Google Copies Baidu and Other Mysteries

Google's latest strategy to catch up in the Chinese search market appears to be copying rival Baidu.com in allowing searchers to find news by searching pictures in the articles. Baidu offers a service for Chinese surfers where they browse images rather than text to find stories. Google has had its hands full trying to capture the top spot in the world's second largest market. Chinese government pressure on online businesses and Google's rather frequent slip ups in dealing with international markets have not helped in their quest to be number one everywhere. A slight investigation of Google's associations in China revealed more questions than answers.

New Methods

This latest product rollout was jointly developed by Google's engineering center in Shanghai and their center in California according to spokeswoman Jin Cui in a statement to Reuters. Users of Google.cn will be able to use the traditional text search method or opt for viewing images ala Baidu. The image scanning method reveals a link to the corresponding story on mouseover as we have seen on other Web 2.0 sites.

The Obvious

Evidently Google is relying on a Beijing based research firm Analysys International to come up with these strokes of brilliance. Analysys President Edward Yu was quoted in the Reuters article as saying that Chinese surfers tend to be drawn more to images and that Google needs to apply services that are tailored to Chinese tastes. I hope Google is not paying too much for their services unless they are getting more than something they could have had for free by reading any of my articles on the subject.

Who Is Analysys International?

My little poke at Google relying on a paid consulting firm for rather common knowledge provoked some thought, so I attempted to piece together what possible purpose Google could have in retaining such a firm. The ironic thing is that finding much information about Yu or his firm proved to be rather more difficult than with most companies. The associations and connections of this firm are not nearly as clear as with U.S. or other entities. After two hours of researching everything from Edward Yu to the smallest tail of this company I knew about as much as I did before I started.

I emailed Karen Bai of Analysys International at 1:41 PM EST and received a nice note from her that included a brief bio on Mr. Yu at 9:47 PM. The information basically reiterated the company's corporate "about" info but did include a photo of Mr. Yu and a very brief list of his activities since 1991. Evidently Mr. Yu has been a sought after speaker and consultant since his involvement with ALPNET-Hong Kong and increasingly so since founding Analysys International. The interesting thing is that the Powerpoint presentation excerpt that was sent still had the fields unlocked and was texted in somewhat broken English. What this signifies is nebulous but it did seem a little strange to me to have an English Powerpoint presentation segment handy that would have been meant for an obviously Western audience, with anything but perfect text. Perhaps it was prepared to send to us out of a desire to get the information out quickly?

Open or Closed Doors

A company with 50,000 clients representing 1,500 distinct organizations and delivering 150 consulting engagements a year and in business for 7 years should have a picture or profile of their CEO on their website (but Analysys has none). This is bizarre, perhaps I am missing something rather obvious but 3 search engines, Wikipedia, the Gartner business pages, Wharton Business School's 28 fastest growing rankings, Microsoft's China page and a score of others could not turn up Edward Yu or anything definitive about Analysys International. The late or timely information from Mr. Yu's company is very appreciated and I look forward to talking with them very soon. China has been an enigma to outsiders for centuries, and I only hope we can all learn more about this fascinating place and its people beyond the reach of the almighty dollar and Googleisms.

I am glad my little journey into the Far East paid off with more information about an obviously influential and powerful consulting entity and more pieces to the mosaic of Google's adventure behind the Great Wall. I hope we are excused our dependence on knowing everything about everyone on this side of the big-water.

Credits: Photo of Mr. Edward Yu courtesy Analysys International