Flash website nine years of prosperity and rugged commercialization of the road

Superficial fickleness can not conceal the whole of people's doubts about the industry. VC investment is far more cautious than people think about this uncertain industry.

"It's been some time since I've been interviewed by the media," he said. "In a teahouse in Pudong, Shanghai, Shen Wei turned the cups in their hands and had a complex expression.

In the flash industry, "Shen Wei" the name may not be too many people have heard, but his net name "tomb" but almost no one knows. As the founder of "Flash Bar", he has been managing this famous Flash website for 8 years.

"For so long, I can be regarded as a witness to the development of the flash industry." "Shen Wei laughs.

the glories of the past

In the eyes of many young netizens who are less than two years old, QQ, blog and a wonderful video website are the best places for them to travel on the internet, and flash websites such as "Flash guest World" and "flash au" may make them feel unfamiliar.

But for Shen Wei, these declining sites represent an entire generation of "Flash" glory and dreams.

"China's relatively good flash site has 4--the Semitic empire, the Flash bar, the Flash guest world and the AU." "In the interview, Shen Wei stressed more than once.

The flow of these sites has been quite alarming, but in Alexa's latest top 100,000 rankings, the reporter can not find the flash of the world and the sign of the AU. The two flash sites, once known online, have dropped to 200,000 in the last 3 months.

Flash in the domestic rise to go back to 1998, when a group of web designers such as the border town of the first flash brought to the Chinese people. Because of its outstanding performance, the domestic quickly began to learn flash application of the upsurge.

"In the next year or so time, the frontier town of the prodigal son of the Empire and my flash, such as Flash Web site will be online, has become the exchange of the garden." "Shen Wei said.

Almost at the same time, "flash guest" This quite cool flavor of the name is also the prodigal son raised out, and quickly became the industry is proud of the title.

Old Chiang, Little, alas, showgood ... In just a few years, the outstanding Flash Guest and the studio unceasingly emerges. and "small number third", "Dahua Three Kingdoms" and other works also rage on the Internet. Shen Wei told reporters that at that time many excellent flash works to browse the number of times have reached millions of times more.

In a great deal of attention, the flash site traffic has also been high, and in 2004 years when the peak reached. It is understood that the flash-guest empire, Flash bar and 9Flash and other well-known flash website Alexa rankings almost at the same time reached 1000 places within.

the rugged commercialization of the road

With the flow of climbed, immersed in the joy of many of the Flash webmaster then found a serious problem-despite the huge flow of traffic, the flash site is hard to make a profit.

"Flash sites require more bandwidth than traditional text-based websites. "A personal flash webmaster told reporters.

Higher bandwidth means higher operating costs. In this case, traditional advertising and other business models for many flash sites, already is "can only eat, can not be filled," The flash site began to explore new profit opportunities.

The famous music flash website 9flash.com had hoped to be able to pass through the copyright the way to get through the industrial chain, obtains in each kind of value-added service the discourse right. Another famous Flash website Magic Net is more aggressive, the website through with the Flash author's cooperation, provides the content which the user charges. But the innovative business model of these websites has suffered setbacks without exception.

And because of bandwidth and mobile phone terminal performance and other aspects of the restrictions, then let a large number of portals have realized the profitability of the SP business also failed to bring a high revenue flash site. In the Analysys International released "China Mobile anime annual synthesis Report 2006", until 2005, China's entire mobile phone animation market size is only 720,000 yuan, and Flash website to get a small income.

At this time, the 3G license plate will be released rumors let the Bitter flash webmaster saw a glimmer of hope in the dawn.

"Because 3G can solve the biggest bandwidth problem of mobile phone animation, almost all flash websites are beginning to prepare for the application of mobile phone animation." "For the scene at that time, Shen Weijan fresh." He told reporters that many companies outside the industry have entered, do a related development work, and a considerable number of companies even in the previous point has not touched flash animation.

The boom comes from the successful experience of operators such as Japan's DoCoMo. In 2005, the total number of mobile phone users in Japan was 30 million, and its mobile animation industry reached a scale of 1.5 billion dollars. Inspired by the success of Japan's market precedent, the Chinese market is also seen as having great potential.

And the involvement of a large number of venture capital has given rise to the effect of fuelling the upsurge.

"At the time, the investors were breaking down our threshold," he said. "The Prodigal son once told the media," the world's major venture capitalists have looked for us, as long as we nod, the next day will be able to get cash. "In addition to the Semitic Empire, Flash bar and other flash sites have been the attention of VC."

However, the superficial fickleness can not hide behind people's doubts about the whole industry. VC investment is far more cautious than people think about this industry where the prospects are not clear. Reporters from a variety of channels to understand, flash it because in the "gambling agreement" and the problem of VC differences too big, finally talk about collapse.

According to the reporter understand, the flash guest Empire before really from the hands of the investment in adobe far less than the media released the number of 10 million of dollars. And 9Flash in the scenery after a moment of weakness, finally by a Zhejiang businessman to 1 million yuan Price acquisition, founder Jing and other high-level sadly left the company.

fade out of the stage

While the domestic major flash sites struggled for commercialization, an unexpected catastrophe came to them, and the attack was fatal to most sites.

Since 2004, almost without warning, the flow of all flash sites has started to shrink rapidly, and now almost all have fallen to 5,000.

In the reporter's interview, the Flash guest, the studio and the website to this phenomenon interpretation still has the disagreement. For many reasons, "content homogenization" is one of the most mentioned.

For a long time, because there is no copyright threshold, flash animation in the online show a "free flow" of the situation, almost any site can be reproduced free of any works. In the early stages of development, this has pushed Flash animation on the internet, but after the portal has intervened, it has become a nightmare for many flash sites.

"In the eyes of entertainment-aimed netizens, the content of the professional Flash website and the content of the portal Flash channel are no different," he said. So NetEase and Tom and other sites of the Flash channel divided our many traffic. "Shen Wei admits.

At the same time, with the rise of various web2.0 applications, more entertaining, more popular blogs and video-type sites have also begun to carve out users of the flash site.

"The content source of the video site is too rich. There are movies, TV dramas, self-portraits, MTV, and even the news broadcast to put up, this aspect of the flash site there is no way to compare. "A personal flash webmaster is quite touched by this.

"Want to do an excellent animation, the production cost per minute around 10,000 yuan." "The author of the Little Broken child, known as the flash-scavengers told reporters. Compared to blogs and videos, the cost of making good flash is obviously much higher. And the vast majority of personal production of Low-cost Flash animation is poor quality, no appeal to netizens.

In order to improve the quality of the animation, since 2001, many flash producers began to say goodbye to the stragglers era, the formation of a studio or set up a company to produce high-quality animation. Such a trend to improve the overall production of Flash animation level, but on the other hand, flash animation production of the increasingly specialized also let a lot of heart in the industry to show the new talent quite frustrated, lost the courage to join.

"In the present, the production companies have almost swept all positions on the list," he said. Even if we are willing to carry some new people there is no way, the level of the difference is too much. "Shen Wei sighed.

Domestic well-known animation production company B&t development process quite can explain the problem. At the beginning of the establishment, the company is only a Flash animation competition in the life of the studio, but now has a director, script to the original painting, animation and voice of the complete team, the production of Flash animation from the quality of even higher than most of the domestic traditional animation. Such companies and studios to improve the quality of Flash animation, but also let some flash animation game seems to be no suspense. The production of flash animation is becoming increasingly small.

"In 2004, there were about 10 flash games in the industry every month, but now it's about 3-4 months," he said. Recalling the pomp of the year, Shen Wei filled with emotion.