Awkward lbs: entrepreneurs are still in the incubation period business model is not clear

lbs, like group buying and Weibo, was once hot-won, but it remains to be seen whether a suitable business model can be found.

August 1, the Social network Platform (Www.ifudi.com) officially launched the public test, this distance from the Bureau of Surveying and Mapping published for the Internet map industry rectification list just over the past one months.

On the July 1 list, there was no street-side net name, which made the founder of the Street Network co-founder Yang Yuan temporarily relieved. Two months ago, because did not get the Internet Map Mapping service qualification and was exposed, which has been for the licensing issue of the Yang Yuan employed quite a bit helpless. But he did not give up, after being exposed, immediately submitted the relevant application.

In response to the reorganization, the Bureau of Surveying and Mapping said that the action investigated the object of "the public exposure has not yet applied for the Internet Map Services mapping qualification, continue to engage in Internet Map Services website." This means that, as long as the application for a licence is filed, it is not being reorganized even if it has not been approved.

However, according to the relevant policy requirements, the provision of map search, location services and other Internet and wireless internet Map Services units, the normal business operations should obtain the Internet map license. The emerging location-based Services (lbs) industry as a whole will still face licensing embarrassment.

Open market Director Lo Yuomin to the "China Economy and Information" reporter revealed that, according to her understanding, in addition to open, other lbs manufacturers have not received the relevant qualifications, this is the entire lbs industry faced with the policy test.

However, China Mobile Internet Industry Alliance executive deputy Director of the Secretary-General Yi told the "Chinese economy and Information" reporter, the licensing issue on the LBS industry impact is not a serious, can only say that there is a risk. Because the current LBS manufacturers are many applications of Google's electronic map, and Google's license in China is a special case of the existence, will not be banned and will not be bold to release, and this brings a certain risk to lbs manufacturers.

About lbs

The concept of location-based services has emerged since the beginning of 21st century, and its popularity has benefited from the rise of U.S. position service provider Foursquare. In March 2009, the Mobile Service Web site based on the user's geographic location was online in the United States, and the angel investment was made in six months. By April 2010, Foursquare's users had exceeded 1 million, and now have more than 5 million mobile subscribers.

Like Groupon, the Foursquare model was quickly imitated by domestic companies, such as street, play turn, cut off, open, muttering, and other types of Foursquare manufacturers appear. Many internet operators have to occupy lbs. This March, Sina and gypsii to launch their own LBS product micro-territory, bundled microblogging and celebrity strategy to become its killer. Before this, from NetEase to Baidu around, and then to the grand cut off, the internet giants do not want to take a piece from the LBS market.

However, a few months down, almost all of us have been in a homogeneous competition situation, and without exception to face the problem: Product Features single. "I didn't find the difference between this year and last year except sign in," he said. And I am not too willing to make a strange friend from the sign in, to get medals, rob the landlord has long been no fresh feeling. "A former avid lbs user complained to reporters.

At the same time, the profitability of LBS vendors is also being questioned, however, "zero income" has not hindered the continued warming of the lbs tide, but the same as the beginning of the hot group buying, lbs capital injection is not optimistic.

LBS has few large-scale capital entry since this year, lbs still stays in the minority group, the user stickiness is not high. Data show that the current domestic LBS application user activity of only 16%.

Still in the incubation period

Industry experts believe that enterprises through the Internet to promote the way through the 4 times of change. It was originally a portal for large brand manufacturers to provide advertising services, and then the search engine through keywords and search rankings; the third change was to push the information to the user on Facebook-represented sites, and now it's time to use Groupon and Foursquare mode to service localized businesses.

China's lbs vendors, who started out by imitation, are still bending over to touch stones across the river. LBS application has been slow to penetrate into the mass population. Previously, the street, open, muttering and other mainstream lbs manufacturers CEO, have expressed a similar view in different occasions: lbs Core application is indeed in the early stage of exploration, how to expand the user base, improve the use of sticky users is still a problem.

Lo Yuomin is optimistic, saying the 2.0 version opened in the second half of the year will add a lot of social interaction and fresh classification applications to enhance the stickiness of the users.

"By the side of the street, I hope to meet you." "-This is Yang Yuan's Sina Weibo signature, and if you haven't played lbs, this signature is likely to give you a beautiful illusion: lbs may be a great weapon for you to meet a friend or create a romantic encounter." In fact, for now, this function or possibility is only in theory.

This may be related to user habits, in the United States, users can easily use check-in as an interesting social means, by signing up to form user stickiness and activity is not a difficult task, but the Chinese users obviously have not adapted to this strange dating model, And a lot of simple sign-in information has generated a lot of spam on Weibo and social networking sites.

In addition, the location accuracy of lbs check-in results in a lot of retreat check-in. At present, lbs check-in is from the mobile phone GPS chip, but this method often has the problem of coordinate migration, the second is the information from the base station, but it needs the support of operators, the third is the combination of two-dimensional code, short message interaction, but this requires lbs to gather a lot of business activities as a prerequisite.

Everyone has realized that simple "check-in" behavior is only a bit of lbs, not enough to form a separate product.

The current LBS business model is basically through the cooperation with various brand enterprises or merchants, in the LBS platform to promote the enterprise or merchant information. For example, in a merchant place check-in, the user can get a certain discount or a special badge, or when the user in a certain area check-in, the system pushes the area of the merchant ads. But most of the opportunities currently available for lbs are free, and even a small portion of the funding is often thousands of yuan.

For business model, domestic LBS vendors are still exploring each other, and their views are different. Street founder Liu Davei has divided the future of lbs into four major directions, namely, the direction of the game, the direction of social tools, information direction and E-commerce direction. Street gambling is the direction of social tools, but muttering network is more inclined to establish cooperation with merchants, thereby increasing the adhesion of users.

"We are still in the stage of market development, and we are still studying how to make the whole market bigger." "Muttered the founder Lisong said the lbs manufacturer's voice, the current LBS vendors and businesses are basically free, make money and investment is just a drop in the bucket."

The future is not clear

LBS is still at an early stage, even the boss of lbs Foursquare, has not shown a clear profit model. Innovation Factory CEO Lee Kai-Fu recently also publicly said that although he is optimistic about lbs, but in the next six months to a year of time, this area will not erupt, it will take a longer time.

The problem it faces is not only the user training, the business model of the search, but also its uncertain risk--foursquare in China has been repeatedly blocked, may be because of Chinese users to the sensitive area to sign in, because Foursquare license users to publish comments class information, This leads to a large amount of sensitive information in the sensitive area and is blocked.

At present, some lbs has a large number of users, but the regional distribution is dispersed, the concentration is not high. Although Sina, Tencent and other giants have entered the LBS industry, but this does not cover the real dilemma of lbs. "Until today, we didn't find the real sticky application of lbs. Lisong admits.

And the user's privacy concerns have become a stumbling block to the development of lbs. A recent survey by Microsoft shows that one of the main reasons for the popularity of lbs is that people are worried about revealing their whereabouts. Industry insiders said that lbs service providers in order to provide services, the inevitable need to obtain user data, but the service providers must know what is necessary, which is not necessary. At present, many Web sites take a lot of data, but the user can not produce real value, a long time, users will inevitably have scruples.

Industry analysts, many companies to social media expectations are somewhat too high. They are attracted to social networks and feel that brand information can be used to reach any corner of the web. However, if companies want to gain a steady return on marketing, they should pay more attention to the number of clicks and the actual purchase rate of consumers.

Yi that the LBS business model is very similar to group purchase, is the traditional Internet model and users of the smooth agent, but it has a certain parasitic characteristics, often attached to the large portal sites, social networking sites, micro-blog and group buying, and other forms. LBS industry is a lack of technical barriers and moral constraints of the industry, will inevitably go to the acquisition of the road, the future will not be independent lbs vendors exist.

Lo Yuomin that in the open environment, lbs vendors should be with the portal, social networking sites, group buying sites to support each other for common development.