The Right to Copyright

What your business needs to know about copyright registration.

Nearly every business in the world buys insurance: liability insurance,
health insurance, property insurance, etc. Few would argue that these are necessary costs in protecting your business’s employees and property.
Surprisingly, however, many businesses, especially small ones, neglect to protect their intellectual property such as company logos, brochures and websites — from infringement. Legally protecting a business’s intellectual property is as important as any other form of insurance a company purchases. And while most businesspeople have heard of patents, copyrights and trademarks, few have a sense of which are needed to protect the intellectual property of their company. We’ll demonstrate how copyright registration can offer your business tremendous protection for less than $150.

Copyright protects “original” works of authorship such as literary, dramatic, musical and other works. Copyright does not protect titles, names, phrases, ideas, systems, processes and factual information that can be protected through trademarks and/or patents. A work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium (e.g., printed materials, recorded commercials, a company website, etc.) is copyrightable so long as there is some element of creativity to the work. While copyright provides a group of rights, most obviously it prevents others from copying and/or distributing the protected work. As a result, copyright registration can assist nearly all businesses in a variety of industries.

The following are typical examples of what is copyrightable:

• Any visual works (company logo, photos, advertisement spreads, catalogs, websites, etc.);
• Any written materials (manuals, guides, articles, business plans, software
code, website code or website copy);
• Any recorded media (videos, presentations, radio and television commercials and audio instructionals).

WHY SHOULD I REGISTER FOR A COPYRIGHT?

Although registration of a copyright is not required in the United States, you don’t get the full benefit of a copyright without registration. Not registering denies a copyright holder a variety of useful and cost-effective tools to pursue and deter infringers. The first myth of copyright law is that by simply creating a work eligible for copyright (e.g., a book, logo, databases, trade catalogs, advertising material, etc.), the creator enjoys the full protection and benefits of federal copyright law. While creating a work typically creates a copyright once it is fixed, (e.g., written, recorded or photographed), fully exploiting the benefits of that copyright requires registration with the United States Copyright Office.

Registration (a $30 fee) has the following advantages:

• You cannot pursue an infringer in federal court without registering. Hence registration is critical to defending your copyright;
• Registration before infringement provides access to additional damage awards, including but not limited to attorneys’ fees. Otherwise only an award of “actual” damages (meaning the damages that you suffered as a result of the infringement) is available to the copyright owner (but you still must register before filing your suit).

The plaintiff, therefore, has a choice of either getting into a serious battle with accountants or asking the court for statutory damages based on an amount that it considers just.
• Registration places the world on legal notice of the copyrighted work’s existence;
• If your work is registered within five years of first publication (distribution to the public), then a court will assume that you are the rightful owner of your copyright and that the copyright is valid (this will save you substantial legal fees when faced with copyright litigation);
• Registration enables the copyright holder to have the U.S. Customs Service prevent importation of infringing works. Although an attorney may be consulted, copyright registration can generally be done on your own. Registration is a very simple process, and all the necessary forms can be downloaded from the Copyright Office’s website,www.copyright.gov. The site also provides detailed instructions on how to fill out the forms and what each application package should contain. There are several forms, and each covers major categories (e.g., Form TX is for a mostly text-based work). However, each form shares the same general format. Typically, your registration should include the following per work:

THE PROPER FORM:

• SE: for serials, works issued or intended to be issued in successive parts bearing numerical or chronological designations and intended to be continued indefinitely (periodicals, newspapers, magazines, newsletters, annuals, journals, etc.);
• SR: for sound recordings;
• TX: for non dramatic literary works such as company manuals, brochures, newsletters (not a play or screenplay, which is registered with Form PA);
• VA: for visual works (pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works, including
architectural works);
• A $30 filing fee, required for each application;
• A non returnable deposit of the work being registered (e.g., a copy of the company newsletter).

MAKING COPYRIGHT REGISTRATION WORK FOR YOU

Businesses can use copyright registration to protect a variety of typical and valuable business items that should be kept out of the competition’s hands. Consider the following hypothetical: Jane gets a small business loan and opens Jane’s Hardware Store. She has a unique, personality-driven brand that caters to busy urban apartment owners with little time and home improvement experience. She hires a Web and graphic designer and a printing company to create 1) a unique and eye-catching logo; 2) a colorful and smartly organized store catalog; 3) a website; and 4) a weekly column on home repair that she publishes on her website, through a circular and in various home improvement journals. Each item is individually eligible for copyright registration. With a tight legal budget, Jane decides to go with copyrights as her main form of protection. Jane promptly registers four copyrights — one each for her logo and her website as visual works, and one each for her catalog and her columns as literary works — without a lawyer, for a grand total of $120 in filing fees.
Suppose later that year, Jack’s Hardware Store opens on the other side of town. Jack sees how well Jane has been doing and uses Jane’s logo and catalog as his own.

Jack also builds a website that strongly resembles Jane’s and posts her articles on his site with his name as the author. Jane at this point has spent most of her start-up budget and cannot afford a protracted lawsuit. Fortunately, she finds a lawyer willing to take her case on a contingency fee basis, because she has registered her copyrights and he knows he can recover his fees and predetermined statutory damages. The lawyer sends a strong cease-and-desist letter that makes clear that the infringed logo, site, etc., are under copyright registration and that he will go after Jack for the full extent of statutory and punitive damages, as well as attorney’s fees.

As a result, Jack quickly removes the infringing materials and ceases to siphon Jane’s hard-earned goodwill. Jane’s registrations gave her invaluable tools to protect her business. Also, statutory damages made the case more attractive to an attorney and made the cease-and-desist letter more compelling.

If a trial followed, unlike a trademark suit, which would require Jane to demonstrate that consumers were likely to confuse Jack’s Hardware with Jane’s Hardware, Jane would have to show only that Jack copied any of the items listed above to prevail. Moreover, statutory damages would save Jane time and money in having to prove actual damages. Finally, if Jane had also filed for a trademark, she could pursue damages for both trademark and copyright infringement. If you decide that there are aspects of your business that need copyright registration, you shouldn’t delay — copyright protection is cheap, easy and powerful.

Intuitive Trader

I wasn’t sure where to put this, so the powers that be can move it if they see fit. I put it here for anyone who is just starting out and wondering what it really takes to become part of that elite club of profitable traders.
I lurk on several trading forums. I join a few and make a few posts. One thing that I rarely see is the painful path one took to becoming successful. So for all you beginners here is what becoming successful took. For my fellow brethren that are already in the club have a good laugh.

The markets had always lured me as a kid. I would read the paper and make predictions. Sometimes they were right; sometimes not. Then one day I got that famous commodity-trading flyer, sent my money off and took the plunge.

My first stab at trading was commodities and I started with $5k in 1991. I was using the strategy as outlined by the guru. The account was gone within a few months. Well that didn’t work. I thought, people do this everyday and make money why not me.

So off to the library. I read every book the Memphis library had on trading and investing. I paper traded the strategies I found while I built my bankroll back up. I learned exits, set-ups, position, expectancy, market psychology, and portfolio management. I soon realized that I was reading the same thing over and over no matter which book I checked out.

Time to build my strategy. I am ready to do this. I bought a new computer, Metastock Pro 6.0, and opened an account with $30k. Its 1995, and this is my shot. By 1997 I was toast again. The family life went to hell in a hand basket, and I thought I could trade through the difficult times. The result was an account with a balance of $2500.

Back to the drawing board. Took care of the personal stuff. Lived like a monk raising capital. Worked nights and watched the market during the day. Took a second job on the weekends to raise more money.

Then one day out of the blue, the little red and green candles started to make sense. I saw patterns develop over and over in the same spots. I placed a trade and made a profit. But I had done this before. I removed the MACD from my charts. Placed another trade and made a profit. Maybe I am on to something. Removed the channel indicator that I stumbled across. I could still see the action and new what the MACD was doing and where the action was in the channel without them even being on the chart. I even stopped drawing trend lines.

It was just me and the screen. I planned every trade. I knew exactly when, where, and why I entered and exited. I was patient. I became a predator. Lurking and waiting. I took every shot the market gave me. If it started to go wrong, I got out quick and waited. If the market did not give me an opening, oh well. There is always tomorrow.

By the fall of 1999, I was consistently profitable and have been ever since. For those that are waiting for the sales pitch, there isn’t one. For those that are waiting for me to expose some great secret, well there isn’t one of those either.

What I will give you are a few simple pointers that I learned the hard way. And the sad part is, most will stilll learn these the hardway.

1)Take everything you read with a grain of salt. That includes this post.

2)Never pay for a system. It is just not that easy.

3)If something comes up in your life that is distracting, stop trading.

4)Plan every aspect of your trade down to the smallest detail, and plan for every possible outcome.

5)Develop your own strategy. Don’t let someone tell you that you can’t trade a simple moving average if you truly believe you can.

6)Test the strategy in the market that you will be trading. If you like the results, trade it in another totally unrelated market and see if it still holds up.

7)Paper trading is ok, but there is nothing that truly tests the strategy like hard earned cash.

8)You will have to make sacrifices in order to make it. I still do. In the middle of my learning period I was working 18 hours a day during the week and 12 on the weekend.

9)You are responsible for everything when it comes to trading. That includes stop running, bad fills, limit moves, your PC crashing. I mean everything. See #4

10)And last but probably most important, don’t be afraid of failure. Just do like Edison and go, “Well that didn’t work”.

Good trading to you all.

http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f30/i-look-back-now-wonder-4014.html

Feeling Great Forever

I just got back from a short trip to Mexico where I went for the express purpose of having a few grams of placental tissue transplanted beneath the skin of my lower abdomen. I am evaluating this procedure, which has been available in Mexico for nearly 20 years, as a possible rejuvenation treatment for patients who come to my wellness center. Before recommending it to anyone else, I wanted to try it on myself. Fortunately, at age 62, I am still maintaining pretty well, but I’ve collected my share of bumps and dings along the way and I’m committed to doing whatever I can to make it to the Singularity, which is projected for midcentury, and to continue remain as healthy as possible along the way.

The human placenta is a wondrous organ that serves to nourish a developing fetus, but it also possesses growth factors, hormones and immune modulators, which makes it useful for rejuvenation. A key reason I had the placental tissue implanted under my skin, however, is because it is also loaded with stem cells.

Most of the news centers on embryonic, umbilical cord and adult stem cells, but you don’t hear much about placental stem cells and I really don’t know why. Placental stem cells have several characteristics that make them quite useful for therapeutic and rejuvenation purposes.

Embryonic cells are controversial because a life (or a potential life, depending on your point of view) is destroyed in obtaining them. They are desirable because they don’t have any antigens on their cell surfaces, so they won’t be rejected by anyone who receives them, and also because they are totipotent, meaning they have the ability to turn into any type of cell in the body. The downside to embryonic cells is that they are very difficult to control and their practical value still lies in the future.

Adult stem cells, on the other hand, do have practical applications even in the United States today. They are being used in several clinical trials with surprisingly beneficial results, and as treatments for patients with otherwise incurable conditions in many other regions of the world. Advantages of adult stem cells are that they are easier to work with and easily obtained from the bone marrow.

The human placenta is a wondrous organ… it… possesses growth factors, hormones, and immune modulators, which makes it useful for rejuvenation.

In a typical treatment, a patient’s stem cells are collected from their bone marrow, and the cells are cultured and multiplied in the laboratory. Then they are mixed with various types of growth factors taken from the patient’s circulating blood and reinjected into the patient. In one U.S. clinic, a patient’s own stem cells are reinjected into joints to repair and regrow damaged cartilage, allowing them to avoid joint replacement surgery of the hips, knees and elsewhere. One of my patients has traveled to the Dominican Republic to undergo this treatment to treat his advanced heart failure and lung disease, which were otherwise incurable with conventional therapies.

Many parents today save the umbilical cord blood from their newborns so that the stem cells will be available to the child (and possibly other family members as well) if needed in the future. These cells are multipotent, meaning they can become many — but not all — cell types.

Aside from being available in the event the child develops leukemia and needs chemotherapy along with a stem cell transplant, the value of umbilical cord stem cells lies in the future as well — at least in the United States currently and into the foreseeable future. Umbilical cord stem cells are being used to treat many conditions in hospitals in China and elsewhere today.

Placental stem cells are similar to umbilical cord blood cells, but they are even more “userfriendly” as they combine advantages of embryonic stem cells with those of adult cells. They have relatively weak antigens on their surfaces so they can be used in a wide spectrum of potential recipients and they are multipotent, like adult cells, so they are relatively easy to control.

In our two books together, Fantastic Voyage (2004) and Transcend (2009), Ray Kurzweil and I have compared the journey that we will make to reach the Singularity as a passage over three bridges. We define therapeutics available today as bridge one, while biotechnological breakthroughs will constitute bridge two, and nanotechnology, bridge three. The “killer app” of bridge three will be nanobots: autonomous, nanoscale-sized devices that will one day circulate through the blood vessels and tissues of the body, repairing damage, killing infections and malignant cells.

Shortly after I had my placental tissue transplant I realized that I had already started over bridge three. Placental stem cells have powerful “homing” mechanisms which enable them to hone in on areas of the body that are in need of repair just like future mechanical nanobots. Placental stem cells are, in effect, the nanobots of today. I hope they will help me “feel great forever.” I had my transplants about two weeks ago and haven’t noticed anything yet, but will keep you posted.

Terry Grossman, MD is a leading expert on antiaging therapies and the founder and medical director of Frontier Medical Institute in Denver, Colorado. With Ray Kurzweil, he is coauthor of TRANSCEND: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever.

http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/forever-young/feeling-great-forever

The Perils of FDS: Fun Deficiency Syndrome

Modern cosmetic pharmacology focuses so heavily on eliminating depression that it entirely misses one essential point: depressed people are suffering from a lack of fun. Nobody ever describes depression as a “Fun Deficiency Syndrome,” but lack of fun is clearly the root cause of all depression. It is impossible to be depressed when you are having fun, yet modern therapies for depression seek only to minimize depressive symptoms while doing nothing to maximize the daily intake of fun. This backwards approach to treating fun deficiency syndrome — or FDS — is not only dangerously ineffective, it will be viewed by future generations as one of the greatest failures of medicine.

While depression has been studied under a microscope, science has barely scratched the surface on fun. The scientific study of fun is considered to be a frivolous exercise, and this assumption would be correct because fun is frivolous. The mistake made by science and academia is in underestimating the value of fun, treating fun as a non-serious diversion instead of a rational goal worthy of scientific examination. This oversight is unfortunate because fun is arguably the greatest thing a human can have. Everyone likes to have fun… no, we love to have fun. When we are having fun we forget ourselves and become one with our actions in a moment of pure playful enjoyment. Having fun goes beyond being happy. Happiness implies a baseline level of contentment and good feelings but it does not include the amusement, exhilaration, laughter and joy associated with fun. If depression is the illness of our age, fun is the cure.

//

The roots of FDS can be traced through human developmental stages. Most people have plenty of fun as children, but the onset of adolescence and high school creates a perfect storm of jaded anxiety that dampens the levels of fun easily found in childhood. The onset of FDS in adolescence leads teenagers to naturally seek extremes of fun behavior to counteract their social anxiety. These extremes include partying, fighting, competitive sports and mating behaviors where risk is maximized to produce the most fun. Most people do not consider this adolescent fun-seeking activity to be a neurologically-wired behavior to cope with developmental anxiety and depression, but it obviously is. This fun-seeking stage lasts well into early adulthood when chronic FDS becomes more problematic. By middle age, most people are chronically low on fun and this is when depression becomes most acute. If lack of fun is constant and goes untreated it can lead directly to mid-life crisis and, eventually, grumpy-old-fart syndrome.

Fun can be scientifically reduced to two distinct variables: risk and reward. It is easy to understand why reward is fun, but risk is the key to maximizing the impact of reward to produce fun. The most extreme examples of this dynamic can be found in compulsive behaviors that can become highly addictive, like sex and gambling. Sex and gambling are both fun and risky, and the higher the risk the more satisfying and more fun the reward. Also, consider horror movies or amusement park rides where a constant level of fear and anxiety is sustained throughout the experience until the resolution brings a safe and satisfying reward. Fun is thus the science of using risk to build tension, and then strategically releasing that tension with a pleasurable reward to maximize enjoyment. Fun is therapeutic because it reduces anxiety and produces neurochemicals that combat depression. Fun is one of nature’s best and most powerful medicines. If you could put fun in a pill it would almost certainly be illegal.

The onset of FDS in adolescence leads teenagers to seek extremes of fun behavior to counteract their social anxiety… partying, fighting…

The major pharmacological variables of the risk/reward fun dynamic are adrenaline and dopamine, the key catecholamines produced in response to stress. By now we should all be familiar with the manic exhilaration of an adrenaline rush and the self-satisfied clarity of a dopamine high. Of all the drugs in the world, amphetamines may be the best at stimulating this specific chemical cocktail. It is no mystery why amphetamines lead to risky behaviors. Risky behaviors are even more rewarding under the influence of amphetamines and thus more fun. One side of the dopamine cycle leads the subject to seek out new and fun activities; the other side stimulates the satisfying feeling of reward in response to new experiences. Increasing the levels of risk in these fun-seeking behaviors increases the adrenaline rush and thus increases the sensual intensity of the reward and emotional impact of the resulting memory. The experience of intense fun is therefore more than a trivial diversion: it is a pivotal psychological landmark in the lifetime of an individual which can create long-term changes in selfimage, mood, and behavior.

If we follow a simple clinical spectrum for FDS, it can be assumed that the longer individuals go without fun, the more depressed they will become. Chronic lack of fun over time will always result in low self-esteem and the inability to enjoy activities that were once fun when they were new but have now become mundane. People suffering from chronic FDS will claim to lack the time or motivation to seek out new activities, and at the extreme end of the disorder, subjects will claim that seeking fun is a complete waste of time. This is a chronic lack of dopamine talking, and the only cure for people with FDS is to force them to go out and have fun. Unfortunately subjects with undiagnosed FDS may actually think they don’t deserve to have fun, and that they don’t even deserve to have friends, so snapping someone with chronic FDS out of their cycle is not always easy. In extreme cases the only solution may be dancing, a surprise party, or a spontaneous and poorly-planned road trip. Bring beer.

People are the final component in fun… other people. Fun is always more fun when it is shared with other people. This is why partying is an essential human behavior for regulating feelings of self-esteem and social worth. Having fun with other humans in a social setting stimulates serotonin and oxcytocin, two neurochemicals essential to feelings of security and being loved. So if you’re feeling depressed and nothing seems to be working, the only solution is to call some friends and go out and have some fun. It is clinically proven to make you feel better.

James Kent is the former publisher of Psychedelic Illuminations and Trip Magazine. He currently edits DoseNation.com, a drug blog featuring news, humor and commentary.

http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/neuro/perils-fds-fun-deficiency-syndrome

Where Google Loses

Besides a cloud of smoke, sticky keyboards, and the incessant sound of noodle-slurping, nearly every Internet cafe in China has one thing in common: All home pages are set to Baidu.com, China’s dominant search engine. It’s not a coincidence, or even a matter of preference. Back in 2005, when Baidu was just a start-up, company representatives traveled through China persuading Internet cafe owners from Beijing to Kunming to install its toolbar and home page. In addition, it set up alliances with dozens of Internet directory sites, where most first-time Internet users in China start surfing. Now, the vast majority of the online population uses Internet cafes — and the vast majority of searches go through Baidu. Simply put, Baidu knows China. And Google can’t seem to catch up or catch on.

Baidu’s overwhelming dominance comes down to Google’s woeful ineptness at adjusting to Chinese market realities. Google entered the Chinese market and treated it like any other. But, from the beginning, Baidu operated as a Chinese company, using Chinese strategies and tailoring itself for Chinese needs. Thus, in terms of dealing with the government, popularizing the brand, making sales, and offering the masses what they want, Baidu bests Google.

The Beijing-based search engine (whose name means “hundreds of times,” after a line in an 800-year-old poem) maintains an astounding 70 percent market share. California-based Google trails far behind, with only about 25 percent. As China now has the world’s largest (and fastest-growing) Internet community, with 338 million users, market dominance means a whole lot of profit, both now and in the future.

The business world has cottoned on. Baidu’s price-to-earnings ratio, a good way to gauge investors’ expectations for growth, is double Google’s. (Baidu has been listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange since August 2005.) This is in part because China’s Internet saturation is only about 25 percent, compared with more than 75 percent on average in OECD countries, like the United States. Meanwhile, Baidu’s net income is increasing wildly: 40 percent year-on-year, compared with 18 percent for Google. Every indication points to fast growth and lucrative profit.

The secret to Baidu’s success — and Google’s failure — is largely positioning. First, Baidu has managed to win Beijing’s favor, a trump card in this command economy. The government controls the Internet and appreciates loyal partners. Baidu understands that it operates under the good graces of the Chinese Communist Party, and continues to show it. As Robin Li, the company’s chief executive, said in an interview with the Guardian, “As a locally operated company we need to obey the Chinese law. If the law determines that certain information is illegal, we need to remove it from our index.”

Google also allows its content to be censored. But it does so reluctantly and poorly, compared with Baidu and its army of Chinese programmers. From a Chinese Internet cafe, a search for “Tiananmen June 4″ written in Chinese characters — perhaps the most taboo combination one could create — yields 915,000 results on Google China. It gets just 11,300 results, 99 percent less, on Baidu. Type in “harmonious society,” a government catchphrase, and Google gets just over 10 million results. Baidu gets 18 million.

Deference has certainly helped Baidu. Earlier this year, Chinese authorities temporarily blocked Google because it allowed through some pornographic search results. But many of these same results were also available on Baidu — and in fact an industry insider told me that the large majority of traffic to Baidu’s new Japan site comes from mainland users searching for pornography. The implication is that the government has Baidu’s back.

“You definitely get a feeling that the government would give Baidu a bit more time to fix a problem than they would give Google,” explained Ian McGuinn, director at leading Chinese market research firm JLM Pacific Epoch. “It would be very interesting to see whether the government would try to keep Google from ever getting a majority of the market share. They’ve messed with Google before when they forbid it from having its servers in China. Searching on Google was incredibly slow, so nobody wanted to use it.”

On one of the most contentious issues for search engines — intellectual property rights and illegal downloading — the government and Baidu are on the same page as well. Baidu connects users with sites through which they can illegally obtain music. It also allows users to search directly for and illicitly download MP3s.

The Chinese government sometimes gestures toward stopping the practice, but never really does. Recently, for instance, the Ministry of Culture released a circular on illegal downloading. But the document focused on regulations for music itself, requiring posted songs to receive approval and foreign lyrics to be translated into Chinese, for instance. Plus, the Ministry of Culture doesn’t even deal with intellectual property protection.

May-seey Leong, Asia regional director for the worldwide music industry trade group International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, explained. “It’s not even a regulation,” she said. “It’s just a lower-level circular and it principally seems to be trying to control content on digital platforms,” i.e., so that the government can censor that content.

Simple hometown favoritism seems to have protected Baidu from copyright infringement lawsuits thus far. In 2005, several U.S.-based music companies sued Baidu, but inexplicably lost. In 2006, they sued Yahoo China, an American-based company, and won. (The verdicts were released on the same day.) And the record companies’ current lawsuit against Baidu seems to be going nowhere. Leong complained that after nearly two years of legal battles, no verdict has been returned. Even if the lawsuit is somehow successful, the record companies are seeking only $9.7 million in damages, a drop in the bucket for Baidu.

Not that a shutdown of Baidu’s MP3 search engine would make a big difference anyway — it’s not driving the company’s revenue. Baidu puts banner ads only on its MP3 search, whereas according to its U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings, 99.8 percent of its advertising revenue comes from pay-for-placement ads, where advertisers bid for the right to present an advertisement next to specifically searched keywords.

The government allowed Baidu to operate its illegal music search just long enough to attract a huge user base. Now even if the MP3 search disappears, the users are likely to stay, along with the advertisers.

“Very early on, when Baidu was just starting as a search engine, they used music as a tool to gain market share,” said T.R. Harrington, a partner at Darwin Marketing, a China-based firm that helps companies optimize their search engine marketing. “Now, they are making next to nothing on their music searches because advertisers realize that users are going only to download music, so not many people want to advertise on that part of the site. They are making almost all their money on keyword advertising, which is also the case for Google.”

Also, Baidu is continually rolling out products that focus on creating a social community. Its new Baidu Zhidao (“Baidu Knows”) service allows users to answer each other’s questions about everything from restaurants to when track superstar Liu Xiang will finally recover from his injury. And Baidu Tieba, a kind of chat room, now accounts for 14 percent of the site’s traffic.

Creating a social community is a way of ensuring Baidu’s long-term dominance. Unlike in the United States, where people primarily use the Internet for gathering information, in China people first and foremost use the Internet as a social device.

“Two years ago, [music search] was where the business was, a lot more than where it is today,” explained McGuinn at JLM Pacific Epoch. “In the past two years, Baidu has added a lot of products. People go to Baidu for a lot of other reasons than just music, and I doubt that is going to change anytime soon.”

Indeed, Baidu’s entire business strategy is tailored to Chinese governmental, legal, business, and social culture — and that is what has set it apart from Google.

Take, for instance, advertising. “Once Baidu went public, they invested in brand advertising, something that Google has just been arrogant in their reluctance in a growing market to invest in any kind of advertising to increase their brand awareness,” explained Harrington. “Baidu went into all the smaller cities and put up billboards, bus ads, and even commercials on [state television].”

In fact, analysts think that in smaller cities, Baidu’s market share could be more than 90 percent. Although Google might be one of the most well-known brand names in the world, most people outside big cities like Beijing and Shanghai have never heard of it, let alone know how to spell it. (Google is apparently catching on — it recently purchased www.g.cn and starting placing advertisements.)

The same goes for Baidu’s sales force. The company has employed thousands of people throughout China to entice small and medium-sized companies to buy keywords. Google has only about 500 people doing the same in the entire billion-person country, and the Chinese sales force has little autonomy, despite many proclamations to the contrary. “The Google model has historically relied more on technology for sales. Having a large sales force has definitely helped Baidu a lot. They are getting people online for the first time,” McGuinn said.

The combination of a great market strategy and government favoritism means that Baidu will likely not fall from the top, despite the potential loss of its music search site. This is especially true if Google keeps on quarterbacking from California, which is now even more likely since the surprise resignation of its powerful China president, Lee Kai-Fu.

Google might dominate almost everywhere else, but in China, Baidu is set to stay king.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/09/29/where_google_loses

A Year After Lehman, Wall Street’s Acting Like Wall Street Again

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/07/AR2009090701798.html