How to make a mini blog over four hurdles

The intermediary transaction SEO diagnoses Taobao guest stationmaster buys the Cloud host technology Hall

Service location information flood profit Model market competition ———

"Shenzhen is 10,006. "July 17 13:55, when the Netizen ch1018 in his QQ" Peep crooked Robot "input this sentence, his several friends at the same time saw this sentence" to himself ", some in their own homepage, some in QQ, some on their mobile phone. This sentence also clearly shows the time and source: "10 seconds ago, from QQ."

"At this moment, what are you doing?" "This small problem with some concern seems to be creating a whole new Internet business opportunity."

It is the answer to this question and the interactive nature of the Internet, which created the Qq/msn/gtalk and the web to build a friend community and share it with friends in real time. It seems like overnight, at home, at least 10 similar sites have emerged. They provide services not only a capacity in 140 characters (70 Chinese characters) of the Mini blog, but also friends and friends to share knowledge and ideas of the site, not only through the website to send content, but also through the Instant Messaging software MSN, QQ, GTALK, or even through the mobile phone. Until now, the service still faces four challenges: ambiguous service positioning, uncontrollable information flooding, and a still-elusive profit model and unimaginable market competition.

Perspective of New Media series (IV.)

The business of nagging

The service was started by Twitter in the United States.

Twitter's Chinese meaning is probably "DAO", the most popular site since MySpace, YouTube and Facebook, launched by blogger Evan Early last year.

On Twitter, users can write anything that releases less than 140 characters of information via instant messaging software or mobile phones. It looks much simpler and more convenient than blogging, but it has the function of blogging. Cheerfully, who founded the "chirp" website, said that at least a few people would use it: those who love to write text messages, those who grumble, those who talk about TB, those who love to make records, and those words can be stored for long periods of time.

At the same time, in addition to the function of the Mini blog, it enables people to form a communication network and realize the function of SNS. Users can see all the content posted by their friends on their home page, as well as chat logs. And the most exciting is that it and IM software and mobile phones formed a more closely related, allowing users to directly use QQ, MSN or mobile phone message messages, and then these sentences will each appear on their own and friends of the Twitter page. Finally, it opens up its API interface, which makes it possible for many unexpected applications.

Until this March, a Twitter idea that had been running for more than a year at Austin's Southwestern Music festival in Texas was a way to get rid of the embarrassment of obscurity. The company placed two 51-inch plasma TVs prominently in the venue, displaying the latest Twitter messages about the festival, and one interesting message that attracted attention. "It's a good time to play Chinese Twitter because everything is just beginning," said a well-known blogger and vegetable head on his blog. Perhaps the Chinese Twitter will become a new chat room, may become a new dating platform, perhaps more quickly than ask for help platform.

The Super imitation show just started.

In the May or June, several Chinese websites mimicking Twitter came out of nowhere. Ji Crooked de, Rice No, Koomoo, love nagging, the community moan, boring pavilion, day ... Imitation makes the launch of the site unusually fast, even if there are specific features for local users, they are mostly completed in a two-month period, the development team of more than three or four people, fewer than one or two people.

Everyone imitates the idea of Twitter, but the "rice" net looks more thorough. Once founded the net, operating less than a year to successfully sell it to the Wang Group, in early April this year began to develop "Rice", May mid-June will be officially online. Due to the emphasis on web2.0-style interaction, "many features are the requirements that the user brings to us, and the improvements are done in a very short time, with a new version coming out almost every night," Wang told reporters, while opening API interfaces, many users spontaneously developed some interesting features. Now they have a team of 8 people, 5 of whom are from Tsinghua.

Another entrepreneur, also from Tsinghua, cheerfully from April to do "Peep" website, May 20 officially online. The name of the website ——— "Twitter" literally means closer to tweeting. Now he is organizing a team of 5 people, ready for a big fight. msn/qq/gtalk/has now supported the mobile phone message, his goal is the second half of this year to let domestic users know there is a peep.

At the top of the home page, there are three words: Create a mini blog, focus on friends dynamic, anytime, anywhere rice. And in the home is written: "Have your own quotes, live your life and thoughts: This moment, what are you doing?" "Similarly, in the Koomoo, nagging website, although there is not exactly the same text, but all express the same meaning."

Last weekend, reporters logged on to a similar website on a new line with only 3 users. Even in front of the meal no and the user is not a lot of users, their number of users have not been disclosed. Pedigree Twitter's number of users is also unknown, Wang estimated about 4.005 billion, and cheerfully think about 7 million.

Can the four hurdles block the march

In fact, the Chinese version of Twitter, which has just been born less than 2 months, faces many problems.

The first is positioning, some say, it's just a web version of a mobile phone message, or a streamlined blog. Some practitioners prefer to think of it as a place for communication between a community and a friend, rather than a link to a blog. "If you are positioning yourself in a mini blog, there is too little room and room for imagination," says one investor who has been linked to the tweet. Therefore, in addition to the expression and presentation, they are more willing to emphasize its communication, communication functions, as well as with IM software, mobile phone unicom after the hope. "The possible development direction is the Cross-platform group chat." ”

The second is information flooding. "Grass-roots of trivial information, in addition to grass-roots around a few grassroots, to other grassroots meaningless." "A professional analysis, even if some of the essence of the system of content, but how to extract it is a big problem." Even if you extract the essence and recommend it, you will lose the position of the grassroots.

Again, Twitter still doesn't have a clear profit model so far. "We are not in a hurry to consider how to make money. "Wang said. Indeed, the Twitter they follow has not yet earned revenue. One analyst said, "its profit model is so obvious: as long as the Web site and mobile phone interoperability technology, those who are accustomed to using text messages will create huge revenue." "They're based on the fact that the biggest thing Chinese netizens do is get together and gossip."

In addition, similar sites such as springing up, there are more than 10, do not know how many did not come out? Some people worry, if Sina or Tencent then also launched similar services, how will it be a blow? For the competition, several interviewees believe that it is still time to nurture the market, at least half a year later may be the competition. One researcher said: "The most likely outcome is that they may be bought by Internet-listed companies or listed sprint companies." ”

Clearly, it is everyone's goal to quickly increase the number of users in a viral fashion. Compared with other websites, the network of rice to promote faster, in almost all of the articles to explore Twitter behind, can see the sincere message and communication about rice. Natural registration remains the current mainstream, so its number is still hard to grow on a large scale. "When the time is ripe, adding hundreds of thousands of users is a very easy thing to do," he said. "What we have to do now is to prepare the fodder, to do the weapons and to plan," cheerfully said. When the day is dawn, kill it all at once. ”