Baike.com (), formerly Hudong and Hoodong (), is a for-profit
social network
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...
in Chinese, including the world's largest
Chinese encyclopedia
Chinese encyclopedias comprise both Chinese-language encyclopedias and foreign-language ones about China or List of China-related topics, Chinese topics. There is a type of native Chinese reference work called ''leishu'' (lit. "categorized writing ...
.
It is one of the two largest
wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
s in China, along with
Baidu Baike
Baidu Baike (; , also known as Baidu Wiki) is a semi-regulated Chinese-language collaborative online encyclopedia owned by the Chinese technology company Baidu. The beta version was launched on April 20, 2006, and the official version was launc ...
, claiming to have more than 18 million articles as of 2020 and more than 5.77 million volunteers, as of April 2013.
History
Baike.com was founded in 2005 by CEO
Pan Haidong
Pan Haidong (潘海东; born 1974 in Dazhou, Sichuan) is the CEO of Chinese online encyclopedia Baike.com. Baike is the largest online encyclopedia in China as of 2009.
He attended the University of Science and Technology Beijing from 1991 to 19 ...
, who had moved back to China after earning a PhD in systems engineering from
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
in 2002.
Baike.com, a 2007 RedHerring 100 Asia company, developed its own wiki software platform, called
HDWiki
HDWiki is a Chinese wiki software developed by the online encyclopedia Hudong. It is used by over 1000 websites in China.
License and development
The source code for HDWiki is free for anyone to download without registration HDWiki is free for ...
, as a rival to
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sites define a large part of the requirement set for MediaWiki ...
. The system has some
social networking
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...
-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
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open ...
groups, government, universities, and high school students.
In 2011, it was announced that
Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) is an American venture capital firm focused on investments in enterprise, consumer and disruptive technologies. In January 2019, DFJ Venture, the early-stage team, spun out and formed Threshold Ventures. DFJ Growth ...
had invested $15 million in Baike.com.
On 22 February 2011, Baike.com submitted a complaint to the
State Administration for Industry and Commerce
Prior to March 2018, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC; ) was the authority in the People's Republic of China responsible for advancing legislation concerning the administration of industry and commerce in the People's Repub ...
asking for a review of the behavior of
Baidu
Baidu, Inc. ( ; , meaning "hundred times") is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence (AI), headquartered in Beijing's Haidian District. It is one of the la ...
, accusing it of being monopolistic.
In December 2012, the company changed its English name from Hudong to Baike.com.
In 2019, the company was acquired by
ByteDance
ByteDance Ltd. () is a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Beijing and incorporated in the Cayman Islands.
Founded by Zhang Yiming, Liang Rubo and a team of others in 2012, ByteDance developed the video-sharing social networking ...
.
Features
Baike.com is a
wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
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
A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...
, including chat forums and fan groups.
Baike.com is a for-
profit
Profit may refer to:
Business and law
* Profit (accounting), the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market
* Profit (economics), normal profit and economic profit
* Profit (real property), a nonpossessory intere ...
business partially supported by advertising and paid support services.
See also
*
Chinese Wikipedia
The Chinese Wikipedia () is the written vernacular Chinese (a form of Mandarin Chinese) edition of Wikipedia. It is run by the Wikimedia Foundation. Started on 11 May 2001, the Chinese Wikipedia currently has articles and registered users, of ...
References
Further reading
* Zhang, Yuwei.
I don't see Hudong as a competitor: Wiki founder"
''
China Daily
''China Daily'' () is an English-language daily newspaper owned by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party.
Overview
''China Daily'' has the widest print circulation of any English-language newspaper in China. T ...
''. 24 February 2011.
External links
*{{Official website, http://www.baike.com
2005 establishments in China
Chinese online encyclopedias
Internet properties established in 2005
Wiki communities
21st-century encyclopedias
ByteDance