Available in Chinese Created by Dr. Pan Haidong (CEO) | Headquarters Beijing | |
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Type of site Social network with wiki-based encyclopedia, chat forums, and bulletin boards Owner Hoodong (Beijing) Technologies Co. Slogan(s) The interactive encyclopedia | ||
Baike.com (Chinese: 互动百科; pinyin: Hùdòng Bǎikē), formerly Hudong and Hoodong, is a for-profit social network in China, including the world's largest Chinese encyclopedia/news website. It is China's largest wiki site, using paid advertising, with over 7 million articles and more than 5 million volunteers, as of April 2013. However, Baike.com is a news/neologism encyclopedia, and hence, it does not restrict articles to only long-term, sourced text with balanced point-of-view content. The contributors agree to release their writings with perpetual royalty-free license to publish their content, but it is not free for re-use on other websites. As of January 2017, it had more than 16.00 million articles.
Contents
History
Baike.com was founded in 2005 by CEO Pan Haidong, who had moved back to China after earning a Ph.D. in systems engineering from Boston University in 2002.
Baike.com, a 2007 RedHerring 100 Asia company, developed its own wiki software platform, called HDWiki, as a rival to MediaWiki. The system has some social networking-like interactive features, such as user profile, friends and groups. The first version was released in November 2006 and by November 2007 version 3 with added functions, features, and more stability was released.
The HDWiki software is free for non-commercial use, has been downloaded 200,000 times and currently supports over 1,000 other web sites in China (as of December 2007), consisting mostly of tech researchers, open source software groups, government, universities, and high school students.
In 2011 it was announced that Draper Fisher Jurvetson had invested $15 million in Baike.com.
On 22 February 2012 Baike.com submitted a complaint to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce asking for a review of the behavior of Baidu, accusing it of being monopolistic.
In December 2012, the company changed its English name from Hudong to Baike.com.
Features
Baike.com is a wiki and lets its users edit and contribute material. Frequent users may accumulate credits redeemable for gifts. It has also included features of social networking sites, including chat forums and fan groups. Baike.com is a for-profit business partially supported by advertising and paid support services. Contributors grant Baike.com a perpetual royalty-free license to publish and re-use the content; it does not release the content under a free license and does not allow re-use on other sites.