Two days later, Baidu’s Tie Ba goes online.

  Baidu saw Sohu and many other companies’ forums are doing well. Baidu’s staff suggested to Li Yanhong that Baidu should also have its forums.

  But this suggestion was rejected by Li Yanhong.

  Forums are informative and promote interactions among netizens. But there are too many online forums available now. Sohu has the most resources and owns the biggest market share. Xi Ci and Tianya are new popular forum websites that appeared recently, and NetEase and the other companies are also doing forums. The online forum market is currently over-saturated.

  There is a saying, “having what others don’t have, being better than what others have, and move on if others are better.”


  Now, others already have what we don’t have and are already good at it. How are we going to fight for the market share?

  So, Li Yanhong suggested another idea, which is to set up a Tie Ba.

  The biggest difference between Tie Ba and forums is users can create their own ‘bar’ with the topic of their interest. Baidu’s powerful search engine will support it, and it can introduce memberships in the future to generate profits.

  Tie Ba is a platform for people to interact, and the forums’ administrator will not restrict it. This way, it can develop faster.

  Also, Tie Ba is not something other companies can copy because it requires keyword searches for this platform to work. This is in line with its slogan, Born for your interest.

  China currently has a few other search engine websites, but they cannot compare to Baidu in terms of scale and functions. Baidu owns the core technologies of the search engine and can quickly take over this market.

  Without competitors, its development becomes faster. Even if similar products appeared in the future, people would be used to Baidu’s Tie Ba!

  Most importantly, Tie Ba is invented by Baidu. Even Google and other search engine websites overseas do not have such products. This will allow Baidu to become the first in the world!

  Once Baidu becomes the first in the world, its brand value will shoot up, and it will be helpful when it gets listed next year.

  The more anticipated a company is, the faster its share prices will shoot up after it got listed. Also, the founders who own the original shares will get more profits.

  Li Yanhong had promised his fellow founders that all of them would become multi-billionaires in the future.

  The easiest way to achieve this goal is to make the company’s share prices rise. All the staff will benefit from it. When the staff’s benefits are tied to the company’s benefits, they will work harder.

  Tie Ba had just completed its internal testing and started public testing.

  Feng Yu clicked on the website and noticed many problems.

  Firstly, Tie Ba is not categorized. Although anyone can create a ‘Ba’ on their interest, it’s hard for people to find the ‘Ba’ they are interested in without categorization.

  Although Tie Ba does not need to be like the forums and depends on administrators to moderate it, it is very inconvenient without categorizations. It makes it impossible to attract forum users.

  Tie Ba’s login page is also not prominent enough. People can enter as visitors like the forums. Without encouraging them to sign up, how is the website going to make money in the future? If everyone can view the topics and discussions without spending money, and you still need to provide all sorts of services, the losses will be massive……

  “Manager Li? I’m Feng Yu. I heard Baidu’s Tie Ba had just gone online for public testing. This product is the first in the world. You are a genius.” Feng Yu praised.

  “Thank you. This is an idea from everyone, and I don’t dare to take all the credit. But we are very confident of Tieba, and it will replace online forums as the best site for people to interact online in the future.”


  Li Yanhong is a proud man and had given up a high-paying salary in the US to start his own company in China. This is a bumpy journey, but at least he has some results now.

  Many people are not supportive of many of Li Yanhong’s ideas in the past. But Feng Yu supported him, which is one reason why Baidu can be so successful now.

  Baidu was providing a search engine for other internet companies, which was their only source of revenue. After that, Li Yanhong decided to go independent and start a search engine website with a bid ranking.

  Many of the company’s top executives opposed this idea, as bid ranking will result in the company having no profits for some time. Also, without the income from those websites, Baidu will shut down!

  But Feng Yu told Li Yanhong to go ahead. If he lacks funding, he can get a bank loan, or Feng Yu can increase his company’s investment.

  To make this plan a success, Li Yanhong needs Baidu’s technologies to catch up or even exceed Google within a short time. Luckily, he succeeded.

  Although most websites’ search engines in China use Google technology, and some are using Korean and Russian technologies, Baidu got through the worse period. Their technologies are on par with Google now.

  Of course, Baidu had spent a lot of money to achieve this. Luckily, Feng Yu had supported this, or else, Baidu might have collapsed.

  If Feng Yu had not supported this plan, he would have the opportunity to acquire Baidu completely. Others might not know, but Li Yanhong knew Feng Yu is Google’s biggest shareholder.

  Li Yanhong still remembered what Feng Yu told him in the past. China’s search engine technology should reach international standards, and I believe you can do it. He can now proudly tell Feng Yu that I had done it!

  Baidu has introduced the world’s first Tie Ba, and Li Yanhong believes Baidu will become better in the future.

  “Manager Li, you don’t need to be modest. I had tried Tie Ba earlier and noticed a few minor issues which need to be discussed with you.”


  “What is it?” Li Yanhong frowned. How come, Feng Yu, who doesn’t know about IT, can discover issues, and those people doing internal testing did not notice it?

  “First, the Tie Ba are not categorized. I know any topics can be made into a Tie Ba for discussions. But what if I want to find a specific topic I am interested in? For example, movie stars. Topics surrounding movie stars are not available on other forums, but we can have that in Baidu Tie Ba. Movie Stars Tie Ba. I believe using the influence of movie stars can attract many of their fans to sign up.”


  “Secondly, Tie Ba’s searches must be improved. Some authors, like those authors in online forums, have many supporters. Why can’t we search Tie Ba based on the authors?”


  “Thirdly, the login page on Tie Ba is not prominent enough, and there are too many texts on it. I know these are user guides for new users, but it is too complicated. Letting the users discover some of the functions themselves is also fun…… of course, these are some of my views for your considerations.”


  Li Yanhong thought for a while and replied. “Manager Feng, you are a genius!”