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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