Baidu reports strong mobile ad sales, echoing Facebook

Chinese search giant Baidu reported a 34 percent jump in profit for the second quarter, with mobile ad sales accounting for almost a third of revenue for the first time.

Baidu's profit reached 3.5 billion yuan (US$571 million) for the quarter, while revenue soared 59 percent to 12 billion yuan, at the upper end of its forecast.

Mobile made up 30 percent of revenue, which was a first for the company, CEO Robin Li said in a statement. A day earlier, Facebook said it more than doubled its profit in the second quarter, with mobile a big factor.

The results show Baidu's profit engine moving back into high gear. Last year its earningsgrowthslowed as the company increased spending to develop and promote new products.

Most of Baidu's revenue comes from online ads, and it's trying to squeeze more from mobile as more Chinese turn to smartphones to get online.

Baidu says it's China's top provider for mobile search, mobile mapping and app distribution. But it faces increased competition from local rivals like Alibaba Group and Qihoo 360, whose search products are growing in popularity.

Since last year, Baidu has spent a lot more on research and development and on marketing. In the quarter just ended, R&D expenses increased 85 percent year over year, while general and administrative expenses doubled. Most of that G&A increase was for promoting mobile products, it said.

In the current quarter, Baidu expects revenue to reach as high as 13.8 billion yuan, an increase of 55 percent from last year.

View the original article here

The Pirate Bay makes searching for torrents easier on mobile devices

The Pirate Bay launched a mobile site on Thursday to make it easier to navigate the search engine for torrent files on mobile devices.

Called The Mobile Bay, the mobile version of the site features bigger buttons and renders better on mobile devices than the desktop version of the site did before.

The mobile version though offers fewer options than the regular version, apparently to save some space. The links to TV shows and Music that are shown prominently on the site's regular home page are removed in the mobile version, while some other links are also cut from the already rather minimalist home page.

The mobile version also omits a large ad that is often present on the regular home page. On the rest of the site ads are still present though they seem to be somewhat less abundant than on the desktop version.

The site's operators built the mobile version because the main site renders poorly on mobile devices, The Pirate Bay team told Torrent Freak. Before, mobile users were shown a tiny version of the normal home page.

Where other sites are opting for "responsive" technologies that adapt web page layouts to the size and capabilities of the target device, The Pirate Bay is letting -- or forcing -- users to choose which version they want. Visits to thepiratebay.se are not automatically redirected to the mobile site on iOS and Android devices.

In the future, The Pirate Bay also plans to release a series of niche sites that will give the TV, music and movies section their own dedicated sites, Torrent Freak reported. The site is also working on a project called RSSbay, which can be used to generate personalized torrent RSS feeds that can be used to launch torrent downloads remotely, the report said.

There are other advantages to maintaining different domains for these services: The Pirate Bay also aims to make itself more resilient to possible legal action blocking access to a domain. If one gets taken down, there will be others left, The Pirate Bay told Torrent Freak.

Loek is Amsterdam Correspondent and covers online privacy, intellectual property, open-source and online payment issues for the IDG News Service. Follow him on Twitter at @loekessers or email tips and comments to loek_essers@idg.com

View the original article here