"Test the water? Tencent has been working on SNS"

In response to the recent claim that "Tencent started testing the SNS market", Tencent said this was a misunderstanding because "Tencent has always been doing SNS ".

Wu Xiaoguang, executive vice president of Tencent's Internet business system, believes that due to the rise of facebook, people think that filling in real names and uploading photos like the intranet is the real SNS, this narrow the definition of SNS.

"Entering the SNS vertical market is a natural extension of Tencent's business ." Wu Xiaoguang said, "Tencent will not take the business model as its primary consideration. Finding a balance between platform value and commercial value is Tencent's focus ."

Refined construction of SNS space

As the boss of IM, Tencent's business development is always a bit "coming soon" in the eyes of its peers ".

In response, Ma Huateng, chairman of the board of directors of Tencent, publicly responded, "it is not easy to enter every field ". Tencent has a priority in determining business development: first develop those businesses that are most closely linked with the current business, and then develop closely linked businesses.

Following this logic, Tencent entered instant messaging in 1998. The second step was Mobile QQ and QQ Show, and the third step was Tencent Games (first chess and card games and then large online games, step 4 is e-commerce (Tencent Pat), online payment (Caifu Tong), search (search), and step 5 is large online games, online storage, personal space, and email, step 6 is the IM + community business.

Through the first five steps, Tencent has already formed a large group of "0.89 billion registered users. Ma Huateng's idea of "Step 6" is: "This allows users to use various products and services, regardless of their real-time status or non-real-time status, increase stickiness through the relationships in this community ". It can be seen that the new SNS community, as "non-real-time", is a supplement to the IM "real-time" tool such as QQ.

Wu Xiaoguang believes that the first dimension of network relationship chain management is QQ friends and QQ space friends; the second dimension is QQ groups of different types and interests; the third dimension is a vertical subdivision based on age, occupation, hobbies, and regions, such as alumni, colleagues, and friends in the same city. These three dimensions constitute a three-dimensional SNS system. "The original QQ users can experience all-in-one services without having to spend too much on migration. For example, it is easy to easily share photos, diaries, and other content accumulated in the original QQ space in the new vertical SNS application ." Wu Xiaoguang said.

QQ alumni entered the vertical SNS market as their first battle. Wu Xiaoguang explained that the coincidence between QQ users and student netizens is extremely high. He told reporters that following the campus SNS product Real-name Community "QQ alumni", Tencent will soon launch an SNS website in the same city and white-collar fields to separate the user groups on QQ. "From individuals to small communities to one-stop big communities. In the future, users will continue to see the latest SNS applications on Tencent products and services ".

Aiming at life service functions

Tencent, who is used to "Houyi", what kind of "easy-to-use" will be made this time "?

Although many powerful domestic SNS rivals, Tencent has a great chance to win, said Wu Xiaoguang, because Tencent has the advantages of platform integration.

The new SNS are only part of Tencent's ecological layout, and are also part of Tencent's overall strategy. What kind of community will the new Tencent SNS adopt?

Wu Xiaoguang said that Tencent's SNS matrix will aim at the life service function and rely on Tencent's diversified business layout advantages, provide personal value-added services such as Tencent news, games, e-commerce, search, and email in the community.

As a game project that Tencent is good at, how does it penetrate into various communities of the new SNS?

According to public media reports, after the campus SNS product Real-name community QQ alumni was released in January 6, more than 20 million registered users have been registered. Tencent launched the QQ2009beta version on the 15th day of the current month. Compared with previous versions, this new version of QQ adds "friend impressions" and other features to enhance QQ's "SNS characteristics.

This is a strategy to comprehensively bind QQ, space, and web games, which expands the potential user groups that Tencent Web games can develop to over 0.89 billion QQ users, compared with the normal SNS site user base, most of them point to the white-collar class, which has been greatly increased. At the same time, they have also penetrated those online entertainment services on the campus intranet and happy Internet into their network life, this will inevitably make Tencent's web games very popular.

Will Tencent open its platform after its popularity soar? Judging from Tencent's first five development processes, Tencent has a "not open" tradition. Each step is "self-built, full-fledged". Wu Xiaoguang believes that the open platform is not a strategy, it is important to check whether a good APP (a third-party open service provider) is introduced ).

"Due to the immature SNS business model, it is difficult to attract the best companies and talents in China to develop apps. The applications developed are uneven and cannot represent the highest level in the industry." Wu Xiaoguang said.

So far, QQ alumni have only one game component, the "beach competition.

How does Tencent support the Dream? Wu Xiaoguang told reporters, "Tencent emphasizes diversity. The SNS business model has no mysterious feeling. Its business model is nothing more than games, value-added services, advertisements, and e-commerce ."

Wu Xiaoguang believes that SNS is currently not easy to attract advertisements, and its integration with e-commerce models is not mature. The best cash flow of games and value-added services are the most suitable for the current SNS market business models.