobile is trying to enter the search engine market with a newly designed engine full of communications related features and functionality.
It has been speculated that users will be able to access the new China Mobile search engine via PC, laptop or mobile handsets, but in a surprising twist for Asia, the law prevents China Mobile from excluding or blocking Baidu from accessing its mobile network as well.
The calculated risk here will be if this search engine will be a competitor or instead, actually increase Baidu’s already massive market share, by providing new features that Baidu users can search for, and access.
Recently, the Baidu search engine has caught the attention of the popular social media site, Twitter. It has been rumored that the new Twitter modifications are actually “Baidu-inspired”; this means that elements of the “west” are playing closer attention to this “eastern” search engine, than we may have imagined.
Specifically, and speculatively, the attention is on Baidu’s new service they call “Box Computing Open Platform” which was rolled out this month. This was rolled out with much fanfare much like the way Google did with “instant search”.
Basically, the new Baidu changes are about access to an online search-able applications library, similar to an iphone “ap” store in accessibility and provision but still very different in usage and design.
This new searchable library will contain third-party apps like, the Apple itunes “Ap” store. You can search for and download items like games, e-Books and assorted other software.
How this works is, the new functionality simultaneously launches on the Baidu site as visitors are using the search engine; the overall idea is to steer visitors away from other Web sites and instead provide Baidu with a speculated 30 percent commission in many different partnership advertisement deals.
The Public Relations idea is that the user experience will improve, much like the way Google’s instant searching is supposed to assist in getting to results quicker. However, when it all comes down to it, money from ads is at the root of the changes.
Its no wonder that China Mobile and Twitter are paying attention to what’s going on at baidu.
Currently, the new Twitter modifications will allow users to navigate between posts and links without having to leave Twitter, as in the past.
Twitter third party clients such as TweetDeck and Seesmic were beating up the social media site with innovation that left many wondering “Why didn’t Twitter think of this?”.
Now, with Twitter taking a two-column layout design, with your regular functionality remaining on the left side and the new tools and functionality resides on the right side, Twitter is appearing to move into a more functional social media outlet rather than a 140 character anomaly.
Consider that for example your Flickr and TwitPic pictures and your YouTube videos, along with your ongoing conversation threads will be accessible on the new right side and still open, while you are using Twitter as you normally would on the left side, and at the same time as well.
One thing is for sure, Baidu must be doing something right and if there was any doubt that this could come west, the idea that Twitter may have taken its cues from Baidu should at least make you consider the possibility.
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