China’s Baidu and Viacom’s Partnership
The real reasons for Baidu’s success in the Chinese search engine marketplace are clearly laid out in the article below (translated out of Modern Weekly):
China ’s Baidu is Stepping onto the “Straight” Road
Can Viacom’s coming help Baidu change to the “Narrow” from the “Crooked”?
You can now download real music videos on Baidu in China!
Recently, Baidu and multinational old media company Viacom came to an agreement. Baidu will provide the downloading platform in China for digital content provided by Viacom, expanding the digital media market in China.
According to the strategic cooperation agreement the two parties signed, Viacom’s MTV will provide a total of 15,000 hours of viewable programs to Baidu, including MTV’s reality TV programs, Nickelodean cartoons, and MTV’s digital versions of music videos. Baidu, for its part, will establish a MTV music area in its video search service, and use its “download bar” to give online users the ability to search and download the content from Viacom. And users who first participate in advertising can download MTV programming for free.
According to a report conducted in September by the Chinese Internet Information Center, Baidu’s share of searches of the Chinese Internet is 62%, still far ahead of Google’s 25%. Yet Baidu has long been criticized as providing pirated digital content to attract masses of Chinese users. One of the most popular functions of Baidu’s search engine is its MP3 search. Last year, Baidu had many lawsuits brought against it by various music companies angered by this search function [which users can use to download tons of pirated content].
Therefore, this agreement with Viacom is a minor victory in Baidu’s path toward acquiring the trust of other media companies. The CFO of Baidu, Wang Zhansheng, stated that the cooperation with Viacom is a milestone for Baidu. Baidu is currently cooperating with Chinese music companies, and will be even more vigorous in its future search for expansion in the digital music industry.
