Baidu Spaces, Blogs & its Social Networking

I was searching for a good Chinese Blogging Web Service to start a Chinese blog besides my English blogs on Blogger (by Google) and Word Press. I enjoyed using Blogger initially and then went to Word Press since it seemed a little bit more professional. After Blogger was acquired by Google I sort of started using Blogger again because the integration with other Google applications and services.


What was interesting was that I wanted to search a blog site on Baidu and then the clean baidu home page made a little change at the bottom of the search box... "Spaces | More " (it is in Chinese of course).

You might know that "Spaces" on the Chinese Web has already gained its recognition as online profile, personal presence. With that in mind, I went to explore. Surprisingly, Baidu started offering such services like Microsoft. Not surprisingly, blog is an application offered by the space.



Besides the look and feel of Baidu is so similar to what Google looks like, the services Baidu is offering is a lot like what Google has offered to its users! Here is another screen shot of all the services that Baidu is offering. People always say Baidu is the Google in China... Baidu has done a great job... but the fair close of UI to Google makes me feel that Baidu is copying from Google... maybe it is the UX thingie... not about the technology... However, there has to be some words about it... How does it so much look alike?






























I think there are a lot to ponder around this topic... I accidentally ran into a program on CCTV9 when a pretty well-known MC of the channel was interviewing the Rock & Roll star Mr Jian Cui. She mentioned that lots of people in this world consider China as a copycat. I am sure in music, history, culture, food, agriculture and many other traditional fields, we are not at all. In term of the high-tech and emerging industries and markets, the copycat concept seemed truer than in any other context. At least one of the biggest market in China, we are not copying at all- the movie industry... There is no Hollywood in China... will there be? yes eventually, but we are not taking that Hollywood commercialized model yet.

Back on technology.... copycat might not be a bad thing at the beginning of catching up since everything in the emerging markets are so new and there might be loss of direction and might get in the endless loop. Thus, the copycatting is a good way to set the starting level higher than normal. Yes... we take what's already good and innovate on top of that... That's the Chinese model...
Xiaonei vs. Facebook
Baidu vs. Google
Jiwai vs. Twitter
Youku vs. Youtube
and many more... I need to explore more on this!

=)