Baidu Readying Mobile App

All sorts of corporations and individuals have agreed that the mobile market is key in China; many more people can afford Internet-enabled phones than PCs.  Baidu may be onto something, then, as it intends to have an app loaded onto phones before they're made available for sale.

If Baidu can get a solid mobile app in front of a lot of people right from the start, it'll decrease the odds of them ever turning to Google.  Given how Baidu's doing so well in terms of desktop market share, it might even win converts.

And Baidu Palm, as the application's known, should be plenty useful.  Owen Fletcher reported that, even in beta, it "hooks users into its search, message board and question-and-answer online services.  It also has a new quick-upload feature for pictures taken with a phone."

Another point in Baidu's favor: things are looking pretty good on the distribution side.  Although no deals have been announced, Baidu's already known to have relationships with a number of communications companies, including China Telecom and China Unicom.

It seems that we'll soon see another big salvo in the Google-Baidu war, then.  Don't count on Google taking too long to respond.

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Twitter “Game” Discussed, Dismissed At BlogWorld

Regardless of what some individuals and marketers seem to think, the point of Twitter is not to amass as many followers as possible.  Experts discussed this and other no-nos - along with what you should do - at BlogWorld during a session titled "The Twitter Game - How To 'Play' Social Networking And Why It's A Bad Idea."

(Coverage of the BlogWorld conference continues at WebProNews Videos.  Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

This was a question and answer session, so apologies go out in advance if the tips seem a little disjointed.  The speakers weren't changing subjects at random.  Here's what Jesse Stay, the CEO of SocialToo.com and man behind StayNAlive.com had to say, however.

Stay stressed that Twitter is a broadcasting platform, with the whole idea of it being to initiate conversations.  Use it to build relationships with people, and use other tools as you see fit, too.  (Stay suggested beginning things on Twitter and then taking them to Facebook.)

Micah Baldwin, the CEO of Take Comics and creator of #followfriday, pointed out that Twitter use can put a human face on a large corporation.  He also said it's the "who" that matters more than sheer numbers - "followers are the megaphone," but who you follow is the voice.  And on that note, he added that the worst thing Twitter's done is introduce value to followers, and that auto-following is bad.

Reem Abeidoh, Outrider North America's social media strategist, supported and put a new twist on some of these points, saying that at the end of the day, no one's addicted to the platform.  It's the people who matter, instead.

Finally, Lucretia Pruitt, the director of social media at Collective Bias and blogger behind GeekMommy.net, said that following and engagement aren't tied as directly as people think.  She believes that social media is a tailored industry, as well, rather than one-size-fits-all, and that social media use should be specific to every situation.

WebProNews Video reporter Abby Johnson contributed to this report.