China's Baidu searches for success

BEIJING, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- Cheering fans held up signs with Robin Li's name in neon lights when the entrepreneurial dynamo gave his keynote speech to a full house at the Baidu Innovation Conference 2009.

His larger-than-life image was complemented by the 6-m-tall, 50-m-wide screen in front of which the founder and CEO of China's largest search engine, Baidu, stood to address the crowd.

Many view Li as more of a pop star figure than a businessman. Admiring crowds flock to the handsome, rich and talented guru whenever he appears in public.

From the stage, Li announced his latest concept for the future search engine - box computing, which could answer any given query.

"In the future, when users turn on their computers, a box will show up on the screen," he explains.

"All the users need to do is to key in their needs in their own language, and the desired answers will turn up."

He envisions a future in which users won't need to learn new operating systems or computer jargon.

"The box computing concept aims to simplify the users' experience. But then, of course, it will take more complicated technology to prop this up," he says.

Li had known from an early age that he harbored a passion for searching.

Born in 1968 in Yangquan, Shanxi province, Li was the fourth of five children and the only son in his family. Having always looked up to his third elder sister as a role model, Li followed in her footsteps and went to Peking University, where he received a bachelor's of science in information management in 1991.

He went on to study in the United States - again like his sister - earning his master's degree in computer science from the State University of New York in Buffalo.

After graduating in 1994, he worked for Dow Jones in New Jerseyand then at Infoseek in Silicon Valley. He designed a real-time information system that has been used for many Wall Street firms' websites, including the Wall Street Journal's online version.

Li spent much of his time trying to solve one of the Internet industry's earliest problems - sorting information.

He made a breakthrough in 1996, developing a search mechanism he called "link analysis", which involved ranking the popularity of a website based on how many other sites had linked to it.

Li said he had wanted to use technology to change people's lives ever since he was an engineer in the Silicon Valley. He then believed that search engines would be the next big thing.