China has shown that they are very adept at copying American high-tech innovation.
* Facebook: WeChat/Weibo
* Google: Baidu
* Apple: already being made in China, clones everywhere
* Amazon: Alibaba
* Facebook: WeChat/Weibo
* Google: Baidu
* Apple: already being made in China, clones everywhere
* Amazon: Alibaba
On the contrary, WeChat is leaps and bounds ahead of Facebook Messenger (which is a more direct comparison). If you've watched Facebook Messenger over time, it's actually Facebook Messenger that's aspiring to be the WeChat of the west.
I use Baidu Maps every time I visit China. Heavily disappointed, it comes nowhere near Google Maps's quality.
How so?
And that's before you get into the fact that China really doesn't want any foreign info-based companies operating in its borders, given their heavy propaganda machine. They'll tolerate it only until they can clone it and expel it.
Here's what Wikipedia says in its PageRank entry:
>A small search engine called "RankDex" from IDD Information Services designed by Robin Li was, since 1996, already exploring a similar strategy for site-scoring and page ranking.[16] The technology in RankDex would be patented by 1999[17] and used later when Li founded Baidu in China.[18][19] Li's work would be referenced by some of Larry Page's U.S. patents for his Google search methods.[20]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank#cite_ref-20
I don't think Google is a Baidu clone but in the cavalier way that people accuse other people of copying the timeline only supports Larry copying Robin Li.