Mobile internet bubble and beer: Start the first round of self-denial

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After the industry uproar of the 2011, the mobile Internet beer and foam began to break apart because of the difficulty of closing the business value and squeezing market space for the giant's admission. Although the tide has not receded, swimmers have had to think about their strokes.

2011 is the year when the global mobile internet industry broke out. In this year, the rapid popularization of intelligent terminals and wind investment in the concentration of ripening, so that a variety of PC Internet application Mode and mobile terminal-specific application mode in this year into the mobile internet, the industry in the number of applications and the number of channels have been explosive growth.

The App Store downloads in China grew 298% in 2011, revenue rose by 187% and its growth rate was among the world's most diverse regions, according to App Annie, the application shop's macroeconomic observer.

In many people's eyes, like 10 years ago as a new PC Internet, with terminal rapid popularization and capital influx and other favorable conditions, mobile Internet is in the initial stage of the ascendant.

It should not be overlooked, however, that the opportunities behind such outbreaks are highly uncertain, just as the internet industry has developed 10 years ago. With the rapid changes in the pattern of the industry, a large number of bubbles will inevitably occur, and even some "beer" has been "bubble" trend because of environmental changes.

Although there was no initial NASDAQ crash and bandwidth constraints, the current mobile internet industry is not a thriving reality. The reality is that, in a variety of application categories, there are only game applications and monopolistic application of tools to make money, most of the tools and life information applications are in the "loss to make a yell" of the exploration state. And in the market competition intensifies, the promotion cost unceasingly enhances as well as the giant admission to squeeze the market space and so on the disadvantageous factor, many looks like the new sharp Star Developer Group is fading gradually.

2012 China's mobile internet industry is starting the first round of self-denial and industry shuffling.

Excessive competition and Matthew effect

Games, network and terminal tools, life information, multimedia and office software are the five major application categories in the mobile application World at present.

The prospects for these five categories of applications are not the same. The largest number of game applications are most conspicuous. Its competition is the most brutal, however, it is after all, with the number of mobile terminals most matching the application group, huge market demand still ensure that most good game developers can make real money. The multimedia camp is essentially a transplant of the larger form of the PC Internet giant than the meaning, while Office software comes from foreign traditional software giants or powerful developer groups such as Evernote.

Therefore, many players and the profit model is not yet clear network and terminal tools, as well as the life information of two types of applications, has become China Mobile internet ecological bubble more concentrated field.

The application of photo sharing is the representative of the application of tool class. Instagram and color in the United States, after the birth of the Chinese market in 2011, such as push map, Pushpin, Pat, hand-shot, with the beat, micro-map, friends, Lemancu, Leshing Mody, such as 10 of the balance photo sharing applications. After a year of observation, their status is not ideal.

The push-map team is the first of these photo-sharing applications, the team began research and development from 2011 New Year's Day, one months after the landing of the application store, Blue Harbor online CEO Wang Feng is its angel investors. Push Graph founder Chen Zhongjun to "business value" Frank user growth is not ideal, and picture-sharing applications encountered difficulties from two aspects. The first is that Sina Weibo and micro-mail are now adding photo sharing, the user is a large part of the two streaming, and the second is that China's WiFi hotspots are too small and the flow fee is very high, which creates a big bottleneck for the application of image sharing.

In the unfavorable situation after a year, friends of the server is now inaccessible, Magic Figure Wizard was sold to the creative factory Baidu, the United States Mito was CAI and other people sold to Sina. Chen Zhongjun to the Economist that the push-map team is developing new products in order to transform.

Weather software is the representative of the Life Information class application. Ink weather, with 50 million users, is the most popular weather information application on both iOS and Android platforms. However, founder Tech is still thinking "prepare for the winter". Tech to "business value" revealed that, although the user is numerous, but the ink weather is still not profitable, weather-type software profit model is not clear. Ink Weather and China Telecom's cooperation is no financial income, and its current income from the application of the game-type ads. To the deep pockets of the game and brand merchandise advertising expansion is the ink in the next phase of the target to achieve.

Ink Weather Team currently has more than 30 people, in tech view, they belong to the category of application developers lucky. The team received a round of investment from the grand capital, making it possible for them to continue to explore in a state of excess. But the peers are not so lucky---------------------------------------------- Tech to the economist that "preparing for the winter" is not a joke. In the course of frequent exchanges with various types of capital, he was aware of the idea of a mobile interconnection in 2011, and that capital would be converted into prudent investment.

Do not want to be named, from a well-known domestic venture company executives W, is the singing decline of China Mobile interconnection industry investors representative.

"Domestic well-known (not game) application development team I have investigated, several of them I still contact with the first investor," W said: "But their profit prospects are not clear, I did not vote." ”

W also reminded the peers to remain calm: "Remember the 2011 years of the most fire tool class application concept is what?" is lbs and based on mobile phone communication recording applications. But it has now proved that these concepts are far from the business model. ”

It is worth noting that, in addition to game applications, the mobile internet industry has a power to make a lot of money, this is the Android App store. However, there is also a situation of excessive competition in this area.

Currently, in addition to the many Third-party app stores developed by the Forum, the major Android phone manufacturers are pushing their own application stores, the three operators have also launched their own application market, if the combination of Tencent and other giants after the understanding of the work, this area is smoke, fierce competition. At the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in Beijing last year, there were 70 Android app stores in China, with relevant industry figures issuing statistics. and W tells business value, he has at least 100 data.

In these 100 Android app stores, Jifeng Network, 91 mobile phone Assistants (Android), Android network and application sinks are in the first camp. They are all in 2010 years early layout of the App Store. Although all kinds of application competition is intense, but the store buys each road handset's brush machine position only, can realize Hanlaobaoshou. In fact, the more competitive the application developer is, the more profitable the App Store will be depending on the advertising rankings, so they are now operating in good condition.

But other app stores are often struggling. In the view of W, a large number of Third-party application stores will be withdrawn from market competition in 2012. A fact that confirms his judgment: at the beginning of the 2012 New Year, Sony Ericsson formally handed its smartphone app store--playnow to Nineth city operations. This is clearly a signal of the application store area shuffle.

It is worth noting that the application store is the fittest, but also squeezing the developer ecosystem bubble-The Matthew effect has led to the audience's huge first camp store advertising prices. Jifeng Network marketing manager Zhao Hui told this newspaper, accounting for Jifeng net revenue Big head of the CPA advertising price, in a year up 25%. and Android network deputy Shinping to reporters, Android network recommended position basically every quarter will price.

In fact, in discussions with business value, whether it is Chen Zhongjun, tech and other well-known developers, or W such a leader in the wind, all pointed to the mobile Internet industry is a reality: non-game applications are difficult to achieve business closures, and the increase in competition for users to obtain user costs and the cost of recruiting developers is climbing, This has to say is an important evidence of bubbles in the mobile internet industry.

Giant black Hole

The obvious feature of the PC Internet is the emergence of a sizeable foreign capital for the local portal. After the portal model, according to the law of diminishing scale, various other Internet application models and related capital are gradually born and filled with the industrial gap between the internet giants. Among them, "stationmaster" is the smallest industry unit participant in the PC Internet industry.

However, the evolution of the industry on the mobile internet is the opposite--similar to the "webmaster" in the personal or small team mode of operation of the developers, the game and tools used as the Pioneer model, the first in this large network gongchenglvede. PC Internet giants as well as other traditional forces, after a certain time series, after the awareness of the batch into the industry.

It turns out that once the Giants are admitted, the industry will be hit.

The acquisitions of Sina and Baidu in 2011 could be considered an exit mechanism for developers and investors. But 2011 's hottest two mobile application concepts--lbs and mobile phone address book pioneer practitioners, are by the PC Internet side of the admission of the public comments and Tencent's micro-letter coverage. And this is just the beginning.

W at the end of 2011 made a survey of the major Android App store, the results showed that in the market penetration index, the top 10 of the application of 7 are the internet giant applications. They are QQ, UC Browser, micro-letter, every day beautiful, 91 assistants, Android optimization master and 360 mobile phone assistants.

The advantages of the Giants are obvious: In addition to the game creativity can not be laurels, the rest of the resources to translate. As the public comments network approach is not because of the LBS concept of "L", but because of the accumulation of 5 years "S" side of the strong strength.

It is not difficult to understand the frustration of application developers who are represented by Chen Zhongjun. In fact, not only application developers, third-party app stores are also the biggest hit by internet giants. With its huge user resources, Tencent launched its "Tencent Application Center" last September, which is considered a huge threat to other third-party software stores. Ai Media consultant CEO Zhang told reporters that the recent third-party application store valuation began to appear significantly lower. At the beginning of 2011, the valuation of an app store was typically based on a 100 dollar price per day for active users, and a year later, the price had fallen to 100 yuan.

Even less profitable developers are frustrated that, in addition to the Internet giant in the business coverage, Apple, Google and other cloud tube end of the mobile world of ecological builders, has been a significant result of participation in the application of development competition tendencies, The imessage of the 2011 and the official version of the Chrome mobile browser, which was born in early 2012, are evidence of this trend. This trend will be more pronounced when the HTML5 era arrives.

Although China's mobile internet industry has been a bubble after 2011, the mobile Internet, after all, differs from the Internet in that it is an extremely fragmented market and has a fertile ground for innovation.

It can be foreseen that mobile Internet will still be the hottest topic in the business in the 2012, and the more fragmented mobile internet will not be easily unified by the Giants.

However, from the perspective of capital to the practitioner to observe the industry, it is bound to shift from concept first to commercial value, and the industry process of bubble-skimming will gradually unfold, and the truly valuable team will continue to flourish.

In short, the tide has not receded, but swimmers have had to think about their strokes.