For Baidu, I believe everyone will be familiar with it.
As the pioneer of the Internet era, Baidu is currently the largest Chinese search engine in China and the first position for many users to obtain information.
With the passage of time, Baidu is also constantly exploring more business segments, such as Baidu Encyclopedia, which is well known to many partners.
Baidu Encyclopedia was founded in 2006 and embraced the mobile Internet wave in 2012 with the launch of the Baidu Encyclopedia App.
And just recently, Baidu officially announced that this app, which has been operating for more than 12 years, is about to say goodbye to us.
On April 22, many users saw an oncoming offline notification when they opened the Baidu Encyclopedia app.
Baidu said it plans to shut down the Baidu Encyclopedia app on June 30, 2024.
At the same time, Baidu Encyclopedia will continue to provide comprehensive service functions in the Mini Program in the Baidu App.
It is worth mentioning that not long after the announcement was issued, the Baidu Encyclopedia App also released a version update for two consecutive days, fixing some bugs in the app.
As soon as the news came out, it quickly sparked heated discussions among netizens.
A significant portion of the discussion said they hadn't even heard of the app.
And some of the more pointed comments may also indicate the real dilemma of the Baidu Encyclopedia app.
Image source: Social platforms
According to statistics, the cumulative number of downloads of the Baidu Encyclopedia App on Android platforms such as Xiaomi App Store and App Treasure is close to 18 million.
Combined with App Store downloads, that number should reach more than 20 million.
Although 20 million+ downloads is a very good result for some startups, it is obviously not enough compared to Internet giants of the same magnitude.
On the other hand, it is also related to the product value of the Baidu Encyclopedia App itself.
Except for professional users who need to retrieve a lot of knowledge every day, even if ordinary users download the Baidu Encyclopedia App, the actual open rate is not very high.
Among the same competitors, including Sogou Encyclopedia, Douyin Encyclopedia, and 360 Encyclopedia, there has been no independent app launched so far.
Finally, according to Qimai data, the Baidu Encyclopedia app has been downloaded less than 500 times a day in the past three months, which is quite bleak.
For all these reasons, it's no surprise that the Baidu Encyclopedia app is offline.
The good news is that the takedown of Baidu Encyclopedia's app doesn't have much of an impact on users.
Users can meet their access needs through the Baidu platform itself, or choose other more user-friendly knowledge platforms.
Finally, "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" has become one of the main keywords in the Internet industry in the past two years.
Including Tencent, almost all Internet giants are engaged in reducing expenditure and open source, and they can cut down unprofitable businesses.
Image source: IT House
In this way, the offline of the Baidu Encyclopedia app may be just the beginning.
It is worth mentioning that the outside world has repeatedly exposed the news of cooperation negotiations between Apple and Baidu.
If all goes well, Wenxin Yiyan may be launched on iOS 18 as a large model of the iPhone cloud and provide AI services for Apple users in China.
What do you think about this? Feel free to leave a message in the comment area and discuss with you.
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