51. com: not playing games for many years

It's better not to ask which competitor Pang Shengdong's 51.com looks like. He is still a little excited to tell you that video authentication, group dating, and other functions are not only the first in their domestic counterparts, but even earlier than Myspace, not to mention facebook.

CEO Pang Shengdong believes that the current SNS website market structure has been finalized, and SNS websites will be homogeneous in the future. How to maintain user stickiness will make SNS websites compete. On this goal, 51.com, 21 years old, locks the game.

The first batch of users are very important.

Before being 51.com, the 24-year-old Pang Shengdong dug the first barrel of gold through the Securities Information Service and became the Internet "millionaire ". Previously, he also worked on "unified world (1tong.com.cn)" to count what 17 million netizens do on the Internet every day, this makes him "have an understanding of the basic situation of the Internet", which type of website has the strongest stickiness? Became the focus of his attention.

10770.com, a "personal database" website from Fujian, broke into sight and provided personal information storage and online dating functions. Despite being a small site, "The performance is very good, and the average PV value is 35". "The form is actually very similar to Myspace ". In March 2005, Pang Shengdong spent 0.98 million yuan to buy a domain name 51.com, and in July of the same year, it acquired 10770.com; in August of the same year, 51.com was officially launched.

At the beginning, although the 10770.com user group was only a dozen or tens of thousands, this greatly affected the user features of 51.com. According to Pang Shengdong, the average user age of 51.com is 21 years old, most of which are from second-and third-tier cities, of which 1/3 are college students.

Studying the needs of these groups has become an important task. 51.com Assistant President Huang Shaolin wrote in the blog, because 51. most of com1.3 million users access the Internet through Internet cafes. From CEOs to product managers, they often spend a day in Internet cafes to observe how users use 51.com and their rival websites.

This is also confirmed in the interview. "The biggest reason why 51.com can be used up and why QQ users can be grabbed is that QQ space often cannot be opened in 2005, while 51.com can be opened, which is the biggest reason ." In short, Pang Shengdong believes that it is the most critical to provide users with the best services.

Another example is that Pang Shengdong once dumped more than 10 million yuan to change the number of 51.com servers from 2 to 200. After all, "10 thousand users and 10 million are different ", to be the "largest social networking home of Chinese", the money cannot be saved. I bought "EMC devices that many listed companies cannot afford ". In this way, 51.com allows users to experience the benefits of unlimited Upload of photos for a long time.

From strangers to friends

Huang Shaolin also believes that the difference between social networking websites and communities lies in that social networking not only includes personal services such as blogs (or personal diaries) and photo albums, it also contains a list of friends (personal relationship maintenance or even strangers) for social interaction. Therefore, personal data is dead. To make it alive, we must achieve the core level of social network: Friend dynamics.

This "friend" includes strangers and acquaintances in real life. The difference between Mysapce and facebook is that the former opens users' blogs by default, while the latter is disabled by default, which requires the user's permission. 51.com is also open by default.

Although strangers contribute quickly to website traffic, the weak relationship in the later stages leads to poor stickiness. Pang Shengdong found that the speed at which users add acquaintances to 51.com was also very fast. Therefore, 51.com was converted in 1 year.

Although the user information is still open by default, it is only improved through details. For example, it is recommended to recommend friends to users first. Later, Pang Shengdong removed the "personal database" and replaced it with "My Home ". Later, I added a phrase "my friends" to my home ".

Pang Dongsheng uses the concept of "home" to package the definition of this community website. What is "home" used? Write a diary at home, save photos, watch videos, listen to music, play games, chat with friends occasionally, and sometimes have friends at home. However, it is undeniable that this community is becoming more and more like the mainstream SNS websites.

Huang Shaolin believes that social networks can open platforms to third-party application developers as long as they hold personal data and friends dynamics in hand. There are two cooperation methods for opening up the app platform. If it is a third-party plug-in with no value-added value, Pang Shengdong gives the plug-in ad revenue to be exclusive to app developers for the sake of enhancing the user stickiness of 51.com.

If the third-party plug-ins involve application charges and users need to pay in 51 coins to use them, they will be allocated to the app developer for 5-5. "A third-party plug-in with the top app rankings can earn millions of dollars a month ." Pang Shengdong said.

Locking the game allows users to "go out"

The QQ Space's revenue of 1.1 billion last year showed Pang Shengdong the gap and Qian Jing of 51.com.

According to Pang Shengdong, at present, 51.com's largest revenue comes from value-added services, accounting for more than 60%.

Pang Shengdong is optimistic about the advertising business. He positioned 2009 as the first year of SNS advertising, and believes that the proportion of future advertising revenue will be placed before the value-added service charges. "Brands such as Motorola, Coca-Cola, Nike, and Adi like to try new advertising marketing models, while domestic first-line brands such as Lenovo and Wang Laoji are also involved in SNS advertising marketing ."

So what will become the main profit force in the future? Pang Shengdong bet game.

51.com plans to invest 0.1 billion yuan in layout game projects within the current and next years. This is the largest investment plan of 51.com after accepting the investment of last July billion US dollars in 51 million.

51.com's game strategy is different from app plug-in games in that it is more like traditional online games. Through the "game hall" of 51.com, users can also play chess and cards and fight landlords. Will this change the initial intention of a social networking website? Pang Shengdong does not agree with it. There are also social elements in the game. Secondly, more than 51.com is involved in the game, which can be said to be the trend of social networking websites. At present, facebook also focuses on developing how to make payments more convenient for users, paving the way for businesses including games. Analysts said that 51.com's 39 million active user features highly overlap with the former user positioning. In terms of cooperation, users of 51.com can communicate with Giants to achieve account communication, while Game ground promotion and promotion of 51.com can also borrow giant channels.

"Currently, the game is still in the net investment phase ." However, Pang Shengdong maintained his usual optimism: "It is estimated that the profit will start in the second half of this year after the second quarter of this year is equal ."