Baidu (百度)

Search engine and news

Beijing Baidu Netcom Science & Technology Co.,Ltd

Interactions

Splash screen, permissions and feature announcement modal
Search from home screen
Gamified mini task: voice star
Gamified mini task: mobile data
Gamified mini task: palace fight game
Gamified mini task: grab red packets
Gamified mini task: invite new users to win cash
Gamified mini task: win mobile phone
Gamified mini task: download app and win
Gamified mini task: lucky draw
Gamified mini task: invite friends
List of tasks to win money or prizes
QR scanner
Rows of icons in profile page
Vertical video interactions
Data saver asks if you want to play video or buy data pack
Pressing and long pressing like button to leave reactions
Toggling audio mode makes play button appear on stories
Tabs on homepage. Customizable using the plus button
Splash screen ad: "Discover a bigger world with Baidu"

Flows

About

Baidu is China’s most popular search engine, often called the Google of China. Baidu was founded in 2000 and has products in advertising, maps, news, autonomous driving, artificial intelligence and more.

Baidu's iOS app has a bunch of features including search, weather, news, audio content, videos, user generated content, mini games, cab search, hotel search, train bookings, restaurant search. These are bundled within the main app and are just one or two taps away.

Baidu on Wikipedia

Bundled apps

Screenshots of some of the bundled apps in Baidu:

Fiction, Anime, Web, Nuomi (Group buying app), Takeaway, Map, Music, Listen (Podcasts), IQIYI videos, Encyclopedia, Know (Q&A), News, Tourism, Netdisc (Cloud storage), Financial Services, Translate, Xiaodu Mall, Baibai (Jobs), Official site

Bundled apps

Bundling of apps into a mega app is a common pattern in China. Some of the apps bundled into Baidu are:

Fiction, Anime, Feed (posts by other people), Celebrities, Web, Nuomi (Group buying app), Takeaway, Map, Music, Listen (Podcasts), IQIYI videos, Encyclopedia, Know (Q&A), News, Tourism, Netdisc (Cloud storage), Financial Services, Translate, Xiaodu Mall, Baibai (Jobs), Promotion

Competitions and gamification

The touch point on the top right of the home page takes you to a list of competitions.

Each competition is almost its own mini app. Some require you to play a mini game, some make you invite as many friends as possible and compete on a leaderboard, some make you do tasks, some are a lucky draw and so on. You can win money, electronics, mobile data, and so on

Some of them have multiple editions and run for weeks, some are special promotions.

Data saver

When you’re on mobile data or if your WiFi is not working, it enables data saver mode. Clicking on videos shows file size and asks for confirmation. You can either continue watching or buy a data pack that lets you stream videos from certain apps, including Baidu, for free.

Home page

The home page's main call to action is Search. Under it, there are configurable tabs for topics you want to receive news from. The top navigation shows the weather and a way to access mini apps.

The bottom navigation's main action button is voice search. At the time I documented this, the other tabs were Home, Video, Bookmarks and Profile. These usually change often, probably as a result of A/B testing.

Profile and more tab

The main call to action on topof the page is to sign up via phone number, WeChat, QQ or Weibo.

Some of the items included here are: Stats for News, Posts made, following, fans etc, AR animals by Chimelong (a tourist resort), AI Rap, post it, Nuomi (Group buying), IQIYI, collection, history, downloads, fiction bookshelf, games, activity center, points mall, app theme, clean cache, night mode, scan QR, financial service, get mobile data, local discovery, financial services, JD (e-commerce), CTrip travel, train ticket, hotel, Youxin (used cars), check violations, Baidu smart speakers, Suning Online Market, help and feedback, settings

Sponsored search cards

App install cards when you search for a promoted app on Baidu mobile web. The primary call to action is “Download App”, seconday action is to visit app website. Some apps include 3-6 features highlighted under the banner. Left to right: Airbnb, Pinduoduo, AliTrip (Fliggy), Toutiao

New apps added every other week

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