China IT Review

There’s more than a month since Baidu launched it’s box computing at Baidu World. Most experts thought box computing must be something like Google Universal Search or Yahoo! Onebox. However, box computing surprised them.

With box computing,  things go creative. Try search “126″ in Baidu, the 1st result is no longer a nomal text link but a login form. As 126.com is one of the biggest mail service in China, Baidu provided a form to help user login directly.

box computing

So what’s the difference? For one thing, this simple form simply saved a click to the login page; for the other thing, this strategy can easily prevent primary users from being cheated. This is neither Universal Search nor Onebox can provide.

Another sample is related to E-commerce. When searching for a mobile phone, such as “诺基亚5800” (means “Nokia5800″ in English), Baidu will give basic infomation about the phone, like camera, operation system, etc. Baidu also shows different prices from different B2C websites of this phone. It’s really cool.

box computing

The last sample is also about E-commerce. Taobao.com, the biggest C2C platform in China, announced to block Baidu’s spider in 2008. But Taobao now relies on Baidu’s box computing to display its customer service number. It’s funny.

taobao is a clown

That’s right, Taobao is a clown.

Box computing is cool, and it will be better when combined with E-commerce.