Google And Tencent Partnership On Search Engine Will End Soon

Nov 18, 2008

1 min read

For over 1.5 years, Tencent’s search engine Soso has been powered by Google, i.e. Soso has been using Google’s search engine technology to provide results to to its users. ‘This partnership will end soon and Soso will be re-launched and powered by Tencent’s own search engine’, an insider told me when I was in Guangzhou for China Blogger Conference two days ago.

Question:

1. Does that mean Tencent will soon seriously enter Chinese search market and compete with Baidu?

2. Tencent is of course a very important partner helping Google conquer Chinese search market. How Google will respond to this when the partnership comes to end? Note that Google still partners with Sina.

3. Will Tencent integrate new Soso into its QQ client?

4. With hundreds millions of users, will Soso search try some new technology and concept, such as Human-powered search like Mahalo?

5. Is it a Good or Bad news for Chinese search market?

We are looking fowards to the answers.