China’s leading Search Engine, Baidu, yesterday launched an Olympic channel (2008.baidu.com) that combines everything about Olympics in one space (chats, videos, news, etc…). Having seen Sina.com and Sohu release their Olympic brand channels long ago, this is clearly a strategy to win the big buck from huge advertising sponsors.

Sohu’s CEO Zhang Chaoyang

Association with Olympics games is currently a big brand game in China, with many companies using Beijing 2008 logos illegally. Sina’s CEO, Cao Guowei, repeatedly made claims arguing against Sohu’s exclusive rights (as a web company) to 2008 brand association. Yet, Sohu still remains it priveleges and is currently the provider for the official olympic site: BOCOG.

Similar to Google’s recent development, Baidu is increasingly stepping out of its pure search engine presence into the world of portals. Makes one wonder whether perhaps the traditional advertising bucks just feel more comfortable been poured into flashing images on portals (as opposed to text ads under the search bar).

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Just a few hours, apparently, Google finally built on its partnership with mapabc to provide transit maps for major cities in China - including Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou and Hangzhou. Although the feature is still in its lab-stage, it is likely to take major notice as currently dominating services like mapabc are not in mainstream adoption.

It also appears that thetransit feature is currently not intergrated into other Google’s China map products - but then again, that’s why there is a logo sign there…

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In a continuing series of personnel losses, including Li Kaifu (to eBay) and Kai-Fu Lee (to Google), Microsoft today lost another member: Timothy Chen. Microsoft’s China Corporate Vice President (uh…) is said to leave for NBA where he will lead the further development of infrastructure and operations (as if that’s the reason they needed to grab one of the top international exec.)

Microsoft had, of course, stuggled with building important goverment relations ever since they ignored mainland China and instead opened a center in Taiwan - Chinese government never forgot

Mr. Chen, a Taiwan born, certainly comes with a taste for pedigree – previous roles included: VP of Motorola (China), CEO of 21CN Cybernet Corp, and U.S. based Lucent Technologies (then AT&T Inc.). Not to mention his MBA from University of Chicago – a typical story of successful Chinese American returnee.

What about NBA? To make it short, NBA in China is huge. Over 300 million people play basketball - and nearly all of them have high awareness of NBA brand. Of course, in a country where television is not much of a show, NBA Chinese web site plays a key gateway to basketball footage.

Once again, a company that put tremendous resources in building its human capital is falling apart and losing its key leaders in the meantime.

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