Chen Zhou "Prodigal Son" network back to school

After experiencing a drastic decline in the performance of the first quarter, the former "China Facebook" Renren was again pushed to the cusp by the rumor of "civil strife." "Executives blasted Chen Zhou out of anger," "Chen Yizhou blasted the veterans", a series of personnel turbulence made all network become the focus of public opinion. "Even employees and parents are calling to ask them, your company ye thing ah?" July 3, Ren Ren Chen, vice president of marketing market in an interview with the Beijing News said that "civil strife" rumors Many details of the distortion.

Behind the rumors of indifference between true and false, Renren's "glorious era" is an indisputable fact. The Chinese social tycoon, once home to the capital market, has left behind in the mobile Internet era. After blindly expanding, missing the opportunity to pay for the stagnation of innovation, all network choose to return to the starting point - back to "school."

Boss and subordinate each other open "shelling"

Hu Chen believes that Chen Zhou is responsible for the management. "As a boss, we should not let the quarrel with employees go online anyway."

According to Rensen, vice president of Renren market, Renren was recently co-opted into the "storm center."

Recently, a furious resignation letter has brought trouble to Renren. In a letter copied to his colleagues and partners, Du Yue, the vice president of strategic development, accused the chairman of the board, Chen Yizhou, "being a leader and a very negative person" and demanded the immediate resignation.

In an email to internal staff, Chen Zhou explained that the reason why Du Yue did this is because his position was not met. Hu Chen told the Beijing News reporter that in January of this year, Renren started due diligence on an invested company. During the course of taking charge of this work, Du Yue made himself a suitable candidate for the CEO of the company. "But there's a stake in the founders of the company. There's a lot of consensus among the CEOs to elect a CEO, not someone who has the last word."

Hu Chen said that inside the company, Du Yue gives the impression that he has always had a few words and is gentle and steady. His "crazy" is surprising.

Chen Yizhou openly refreshed on his homepage and accused him of improperly popularizing Yang Muhan's team using Renren to promote his family. Similar products. Yang Mu Han is everyone network veterans, with the Chen Zhou eight years. After this incident, Yang Muhan left.

Some media reports said that with Du Yue and Yang Muhan, Renren within the past month, four executives have quit. However, all networks do not agree with this statement, "how many are not counted out of four."

Hu Chen said that the departure of Yang Muhan for personal and family reasons, and as early as two months ago have already applied for and set the date. As for Du Yue's "indignation and resignation," Hu Chen believes that there is a problem with communication. He stressed that the departure of senior executives is "accidental" and "isolated."

However, Hu Chen also said that Chen Zhou and his management team should take the responsibility. "As a boss, we should not let the quarrel with employees go online anyway."

At the end of March, Renren's senior executives opened a 4-week "reflection meeting" at the suggestion of Chen Yizhou. Chen Yizhou asked top officials to make outspoken criticisms of his mistakes in daily management and corporate strategy. As a result, Chen Zhou, owner, was criticized by management at the conference - including "Why do you think you are the most bullish product manager? Listen to everything."

Win happy network, friends network, again microblogging, WeChat

Renren has spent many years of effort to establish the advantages of social networking, opponents from smart terminals in one fell swoop cracked. This process is "sudden" and "fast."

Behind the turmoil of chicken feathers is the embarrassing reality that once Renowned Renren has fallen from the spire.

Listing at the beginning of 2011, Renren was once in the most picturesque one of several companies. Today, its market capitalization has also shrunk dramatically, shrinking from about $ 5.53 billion at that time to $ 1.29 billion and shrinking by about 75%.

Earnings reports, Renren first quarter of this year revenues 24.9 million US dollars, down 39%, games, online advertising, Internet value-added services revenue tumbled together. Among them, the game revenues of 12.7 million US dollars, down 52.5%; gross profit of 8.7 million US dollars, down 65.2%.

In October 2006, the AEON Group where Chen Yizhou was located acquired the school's intranet at that time and provided real-name social services. Renamed Renren every year after three years. As of April 2010, Renren Daily logged in about 20 million active users. In 2008, "Happy Farm" game hit the hottest moment after the launch of Renren, with over 100 million players at most.

Renren at the time did not realize that all of these aura quickly faded after 2011.

"At the beginning, happy network hit us, hit no later .Tencent made a friend network, and no .At that time we said hey, won two, we finally survived - the result is a tiny Bo, half of people go there to see the gossip. Followed by WeChat circle of friends. "Hu Chen talked about the history of Renren beyond the opponent, lamented this process fast and suddenly.

Renren has spent many years of effort to establish the advantages of social networking, opponents from smart terminals in one fell swoop cracked. "We had to expect people to fill in a variety of information before, and now any mobile social App, you can call directly from your phone directory, automatically help you get a social network. Then we are fighting without discrimination, from Real-name system of this barrier point of view, we have no technical content than any other people have. "Hu Chen said," but at least all network and competing products have been compared to persevere. "

"The wrong way in the past few years"

After listing, not bad money Renren seemed a little "too Joseph," invested in "a lot of weird technologies."

By 2012, users in the Weibo, WeChat app on the thumb can create a circle, access to information. Renren still stay in the phone side of the web version of the copy, from content to experience no bright spots. "In the PC era, we were ahead of the forums and blogs for years, and in the mobile internet era we were behind."

What are you doing during this period? From the historical reports is not difficult to find, 2011-2012, Chen Zhou is leading the team triumph in the field of gaming.

After the listing, not bad money Renren some "too Joseph." "We invested a lot in weird technology and even built 3D, somatosensory laboratories for the game at the time." Considering the long-term future trends, we are ignoring the immediate issues. "Perhaps for this reason, Renren's self-developed game boutique Not much, everyone's platform burst games such as the rage of "stealing food" is developed by third-party game companies. "Stealing food" gradually silence, Renren no more amazing product.

December 2012, because brushing behavior "too high profile", all series of applications launched by Apple's app store shelves. Prior to this, through the brush list, everyone occupied the top ten app store games area. Off-the-shelf punishment so that everyone immediately lost an important channel of the game, but also directly combat the confidence of the game team. The 2013 annual report shows that for the first time ever, the game revenue of cash cow as Renren Net has dropped for the first time. In the first quarter of 2014, the decline of all-person game was not diminished.

"The wrong way was in the past few years," said Chen Zhou at the internal reflection meeting. "We need to resume the business."

"Prodigal Son" back to school

With the growing market share of applications such as WeChat, Chen Yizhou believes that "Renren can take a place in the industry only by taking the path of differentiation."

"We do not think about connecting everyone." Renren once known as China's Facebook network, the dream of expansion has burst. Now, Renren thinks the more realistic focus is on top of what they do best.

In August 2009, at that time, "School Intranet" was officially renamed "All People Network." At that time, Chen Zhou was not satisfied with occupying only student groups and planned to expand the entire population like Facebook. This positioning won the capital of all ages when the Internet market. However, since then, the user did not wish to expand to "everyone."

In March this year, Chen Zhou Zhou Zhou Zhou said at the company earnings conference, Renren in product design will target domestic 16-26-year-old students. Users can subscribe to public accounts to check scores, courses, cafeteria recipes and other information services. Chen Zhou said that with the increasing market share of communication tools in the market, including WeChat, "Renren only takes a differentiated path to gain a place in the industry."

After five years of detour, Renren back to the origin. "Everyone now positions himself as a cool, young brand," Hu Chen said.

"Q4 last year, our number of active users fell to 46 million, in March this year, returned to 51 million," Renren market department believes that this should be attributed to the improvement of the new version of mobile phones.

Based on the judgment of Renren's team, the App, represented by "secret" and "crow", will become the fourth wave of social products. Based on this judgment, the R & D team launched anonymous social software "Beep".

According to reports, Chen Zhou Zhou individuals initially hate the "beep" name, "sounds vulgar." However, the R & D team believes that the "beep" coming from the online buzzword "no can no bibi" will be even more popular. However, Chen Xiaoshou disregarded the name and set it on his own. May be taken into account the previous reflection on the staff management of their own accusations, the last Chen Zhouzhou acquiescence of the name.

"Meet 90", which is the future development of all network strategy. How much chance of restarting Renren?

Analysys International analyst Pang Yi-ming said Renren is in transition, the mobile terminal also added some instant messaging capabilities, but the user has been occupied, "has faced two market shocks, have missed the first opportunity to play."

Nowadays, in Renminbi's application rankings, Renren's products are not on the front line. "It is a matter for further consideration how to enable target users to re-admit and welcome everyone's products," said Hu Chen.

□ Beijing News reporter Zhang Quanwei Beijing coverage