Baidu starts "Wenhua" service

Aug. 9, 2007 Beijing.

In the Baidu World Forum 2007, first annoucement being made is that Baidu has been officially chosen as exclusive search engine partner for the "national cultural information sharing project".

Baidu's specially designed wenhua.baidu search service is now live. This is the first time the national culture project starts collaboration with a search engine. It also marks Baidu's major move in promoting digital dessemination and utilization of national culture heritage.

"National Cultural Information Resource Sharing Project" is a public work led by the Ministry of Culture, jointly organized and implemented with the Ministry of Finance. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the project. It also listed as important public culture project in the "11th Five-Year Plan". The project will vigorously integrate various cultural and information resources from national libraries, museums, art galleries, art research institutions into components of the databases and to make them widely accessible through the internet. More than fifty categories including all nationalities, ancient architectures, history, heritage, rare books, dramas, etc.

Baidu is undisputed leader in Chinese search engine services. It is also interesting to note that by choosing a domestic partner, the government may intend to keep national heritage resources in the hands of Chinese. Consequently, this move may further strengthen Baidu's dominance in the Chinese search market and put Google in a disadvantage position.