The chief technology officer of search engine Baidu has resigned for "personal reasons," the Financial Times reported. Li Yinan’s resignation comes after the resignation of Chief Operating Officer Peng Ye on January 8, also said to be for personal reasons. The resignations come as Baidu struggles to introduce a new online marketing system called Phoenix Nest, introduced after its previous system had been criticized for mixing search results with paid advertisements. Baidu’s market share by advertising revenues dropped to 58.4% from 63.89% in the fourth quarter of 2009. Analysts say that Baidu is unlikely to capture all of Google’s market share should the American firm pull out of China, as advertisers will choose to reallocate some of their spending on second-tier search engines.
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