Cloud Age: How many opportunities do lbs entrepreneurs have

LBS (location-based service) is a "basket" where everything can be "loaded". Lonely unbearable, just shake a mobile phone you can use micro-letter, MO find friends who are around or have a congenial interest; Plan a trip route to view maps and navigation software; dinner to know which restaurant both elegant environment and food rich, you can ask the public to comment on the answer; which stores the lowest discount, when shopping can be copied, the Territory Brand discounts can help you plan the cleaning schedule, the best way to travel when traveling, which Inn is not only clean and comfortable, but also not "slaughter the guests", you can ask for advice in Ma Honeycomb, donkey line World ... Even travel do not know how long to reach the destination, a taxi probably how much money, you can find results through Baidu map.

LBS has long been an integral part of many users ' lives. Eric Consulting predicts that by the end of this year, the domestic mobile phone location service users will reach 510 million, mobile internet users will reach 606 million, lbs user penetration will reach record 84.2%.

The Giants ' enclosure

The "Location" business "money" is vast. While there is no way to find a sustainable source of revenue for entrepreneurs and internet companies except advertising, the importance of mobile Internet is beyond doubt that the internet giants will not let go of this tens of millions and fast-growing user markets, not to mention the fierce competition in traditional business and the need for Giants to expand new markets, To achieve sustainable growth of enterprises.

October 17, Baidu split Baidu Map, announced the establishment of LBS division, from the open map API to build LBS Cloud Platform strategic transformation. "In lbs, Baidu will continue to push the Cloud + end strategy, with product upgrades, continuous open and cooperative programs as the driving force, to provide consumers with richer and better information to help them quickly find what they need." "Baidu's chief designer Yunfeng to reporters about Baidu lbs division of services and depicts its future blueprint," on the ground floor, Baidu Maps provide positioning services, map services, as well as computing and storage, and in computing capacity, the Baidu Cloud platform provides the computing power required by developers such as hardware and system capabilities. At the same time, Baidu will open more data. In the future, Baidu will also establish a UGC platform like Baidu know, Baidu Library. ”

Taobao also in its E-commerce business based on the combination of Aliyun, Alipay, etc., to form a local life service platform. Recently, it launched Taobao China map, it upgraded to a local life service platform, Taobao local life service channel launched a "map search", in addition to providing maps and azimuth services, but also provide local merchant discount information and other localized services. Although still in the testing phase, "map search" has been the media, peer and user attention.

Tencent has earlier shown its ambitions for lbs and has begun to practice in its vast product system. Last year, Tencent announced that it would create a "one-stop localization service platform" for the search map. And the 2012 version of mobile phone QQ also through the display, sharing and discovery functions, strengthen a variety of localized social life services. Recently, Tencent board chairman and CEO Ma revealed that Tencent lbs will be the main "open" strategy, micro-letter, mobile phone qzone, mobile payment, mobile advertising system will be open to the public. In addition, Tencent Street is also coming online, users just call Tencent's Street View and map interface, where the actual street scene data can be directly displayed. In accordance with the planning of the Ma Teng, Tencent's lbs strategy is through the mobile phone QQ sticky users, through the map to carry a variety of preferential information and services, and then through the mobile payment to complete the business transaction, the establishment of a complete lbs ecosystem.

Not only internet companies, map providers, terminal manufacturers want to dominate in the field of lbs. Gold map in the traditional search based on the improvement of eating and drinking information search experience, in the enterprise version of the map of the financial services based on lbs, to seek new opportunities in the business sector lbs. Apple has replaced Google Maps with Apple Maps in IOS6 in an attempt to hold the mobile Internet portal firmly in its own hands. Although its map services are crude and users have been criticized, Apple does not seem to be giving up.

For a time, all the internet giants have stepped up the layout on the map, hoping to build their own core of the lbs ecosystem. For internet companies and hardware manufacturers are inclined to develop their own map services, Eric Consulting analyst Shen Yu in an interview with this reporter said: "Any one layout lbs with sufficient strength of the enterprise, do not want to put their core data uploaded to the Third-party map provider on the open platform."

A war of the winning

Whether the map service or its own business as the core, the internet giants want to be in the LBS ecosystem into the core, through the line and offline, through the entire industrial chain. To be in the field of lbs, the map based on a variety of applications and services are essential. Baidu lbs Division general manager Shen that: "lbs involves a wealth of business, the role of the industry chain, we need to strengthen cooperation and establish a system in order to fully meet the needs of users, this is not close to any one enterprise's efforts can be done." "In her view, the platform service providers must be open to cooperate in order to fully meet the diverse needs of users."

From the perspective of application developers, what is the most important selection criteria for open platforms? Bai Zhiwei, vice president of the Art network, a successful mobile open platform needs to have the following conditions: first, the stability of the system is strong, fast enough, the second is the low cost of development, access speed, third, accurate data, timely update. "Scalability is strong, in the application can be rich in personalized customization is also our great importance." "Bai Zhiwei said," Today users travel scheduled more and more short cycle, many consumers scheduled or arrived at the destination after a lot of the situation, art dragon based on the development of Baidu Map rocking function, hotel surrounding attractions and food inquiries and other functions, for users is very practical. "As China's first online travel service provider, the mobile phone client has a large number of fans, and has successfully received the recommendation of the Apple App Store."

However, the current platform operators to provide basic services homogeneity of the phenomenon is serious, the Millet technology Vice President Li Vanchang that: "Platform operators should adhere to the strategy of small steps, do a good job of micro-innovation." For example, when searching for a hotel, the user is given the price of the hotel instead of other information, which allows the user to make a quick choice. ”

In fact, there are numerous examples of micro-innovations in platform providers. Tencent search map launched last year began to launch Street View services, widely welcomed by users. This September, Tencent's Third-party payment platform Tenpay and micro-letter reached a deep cooperation, relying on micro-letter shaking, two-dimensional code scanning and other functions, targeted development of various payment methods to achieve online and offline business integration, to achieve a complete commercial closed loop.

Although competition among platform operators has been fierce in the area of lbs, the platform can provide more value-added services as cloud computing and large data develop rapidly across the country. In the eyes of Third-party testing organizations, user management is an opportunity worth working for. In the context of cloud services, who has a large number of users, who can through the provision of large-scale data analysis and various types of cloud services, the gradual establishment of competition barriers.

In addition, unlike the role of application providers, platform vendors should be able to create more opportunities for application service providers, in addition to their own innovations, to help each application innovate in data management and marketing services to make it more profitable. The so-called "achievement of others is to achieve their own", which is the value of platform operators.

Do entrepreneurs still have a chance?

Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor, wrote in the book "The Innovator's Dilemma": large enterprises tend to maintain innovation in the same way as existing technology, while innovators tend to look for new markets and disruptive innovations. This is why large enterprises often enter after the market matures. In the IT industry, this rule worked, as did lbs. From the sporadic exploration of the 2010 to the O2O (combination of online and offline commerce) detonated mobile interconnection, to this year Tencent, Baidu, Taobao, the three major Chinese internet giants are determined to lbs, this not only means that lbs has been from the original innovator's "A", has become a whole industry to identify and to its flock "Money" power market, but also means that the era of small and medium-sized entrepreneurs blossom is coming to an end, lbs will usher in the era of internet giants dominate. Predictably, a series of acquisitions and investment-financing projects will be launched in the near future.

Do entrepreneurs struggling in lbs still have a chance? Although the homogenization of application services is serious, application providers have not lost confidence in the market. In the eyes of the Consumer guide website Philharmonic CEO Cai, the entrepreneur's opportunity lies in "the Deep life Information", because the user looks for is not the basic information, must be the depth life information, even is based on the depth information application, the user does not have the time, therefore needs us to intelligently recommend to him.

lbs field, early in the main application of sign in mostly has been lonely, almost all applications have turned to O2O Eric Consulting Shen Yu on this phenomenon is very worried, because in her view, blindly follow the trend of the Internet is the disease, group purchase industry disorderly development is a typical case. She told the reporter that the application developers must first clear the objectives of the enterprise, practical, and always pay attention to the trend of large enterprises, timely adjustment of business thinking, to avoid the positive competition with large enterprises, in this user demand for a variety of areas, vertical subdivision still have many opportunities to leave entrepreneurs, And to seize these opportunities, entrepreneurs must stick to focus, deep, not "loose", or blindly optimistic, and have a strong executive power.

(Responsible editor: Schpeppen)