Rebirth 2010: I taught Mr. Lei how to make a mobile phone

Chapter 631 It’s not that Baidu has changed, but that the other side has arrived
October 3th, Thursday.

Bi'an Search quietly launched its public beta on this day.

There was no overwhelming publicity, and the simultaneous launch of the Android and iOS app stores was so low-key that it was almost hidden.
According to the plan, the large-scale promotion activities will not be fully launched until April 4, which makes the natural traffic data on the first day appear calm. Almost no one in the ordinary user group noticed that this new player that may change the industry landscape has appeared.

But in the circle of Internet practitioners, this news caused a wave like a depth bomb.

Those seed users who have participated in the internal test have already spontaneously spread word of mouth in major technology forums: "This is what search should be like", "We can finally get rid of the trouble of advertisements". These comments spread like wildfire in professional circles.

That night, Baidu headquarters was brightly lit.

"So, don't be misled by the alarmist rhetoric of some people at the two sessions."

Li Yanhong was talking at an executive meeting, tapping his fingers on the table.
"Internet finance is the general trend of the future, and this trend will not be changed by anyone's will."

He paused for a moment, adjusted his pace, and then continued, "We will immediately set up a financial services division, relying on the existing sales system and traffic advantages, and start with the education installment segment.

The loan process should be simplified, approval should be accelerated, and the threshold should be lowered - remember, the most important thing at this stage is to seize the market, and the recycling issue can be put aside. At the same time, Baidu Wallet should be launched as the underlying payment platform."

Before he finished speaking, the door of the conference room was gently pushed open. A nervous assistant walked quickly to Li Yanhong and leaned over to whisper something.

The face of this Internet tycoon, who was known for his calmness, suddenly changed, and the pen in his hand fell on the table with a "pop".

"Say it again? Bi'an has launched search?" Li Yanhong's voice suddenly rose octaves, and the expression on his face froze instantly.

This sudden news made everyone present witness their CEO's rare moment of loss of composure.

"Chen Mo, how dare he do that?"

Several executives who had participated in the "3B Overtime" some time ago looked at each other with various expressions on their faces - shock, confusion, and realization.
Hit the wrong person?

Their fierce battle with 360 in the past month, the huge resources invested, the fierce market competition, and the heated public opinion game suddenly seem so ridiculous at this moment.

In a flash, all the clues suddenly came together at this moment: the fierceness of the public opinion war, 360's unusually tough attitude, and the negative news that precisely hit Baidu's weak spots.
Li Yanhong felt a chill running up from the soles of his feet
"Chen Mo." He gritted his teeth and spat out the name, finally understanding the other party's real goal.

This is not an accidental public opinion storm, but a carefully planned design.

This black dog is coming towards me?!

Li Yanhong took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

He turned to Zhu Guang, the company's vice president, and his voice returned to its usual calmness: "Zhu Guang, you are fully responsible for the financial business just deployed. Execute it according to the established plan."

"Roger that!"

"Everyone is here," Li Yanhong looked around at everyone, his eyes sharp as a knife, "Let's take a look at what this Beyond the Shore Search is."

As he operated, the projection screen in the conference room lit up. When the Baidu search result page for "Bian'an Search" appeared in front of everyone, Li Yanhong's voice was as cold as ice: "Li Mingyuan, the first thing to do today is to block Bi'an Search for me."

"understand!"

And when the homepage of the other side search was finally displayed in its entirety on the big screen, the entire conference room fell into deathly silence.

Most of people's vision is occupied by a vast expanse of white. At first glance, it looks exactly like Baidu, but it is different in every way - the design is so simple that even the LOGO is abandoned, revealing a kind of almost paranoid self-confidence.

"The other side is so shameless! How can they plagiarize like this!"

"This is Tencent learning from Bi'an, but Bi'an is actually learning from Tencent's style in reverse."

Xiang Hailong, president of Baidu Search and head of its core search business, laughed. “What’s the difference between this Baidu search and the other side search? If that’s the case, I don’t think we need to worry. The user habits we have accumulated over the past decade are not so easy to change.”

But when Li Yanhong searched for a keyword and saw the result page, Xiang Hailong could no longer laugh.
The intelligent answer guess is directly presented at the top of the search results, and the precisely matched web links are below. The hot search list on the right is exactly the same as Baidu's but more concise.

Seeing this, Zhang Yaqin, the president of Baidu, suddenly contracted his pupils. He rushed to the computer, grabbed the keyboard and typed in a few professional vocabulary words for the test:

"Business Virgin Secretary", "NJ Yangtze River Bridge", "Married and Unmarried".
For every semantically ambiguous query, Bi'an Search can accurately analyze it:
For example, is it "Business/Virgin/Secretary"? Or "Business/Female Secretary"?
Similarly, should "NJ Yangtze River Bridge" be "NJ Chang/Jiang Bridge" or "NJ/Yangtze River Bridge"?
This is a great test of logical processing and semantic analysis capabilities, and Bi'an Search can give reasonable answers based on the context, and the answers are almost perfect.
Even more shocking are the queries in professional fields - "non-small cell lung cancer PD-L1 expression is positive", "Is PHP the best language in the world?".

Even the pronunciation of the rare Chinese character "燚龘犇猋骉麤" was given a textbook-like standard answer by the other side search. Seeing this scene, Zhang Yaqin's voice trembled slightly, and he murmured, "This, this. How is it possible!"

As the general manager of the Baidu Brain 1.0 project, he knows better than anyone how much data training and algorithm optimization are needed to achieve such semantic understanding.

What Bi'an Search shows is exactly what they envision the next generation of search engines to look like.

It was like two restaurants competing with each other. Zhang Yaqin had just prepared the dishes when the other restaurant had already served them on the table, and they were so delicious and beautiful. How could he not be shocked?

Not far away, Wang Haifeng, the technical director of Baisou search business and the leader of Fengchao and natural search systems, was looking at the other side search on his mobile phone. After observing and analyzing the search results, he felt vaguely familiar.

He thought, "I feel like this sorting and indexing are somewhat similar to ours."

"Can you find evidence?" Li Yanhong asked immediately.

"It's difficult. You can't tell anything from the surface." Wang Haifeng shook his head. "You can only know by looking at the source code. But the protection system of the Kunlun Mirror on the other side is recognized as strong in the industry."

Li Yanhong snorted coldly: "They poached so many of our technical personnel and paid hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for non-compete alone. It's not surprising that there are some similarities."

If Zhang Yaqin and Wang Haifeng want to find the technical implementation principle behind the page performance;
Li Yanhong saw the essence through the phenomenon, because he found that the most core difference between Bi'an Search and Baidu Search is that the former has no trace of commercialization at all.

What really shocked him was that Bi'an Search completely abandoned the pure experience of commercialization. This attitude of "barefoot is not afraid of wearing shoes" to pull Baidu off the altar reminded Li Yanhong of how WeChat carved out a bloody path when Tencent was at its peak.
The other side is now many times stronger than it was a few years ago.
Tencent couldn’t hold on at that time, can Baidu hold on now?
Li Yanhong's heart was also beating fast.
But no matter how difficult it is to defend, you must defend it!
He took a deep breath and looked at the executives whose expressions gradually changed from indifferent to serious.
“It seems that without me saying anything, everyone can feel the situation we are facing now.

but!
Facing the search on the other side, everyone must be extremely alert!"

"Understood!" everyone responded in unison.

". Now I will tell you the specific arrangements. First, the proportion of advertising will be temporarily reduced by 50%, and all advertisements in sensitive industries that have been involved in negative public opinion will be removed from shelves."

Xiang Hailong frowned slightly and immediately raised an objection, "Robin, this will affect the interests of both us and our customers, and will also affect the close relationship of subsequent cooperation. If the other party chooses to invest in another company next year, it will be a major loss to our revenue.

Should we observe the situation of the search on the other side first before making a decision?"

Li Yanhong shook his head: "If it was any other opponent, I wouldn't be so cautious. But the opponent is Chen Mo, the other side, we must respond with the highest standards, and we can promise the customer subsequent profit concessions and compensation."

Seeing that the boss insisted on his own opinion, Xiang Hailong nodded helplessly, "Well, let's do it this way for now."

"Remember," Li Yanhong emphasized at the end, "this is just a phased adjustment. Search will be operated in a low-key manner for the time being. It is expected that the situation will become clear within 3-6 months. Once this gust of wind blows over and suppresses Bi'an Search, we can adjust back then."

From the time when Bi'an Search was quietly launched to the end of March, this new product did not cause much waves in the past few days, and only slowly penetrated the market relying on natural traffic.

However, careful netizens soon discovered that Baidu Search seemed to have "turned over a new leaf" overnight and had undergone visible changes.

"Huh? Is it my illusion? Baidu seems to be much more useful than before."

"The search results are much more reliable and there are fewer ads. I used to have to turn to the second page to find useful information, but now the third one is the correct answer!"

"It seems that the Baidu Brain mentioned at the two sessions is not an exaggeration. It deserves to be the second most handsome man in the Internet industry."

"Today I searched for 'what to do if I have a toothache', but I didn't see any advertisements for dental hospitals. The first result directly led to the guide of the Chinese Journal of Stomatology. This is not the Baidu I am familiar with."

Unlike netizens who are confused about Baidu's "turning over a new leaf", the media with a keen sense of smell have already noticed the clues - after all, Bi'an's past performance is too dazzling, and its every move is enough to shock the industry.

Beijing News: "Monitoring shows that Baidu search ads for keywords such as 'cancer treatment' have decreased by 70% and page loading speeds have increased by 20%"

"Yicai: A technological deterrent without a declaration of war - Baidu has cut its advertising revenue by half before Bi'an Search has started to work"

Internet Watch: "This may be the first time in the history of China's Internet that the 'catfish effect' has not yet occurred, but the giant has already corrected itself. This shows that the real competitive pressure is not in market share, but in the competition for the dual high ground of people's hearts and morality."

On April 4, with the extensive media coverage and the simultaneous efforts of Bi'an's omni-channel matrix, Bi'an Search became popular across the country overnight.

The catfish on the other side swam to the sea called "search"
It was then that netizens realized that it was not Baidu that had changed, but that the other side had arrived!

(End of this chapter)