Check-in products are still "show"

Foursquare chief Executive Crowley said: "The value of check-in is to promote the experience, not the product itself." "But regrettably, China's first batch of check-in products are mostly just foursquare in the form of imitation, but too limited to the product itself, so that the instinct to sign in the mobile Internet to bring profound changes in the application in China for more than a year of time still just stay in the" show "level.

Foursquare check-in button

October 21, 2011, Crowley in the Web2.0 summit to receive TechCrunch interview, in an interview he said: "Many times users want to obtain a service, in fact, do not rely on search."

NetEase plus sign in fun on the wall happy

Today's Foursquare is no longer satisfied with just being a game that attracts users to "win a cup of beer," with 1 billion of user check-in data, which gives him enough clout to make greater changes to the two big areas of marketing and search on the mobile internet.

At the marketing level, Foursquare is trying to tell businesses: group buying can bring traffic to merchants, check-in but only for them to find the real target users. Foursquare has started working with a variety of group-buying companies, including Groupon, to show users nearby promotions.

In Crowley's view, one of the fatal problems that group buying cannot solve is whether the customer will become a repeat guest, and Foursquare is able to identify loyal customers and give them rewards (landlord and sign-ins) to give local businesses a breakdown of customer data. For example, the data will tell the merchant, which has been in the store many times the people are loyal customers, who no longer go to your store to sign in is the loss of the customer;

In just two years, Foursquare is no longer only the original fashionable check-in toys, with the help of the accumulation of data began to affect more and more offline merchants. This March Foursquare launched a search button, dedicated to users around the shop, this July Foursquare began to cooperate with group buying website to do distribution services, and in its latest version of the check-in has been weakened to a very small button, The most important value of the future is data based marketing.

As can be seen, for the LBS model Pathfinder image of the company, based on Location-base Check-in is becoming more and more light, and how the use of check-in service is becoming more and more heavy, perhaps, only to find ways to be as a tool level lb and service level of the more closely integrated, The check-in function can span as a "game" bottleneck to play a greater value.

Sign in China dilemma

Today, whether in Sina Weibo or everyone, happy net, can be seen all kinds of sign in the friend dynamic list, the initial entry of the various types of players are basically similar: With Starbucks, McDonald's and other mainstream consumer brand contracts, and social network cooperation to promote the impact, Looking for the opportunity to cooperate with the smartphone manufacturer's built-in check-in software ... However, the problem of how to docking the LB with S (service) is difficult. "Product features single, in addition to sign in to sign in, even do not know what to bring after the check-in." "is the most common complaint that users have about signing in.

"This is because the first batch of check-in applications are in imitation of Foursquare, but Foursquare play is built on the back of the Twitter,facebook such an open platform, in the Chinese environment does not have the possibility of replication." "said Song, CEO of the network."

Foursquare's growth has benefited from the power of Facebook and Twitter, which initially positioned itself as a social platform's check-in tool, and for a long period of time Foursquare even had no friends, even though it was only a weak interaction, Instead of trying to build a social platform of his own, he positioned himself as a stack of apps that relied on big social platforms.

In China, however, there is no such eminence social platform as Facebook, and there are problems with the openness of each platform, making it extremely difficult to rely only on apps to get huge amounts of user data, This has caused the Foursquare Chinese imitators to rely on the application to obtain the most valuable data, the business model based on the user data is impossible to talk about.

Because of this, sign in the Chinese competition is the core of the data level of contention, lack of social platform to rely on, enterprises need to collect data through the registration of the things to do again, this is from the upfront investment costs or competitive pressure, the difficulty is obvious.

October 19 This year, one of the earliest lbs Web site muttered that the network was thrown into layoffs, according to the Nanfang Daily reported, "after the layoffs, leaving only 40 people left." Muttering the net's redundancy is only a sign of the subsequent weakness of the site of a miniature, in most entrepreneurial sites also need to continue to finance the development of the situation, the accumulation of huge data is a too heavy things, rely on the application of the registration of the accumulation of data difficult to impress the merchants to cooperate with it, this needs to create a more flexible marketing cooperation model, Foursquare Chinese imitators must learn to forget the role models and find a suitable model for their own development.

The path to service

"Around the check-in, we are now most concerned about how to make service a core competency on a location-base basis." "said Song, CEO of the network." In his view, around the socialization of E-commerce, attendance will be able to play a greater value.

"Our definition of the side is walking can be reached, the advantage of check-in is to be able to match with the user's side of the consumer scene." "Song said.

Take group buying for example, in the past, the mode of price competition has led to the business in the process of group buying without any user screening, such as a Tongzhou users may be due to price reasons to come to a restaurant in Haidian, but because of the distance from their daily consumption radius, this group of buyers is difficult to become a business needs of repeat customers

However, if you use lbs to do group buying, merchants can achieve in their coverage of the user to further accurate screening. For example, a shop in the vicinity of five pine is ready to do group buying, with the help of LBS service can be achieved for this week in this area to sign up for more than two specific users to push the purchase information.

In addition to cooperate with the merchant to carry out more accurate group purchase push, in Song view, sign in class website Another advantage is can realize online payment, instant consumption experience. In the past, many of the group is in the desktop Internet set up after the call ahead to make an appointment, and then after a few days to go to consumption, the integration of the cycle is very long, in fact, does not meet the time consuming scene this fast impulse consumption experience.

Customer-cutting network to try to build a platform for users: The data level with the settlement of the merchant to get through, in the payment level and grand Sheng, and other cooperation, when users arrive at a business after the impulse to generate consumption can immediately at preferential prices for mobile phone payment.

Influenced by Foursquare, some sign-ins have always dreamed of having a super mass check-in database and negotiating with a huge amount of data, but from a marketing perspective, local businesses are not really looking at how big the data is, but whether the data is accurate enough and localized.

For startups, opening APIs to attract more partners may give them the opportunity to grow up.

As the first of a number of lbs sites, the street is a very active among young people, although the product has been a great emphasis on the user experience, but the lack of business model after check-in has been making it difficult to profit. "The current income is mainly some excellent brands, such as LV, Starbucks (micro-Bo), McDonald's (micro-blog) and so on." There will be a new media budget for this kind of company. "Street founder Liu Davei revealed.

As early as 2010 at the end of the street announced the opening of their own API, opening the site's geographic data to developers, for the very early choice of open Liu Davei explained "check-in experience is relatively single, through collaboration with Third-party developers to integrate more lbs and SNS service forms, to bring users richer content." ”

After check-in around the data level of competition is based on resource mastery of the battle, for Entrepreneurial enterprises, the future after the signing of the business model of the more clear competition will be more brutal, attract more partners to hold a group of heating is undoubtedly the key to a safe winter.

For the most valuable offline business, checkin is only a means, lbs only the location and service docking to have value, the future of competition is not only the product experience of the race, but also online marketing strength.

From the point of view of resources, founded in 2003, the mass Comment network undoubtedly let many sign in the website extremely envy: After more than eight years of accumulation, the public comments have covered more than 2,300 prefecture-level cities, master 1.2 million cooperative merchant data, in addition, the earlier layout of mobile internet to make the public comments on the mobile , these profound accumulations enable them to carry out location-based services to provide more attractive services to merchants.

How to survive the innovative lbs enterprise

If the previous two years sign in class website is mainly the product experience competition, sign in to the next competition focus will be the marketing ability of the battle, in this battlefield, both as a representative of the network to rely on the power of large internet companies, but also have a public comment on the cultivation of users and merchants data for many years of thick thin, There are also a large number of new entrants to the product, in this round of competition, the product level of the battle will be located in the comprehensive strength of the contest, who can use more innovative ways to persuade businesses to cooperate with it, who will grasp the future of lbs.

According to the Enfodesk Industrial database, the 3rd quarter of 2011 China Mobile position Dating Application (Checkin) Market Monitoring Report, the 3rd quarter, by industry convergence, channel diversification and other environmental factors, China Mobile position dating application market growth rate climbed to 73.6%, Overall user size has increased from 10.5 million in the 2nd quarter to 18.3 million in the 3rd quarter. While muttering to the top of the list, its market share has fallen rapidly from more than 1/4 in the first half to around 1/5 in the 3rd quarter (20.8%), cut off the net, the street, open, micro-territory, NetEase, play the quartet continues to be ranked 2-7, but most of the market share of manufacturers have been different degrees of decline. This year, the market has been a number of "other" competitors, the overall market share has been in the 2nd quarter of the 15% low-key expansion to 26.2% in the 3rd quarter, but the size of a single product is very small.

Similar to the January neighborhood, October muttered the big layoffs are most innovative LBS service provider financing demand and profitability of a representative embodiment of the conflict, that is because of excessive marketing expenditure and business model landing than expected, resulting in the subsequent interruption of the wind and forced to carry out the helpless.

It is expected that at the end of the 4th quarter, China Mobile location dating Application Market Overall user size will be close to 30 million mark, for the innovative lbs industry generally encounter the plight of survival and development, Enfodesk Yi think tank suggested as follows:

1, for independent manufacturers, to strictly control the team size and personnel costs, do a good job of technology and products, to continuously innovate the service to win Word-of-mouth, and then gather high value users, far more than relying on the channel "buy the position to buy traffic to buy users" in exchange for the low value of user groups more meaningful. On the one hand, the user resources are shifted to a more viscous demand supply, on the one hand, the profitability of the building as the future development focus to regain investor confidence.

2, to avoid the traditional sign in the field of acclimatized, aiming at market segments, intensive cultivation, looking for differentiated selling points. To the cubic network for the representative of the LBG, Tintin sign in as the representative of the local location of life services, to shop assistant for the representative of the location of the 4th quarter of innovative lbs service providers further landing hot points.

3, innovative lbs market will be more clear with other profit patterns in the field of mutual infiltration, market differentiation will make the existing manufacturers and other areas of the manufacturers competing more frequently. For the core manufacturers with the advantages of technology and capital, it is also a good way to win the capital operation and perfect the overall business layout of the sign-in enterprises with user resources and difficulties.