Google Rolls Out Laiba, Competing With Baidu Postbar

Written by Luyi Chen on August 20, 2007
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LaibaLaiba is the second product Google rolled out today. It’s also hosted on Tianya’s Domain. The product is similar to Baidu Postbar, which enters or generates discussion board based on search keywords.

Likewise, to enter any discussion board, you just type the topic in search box, and click search. If there’s no such board, you will be asked if you want to create it.

Google used a similar UI of Universal search. So you can search content of the post, users, and Laiba at the same time.

Other than those normal Laiba, like public boards, users can also create private boards, which is called Quanzi. They can moderate members in these private boards.

Same as Baidu, Laiba also promotes members actively. It has decent people search feature. And it also provides personalized recommendation of members and boards. The main purpose of the service still seems to be social networking or maybe dating.

In fact, the product is more than just a postbar. Users have their blogs and photo albums. So it includes the feature of Baidu Space. And like Myspace and Facebook, users can comment on friends profile.

If Google would like to compete with Baidu Postbar, I think it will include Laiba in search result in the future. Baidu has used this way to mutually promote its web search and Postbar. But since Google currently has less traffic than Baidu in Chinese search, this will still be a long way to go. Anyway, Tianya provided a handsome starting point.

Update: I forgot to mention that Laiba also has mash up with Google Maps. Users are location-traceable. Any marketing person here?

Update on Google’s acquisition of stakes in Tianya:

It’s confirmed that Google has invested in Tianya earlier this year. But details of Google’s share is not disclosed. One saying is that Google now owns 10% of Tianya, which sounds reasonable. There’s also a version says Google has 60% share, which has been declined by Kaifu Lee.

Update3: Google China official blog has a post, which shows Google is taking on community search and personalized search.

3 Responses to “Google Rolls Out Laiba, Competing With Baidu Postbar”

  1. Tangos on August 20th, 2007 8:48 pm

    I think Laiba tries to mix Baidu Postbar with Baidu space, which make itself complicated and not easily to understand, maybe Google has too much expectation on this product.

  2. pligg.com on August 21st, 2007 5:32 am

    Google Rolls Out Laiba, Competing With Baidu Postbar…

    Laiba is the second product Google rolled out today. It’s also hosted on Tianya’s Domain. The product is similar to Baidu Postbar, which enters or generates discussion board based on search keywords….

  3. Google: The East / West seesaw « Spare Cycles on August 22nd, 2007 12:56 am

    [...] China Web 2.0: Google Rolls Out Laiba [...]

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