Baidu to introduce mini-apps in search engine results facilitating startups’ online marketing

Though Baidu was the first internet giant in China to advocate mini-programs, it lost its initial battle when confronting WeChat. But maybe it’s not yet the end. Recently, Baidu was reported as investing a huge fund worth of 1 billion yuan in mentoring program developers and providing traffic opportunities, by which to vigorously promote its mini-apps campaign. Some positive feedback has already been received from the market trial by the first batch of open-source alliance, including Baidu Tieba, Bilibili, iQiyi, Kuaishou etc, which have formed a positive beginning. The mini-program initiative allows, with given keywords, relevant no-need-to-install-apps to be listed in the search results provided by Baidu, which works in favor of targeting groups such as startups and individual developers who are marketing their products online with limited budgets.