Baidu Smart Mini Program Open Source Alliance was established, with the first batch of member apps exceeding 3 billion monthly active users

On December 20, the signing ceremony of Baidu Smart Mini Program Open Source Alliance was held in Beijing. 12 companies including iQiyi, Kuaishou, WiFi***Key, 58.com, Autohome, Ctrip, Perpetual Calendar, Cheetah Mobile, Baidu Video, BabyBus, and Zhuoyi signed formal contracts with Baidu and became the first batch of strategic partners of the Smart Mini Program Open Source Alliance. In the future, the above companies will gradually support the operation of smart mini programs in their respective apps, becoming an important entrance to Baidu Smart Mini Programs.

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In 2018, the mini program industry was full of hot news, and BAT successively promoted mini programs as the core corporate strategy. However, Baidu is different from Alibaba and Tencent in that Baidu's smart mini programs are completely open source. Not only Baidu apps can support the operation of smart mini programs, but non-Baidu apps can also be upgraded to become smart mini program operation platforms.

Baidu Vice President Shen Dou said: The reason why we chose to make open source smart mini-programs is that only by being completely open can the value of mini-programs be truly brought into play, breaking the closed and fragmented status quo of the mobile Internet and benefiting developers, users and partners.

For smart app developers, the most direct value of establishing an open source alliance is traffic dividends. Ping Xiaoli, general manager of Baidu App, said that the smart app open source alliance partners will gradually support smart app on their respective apps, and developers only need to develop once to run across platforms. According to incomplete statistics, the monthly active users of Baidu apps and open source alliance partners' apps can reach 3 billion without deduplication.

For the 12 members of the open source alliance that signed the contract, joining the Smart Mini Program Open Source Alliance will help them achieve business upgrades and bring direct commercial returns. He Mingke, co-president of 58 Group, said that 58 is currently working on "upgrading from a traffic distribution platform to an information service platform." Joining the Smart Mini Program Open Source Alliance will not only help 58 introduce more abundant services and increase the user stickiness of the App, but also help 58 access more potential business customers and obtain advertising revenue from Smart Mini Programs.

According to Li Zhongjun, general manager of Baidu Alliance, smart mini-programs currently support Baidu Alliance advertising components. As long as the open source alliance partner platform runs smart mini-programs with Baidu Alliance advertising components, developers and open source alliance members can get advertising revenue. This undoubtedly solves a major worry for developers and open source alliance partners.

Ping Xiaoli emphasized that in addition to the above 12 external partners, many products and platforms within Baidu are also core members of the Smart Mini Program Open Source Alliance, such as Baidu Maps, Baidu Tieba, Baidu Netdisk, Haokan Video, DuerOS, and Apollo driverless car platform. According to Li Zhitang, general manager of Baidu Maps Open Platform, Baidu Maps, as one of the first products to complete open source access, has taken the lead in opening three major product entrances, and will gradually open more entrances and access more service forms.

Industry insiders pointed out that the establishment of the Smart Mini Program Open Source Alliance means that the mini program industry has officially formed two major camps: open and closed. The mini program ecosystem represented by WeChat and Alipay is a closed model, similar to the Apple operating system, and all mini programs can only run on their own apps. Baidu has opened up a completely open mini program camp, similar to the Android operating system. The 12 companies actively embracing the smart mini program ecosystem fully demonstrates the industry's recognition of the open model. "Just like the mobile phone operating system market, the future mini program market may not leave too many system platforms, but it will definitely be a coexistence of open and closed models."