Filed under: Google, Googleholic

Welcome to Googleholic - your bi-weekly fix of everything Google! In this edition:

• Geotagged YouTube videos on Google Maps
• Google Earth 4.3 to be released later today, includes Street View
• Market leader in China within 5 years - Goodbye Baidu?

Continue reading Googleholic for April 15, 2008

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Chinese search engine Baidu worked an image of presidential candidate Barack Obama into their home page logo today, as well as a tribute page about the candidate.

From what we can tell it’s very rare for Baidu to dedicate its home page to an individual, and no other U.S. presidential candidate has been so honored. In short, this is an endorsement of the candidate.

Given the tepid relations between the two countries and general U.S. mistrust of China in general, I suspect that the Obama campaign won’t be reaching out to press to let everyone know about the endorsement.

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The major record labels have gone in for a second round of listing pirated songs is bad legal action against leading Chinese search engine Baidu and smaller player Sohu.

Universal Music, Sony BMG, Warner Music and Hong Kong-based Gold Label Entertainment lodged the new suit Monday, asking a Beijing court to order Baidu and Sohu to remove links to thousands of sites that carry pirated music.

A previous case against Baidu was unsuccessful, however the record companies believe recent changes to Chinese copyright law gives them a much stronger case this time. Yahoo China has been found guilty of copyright infringement under the new laws.

The success of Baidu has been credited to its index of music which is available from its front page, something Google has been unable to compete with until now (Google does not offer music search in China). Word leaked earlier today that Google had entered a joint venture with Top100.cn to offer free and legal music in China (details here) later this month.

The NASDAQ listed Baidu remains China’s largest internet company, but the site has been hit harder than many since the sharemarket turned late last year. From a high of $407.70 in November 2007, the stock closed at $230 a share today, down by a whopping 43.6%. Baidu shares fell 2.17% to $225 a share in after market trading.

(via WSJ)

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Google is set to challenge China’s largest search provider Baidu by offering free legal music.

The success of Baidu has long been credited to the search engine providing music search from its front page, but much to the lack of amusement of record companies, the music found by Baidu is nearly all pirated. Baidu fronted a Chinese Court in December, and won the day with a ruling that Baidu did not infringe copyright by merely linking to infringing music.

According to a WSJ.com report, Google’s new free music service in China is in the late planning stages and involves a joint venture with an undisclosed company. The service will offer access to music from three of the four big global music companies, as well as other smaller players, with a launch date possibly later this month.

The move into music provision would be a first for Google, and although this deal is directly in response to Baidu, there is always the possibility that with one territory in place, complete with joint venture partner and music deals, that Google could roll this out into other countries in the future. Yahoo was rumored to be considering a similar service in January, although has since closed its music service in favor of RealNetwork’s Rhapsody service. There are also a number of small players offering ad supported music as well. Either way, it’s yet another vertical where the smaller players/ startups will sleep less well at the thought that Google may enter their space in the future.

Update: Google JV partner is believed to be Top100.cn.

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While Google dominates the top slot in search both in the U.S. and worldwide, with a global search market share of 62 percent, there is still a lot of elbowing going on below, especially when you look beyond the U.S.

In a comScore ranking of the top-10 global search engines as measured by number of searches during the month of December, 2007, Yahoo comes in at a distant No. 2 with only 13 percent of global share. (Although, in the U.S., Yahoo actually gained a half-point of share in December, whereas Google dipped 0.2 percent). The big surprise, though, is the strength of local search engines in countries that don’t use the Roman alphabet. No. 3 on the list is not Microsoft, but Chinese search engine Baidu (with 5 percent share, versus Microsoft’s 3 percent). No. 5 is Korea’s NHN Corporation, which operates the Naver portal and search engine. Creeping up on Ask’s No. 8 spot, is Russian search engine Yandex. And Alibaba (which may include Yahoo China) brings up the rear at No. 10.

Shouldn’t the best search technology win no matter what the language? These market share figures suggest that culture and marketing play a big role as well—unless, of course, you are Google.

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