How individual stationmaster undertakes each other One-third Internet market

The intermediary transaction SEO diagnoses Taobao guest stationmaster buys the Cloud host technology Hall

Personal websites, which occupy One-third of the world's Internet market, are showing their value.

April 7, Yahoo China's CEO Zhou to Xiamen, to participate in the first Chinese personal webmaster Big party, see each month with his personal site webmaster What is the long look, perhaps, but also by the way to find their own 7 years ago from the personal site of the memory.

The purpose of Zhou here is not just to satisfy their so-called curiosity and sentimental nostalgia, he hopes to be able to meet more partners here, because these personal sites are releasing huge energy. "Everyone in the industry chain in all aspects of playing different roles, only through cooperation, we will be able to learn from each other, can do strong and big." Zhou said.

The Golden Hill President Lei, who came to the meeting, appeared more humble, saying he had come here to study with a pilgrimage. Last year, just a 80 million-dollar lei from the network of Excellence intends to use the vast majority of the market costs of 50 million yuan this year to promote the Internet, and many of this has been flowing into the personal web site pocket.

This time gathered more than 200 personal webmaster meetings to almost include the domestic Internet personal website of all the elite. When these webmaster took advantage of the sunset to visit the big, Golden Door cruise, a webmaster said: "If the ship sank, the Internet industry in China will be paralyzed." ”

Personal site of the high-spirited, in addition to the "Internet rejuvenation" of the impact, but also the past 1 years, the individual site has been successful consecutive success-the beginning of the Chinese were Shanda acquisition, hao123 by Baidu Acquisition, 265.com accept IDG VC investment. The power of example is infinite, these 3 events directly magnify the commercial value of the personal website, let the personal website also discovered its own strength.

Individual websites often have their own distinctive distinguishing features: most of them start with interest rather than pursue a business model, relying on a person or a few people, or even simply an internet-connected apart "virtual team" for a non-corporate operation; there are few "returnees" involved, almost all indigenous "grassroots" The vast majority of people are not invested, but most of them can support themselves.

This is a seemingly fragmented small, even not much commercial atmosphere of the group, but occupy the Internet 35% content market, locking a lot of tens of millions, but also tens of thousands of of loyal users. When the environment becomes appropriate, they are already thinking about their future.

Peers

"As long as there is flow, we can do the business model that a few big portals can do." "said Cai, a 35-year-old Fujian businessman. His personal website--265.com last year just got the million yuan investment in IDG. As the initiator of this "stationmaster meeting", he is also the most ambitious one at the meeting.

Cai, who had done traditional business in the early years, emigrated overseas in 1993. 6 years later, a chance, Cai returned to Hong Kong, when the PCCW digital stock subscription, at this time Hong Kong is for the Li Ka-shing's Internet concept stocks listed and the whole city crazy, Cai also joined the army to fry the network shares. "At that time, when I bought the PCCW digital, it was HK $5 per share, then it rose to more than 20 Hong Kong dollars, and I sold them at HK $18." "In the network shares on the taste of the sweetness of the CAI that, since the FRY network shares so easy to make money, if they do internet enterprises, or one day its packaging listed, should be able to make more money." With such simple business logic, CAI began to wait for the opportunity to cut in.

In 2000, Cai bought his first computer in his life and found a friend to teach him how to look at stocks on the Internet. Cai is a Southerner, will not use pinyin typing, can only use WordPad, the result in a short span of a year, writing board has broken three pieces. At this time the Internet has a preliminary understanding of the CAI in a chance to see a news, said that a domain name sold to 7.5 million of dollars. Cai was shocked, "the investment of a domain name is only one hundred or two hundred yuan a year, can sell so high, such a business is too lucrative." ”

Therefore, CAI decided to invest in the domain name as the entry point into the internet industry. Since 2003, he has been snapped up to fm365.com domain name and was Lenovo to find the door, and has been a malicious preemptive domain name and was sued by others. The Fujian businessman, who is not bound by rules and loves to beat the ball, has thousands of domain names in his hands until now.

Do the domain name business soon, to purely businessman perspective into the field of the Internet Cai wins, and began to ponder on the Alexa ranked the top 100 Chinese web site, when he found the Web site navigation station hao123. "This site is so simple, incredibly daily traffic and the three major portals, but also a personal site." "2003 Cai wins the copy hao123 The practice, starts the website navigation station 265.com, launches the day hits the number to reach 50,000."

At the end of 2004, Hao123 sold to Baidu at the million-dollar price, creating the biggest commercial benefit of a single page, and Cai's 265.com then got the million-dollar venture in IDG. "I don't have any business plan, they came to the door, and they didn't ask me for anything after the investment." Cai said with some pride.

Cai thinks its website navigation station is because of simple and practical to have a lot of traffic. "265 now has more than tens users, but not spending a penny on advertising." "He claims that 265 is not thinking about profitability right now, and more work is really about what users need." In his view, really understand what netizens need is those personal websites-after all, its success is from the imitation of personal website, businessman Cai know their advantage is to carry out those innovations.

Cai is not good at speaking Mandarin, but he likes to make friends, especially in the Internet circle. Like a hunter with a sense of smell, he wants to deal with these grassroots personal webmasters, find a handful of people and projects of commercial value, and then join, collaborate or invest in them, and then sell them a better price. He now steps up the financing ladder with the capital to consolidate and sell.

In fact, at the end of 2004, Cai to take their own funds and hao123 webmaster xingping talk about strategic and even capital cooperation, but slower than Baidu half step. From this, Cai feel that they should not give up every personal site webmaster contact opportunities. This April 7, Cai won the Chinese Webmaster Conference, invited Yahoo China, Baidu, NetEase, Sohu, ebay ebay, Jinshan and IDGVC these mainstream commercial websites and investment institutions, for personal webmaster to build a Chinese internet and grassroots communication platform between the grass-roots.

"My personal portal is for personal service, and of course it includes personal websites." My advantage is to understand the personal site, but also with the mainstream business sites have in-depth contact with the experience of business operations, and I would like to share my experience with the personal site. "Cai has made his future model clear. His goal is to use 265.com of huge traffic to drive a number of newly rising personal sites, and in the early 265.com can be for these personal sites Angel investment.

Cai has two forward direction--become the middleman of "wholesale" personal website to venture capital; Of course, he would prefer to continue to attract users to understand the needs of the personal website, creating 265 of their own mainstream. In fact, this is caused by the integration of the original fragmented personal web site, the formation of group alliances, is causing the original mainstream business site attention. Cai now frequently attends meetings with mainstream business websites and investment institutions.

Before Cai discovered the value of personal websites, the establishment of various SMS alliances and AD alliances showed that joint personal sites were highly commercially valuable. "The flow of a single Web site may be trivial, but it is terrifying to gather the traffic of thousands of small websites." "An investor who has a deep research into the Network Alliance model says. His investment organization, which has been in contact with a number of Internet alliances, has been impressed by the strength of the alliance, despite the eventual failure to reach an investment intention.

ebay ebay in 2004 with the major mainstream website signed an exclusive marketing agreement, but Taobao is relying on the "Yi Tian Unionsky" Such an online advertising alliance to break through the blockade of competitors, and ebay, a guerrilla warfare. "Yi Tian Unionsky is to rely on the collection of many personal website power." "The general manager of the Zhang Network Advertising Alliance in Hangzhou," said the more than 20-year-old girl. "We are a combination of thousands of sites across the country, traffic is much higher than the portal site." "Because of the low entry threshold of such a model, as long as there are a few large flow of personal sites can become a federation, now such a model is in the bottom of the Internet circle is quickly replicated."

Attribution of mainstream

The creation of Web site navigation station hao123 xingping, more than 20 years have never come out of their hometown. Lee's hometown in Meizhou, Guangdong Province, a small village, before coming to Xiamen to participate in the personal website of the conference he was the farthest only to Shenzhen.

Last October Xingping sold hao123 to Baidu, which is said to have changed back to 10 million yuan. Before being bought by Baidu, hao123 because of the strong flow, just the advertisement is said to be already a monthly income million. Many people to help xingping analysis, if xingping is not so "introverted", early start with more mainstream commercial website communication, not so stubborn, early to VC open, sell the price may be doubled, or even greater independent development space.

Xingping's success owes much to the experience of working as an Internet café administrator. In this period of time, to do the site interested him, very early began to ponder the needs of novice netizens, but also began to ponder the development history of each website. Soon, xingping for China's top 5,000 sites are very knowledgeable, which makes him create hao123 navigation site, can be accurate, simple, easy to use. Starting in 2003, Hao123 's Web site navigation site has occupied more than 50% of China's Internet cafes home page, while a series of copies and followers.

Xingping admits that one important reason for selling an already-paid personal site is that he is really unable to find the next step in the Web site, and he also refuses to cooperate with anyone who prefers to go solo. In fact, he even rejected IDG's investment opportunities.

Why is a Web site that has no technology, business model, or business marketing strategy valued by mainstream business sites, and where is its business value? Baidu CEO Robin Li said: "It is because of its simplicity, it is simple enough that you cannot go beyond it." "Li believes that internet users have bipolar: One end is the user of the search engine, one end is the users of the navigation station. With the increase of Internet users, the use of navigation stations, the number of users will increase, some of which will be converted to the use of search engines. Baidu buys Hao123, is to take these two biggest internet crowd to embrace in own company's bosom. And hao123 can really know what the Internet's "rookie" really needs. It is said that Baidu after the acquisition of Hao123 try to operate on their own, but because do not understand the underlying needs, there is no experience in this area, the flow fell very badly, and now Baidu has returned to the site to Xingping to operate.

Xingping's understanding of Chinese Internet users is that 60%~70% are "rookie" and that the real service for these users is personal sites, not "Internet elites". It is because of the understanding of this group of users, Xingping hao123 to have the value of Baidu favored. In the decision to sell hao123 that period of time, xingping pressure is very large, on the one hand, of course, he did not know his future direction, on the other hand, from the mainstream business site to exert pressure on him, but no resources under the xingping only accept amnesty.

Another personal website that was bought by the mainstream internet company last year--the sale of the beginning Chinese network is also due to the bottleneck of development and the inadequacy of its own resources.

June 2002, in the online acquaintance of Lin Yu, Houqingchen, Business school pine, Loli and other 6 people decided to do a personal fantasy literature website-the beginning of Chinese. Of the 6 founders, there are 4 fantasy literary writers, as well as 2 technicians who are also fans of online literature. Since the site was established up to May 2003, the starting point of Chinese is as an interest site. In the May 2003, after 6 people on the network of common decision-making, began the commercial operation-positioning as the original literature portal, and quickly expand the publishing market and electronic reading market-related businesses, pioneered the online pay-reading mode. For a long time, 6 founders from different places were doing their jobs on a part-time basis, and they were doing the work of the company 8 hours a day and 6 hours at the beginning.

"We meet regularly online every night to talk about whether we should add servers, talk about how to develop paid readings, and so on." "One of the founders of Loli said," Later on the site has been profitable. ”

"Because everyone has a good family background, they all live well in the local area, so they never care about money." In order to follow the development, we do not divide the earned money, but stay in a public account for follow-up use. Loli said he almost forgot the existence of a public account held by Lin Yu.

But in the 2004, the beginning of the Chinese team encountered some money can not solve the bottleneck problem, "at that time the country began to regulate online content, we do not understand the direction of national regulation, very afraid of a few years of painstaking effort one night will be gone." In addition, platform resources began to become the main bottleneck of development, so began and grand negotiations. ”

It is said that the grand offer is not the highest price, there are several venture capital have contact with the starting point, and even higher than the grand open prices. "But Shanda gave us the best business conditions, so we didn't think much about it and hammered it out." Shang, who is in charge of the specific operations of the website. Grand gives the condition is: the entire starting point of the right to operate by this group of people continue to be responsible, in addition, Shanda will provide many other resources, will start to expand to the line and the line of other cultural fields.

Grand Chairman Chen in the acquisition of the starting point of the Chinese personal website, said: "The starting point of the entertainment literature content for Shanda in the independent research and development of online games to provide rich content support." In this respect, I have seen many successful stories and movie interactions, such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and so on. ”

The beginning of Chinese sold to the grand Price is said to be 20 million yuan. According to the agreement, the 6 founders must stay for a grand "service" for at least 2 years. So, 6 people quit the original work, from far apart came to Shanghai, crowded in Zhangjiang High-tech Park in a room less than 150 square meters, discuss how to continue to big in the grand platform.

"We used to be very polite on the internet and now work together in the real world to communicate more and more efficiently," he said. "Through acquisitions, these people are more like a corporate team than a loose alliance, and they start pinning their hopes on the strategy of building an interactive entertainment empire and IPTV, which, after all, gives them more platform resources," says Loli.

As with hao123, the beginning of Chinese also understand the needs of some Internet users, they can hold in time what kind of articles are those users like, trying to appeal to their taste, but they continue to develop at the time because of their own loose organization, no one in the periphery to do the expansion of resources, Leads to confusion and bewilderment before national policy. Grand is at this time intervene, completed to their incorporation.

The limit of self-reliance

When these or ambitious or successful personal websites tell success stories on the stage, the predecessors of many personal websites sitting under the table show complex expressions. This is especially true for China's first personal website Chunhui and veteran personal website pioneer Huajun.

July 1997, Chunhui on the Internet to create their own first home page, stored in NetEase's site, mainly to provide software downloads. As a result of serious input, but also in order to update his homepage in time, Chunhui almost every day on the internet is more than 10 hours, most of the spare time in the online collection of materials needed to update the homepage, his personal website is also popular. 1999, the Thunder military invited Chunhui to join Jinshan, and created the Golden Hill excellent computer information station, by Chunhui as the business manager of excellent website.

Because the software is Chunhui best at, and backed by Jinshan software platform, excellent operation after the popularity of rising. However, in 2000, Jinshan decided to transform the excellent website into the electronic commerce of book music. For the Transformation of excellence, Chunhui can not agree, he also left the outstanding. For the next two years Chunhui also disappeared as his personal site disappeared. Until 2002, he used his spare time to set up another personal website, the mobile phone home, dedicated to making inquiries and services with mobile phones and mobile phones, Chunhui called the mobile industry portal.

2003, Chunhui's website has the first advertising revenue, is a banner advertising, 4000 yuan per month. The second month, the customer took the initiative to raise the price to 4500 yuan. With the first income, Chunhui plan to raise money, but 2003 the Internet is still in the trough, investment difficult to find, Chunhui also give up.

Fortunately, the website operation cost is very low, Chunhui chose own low cost development. But not long after, to run the site in his spare time to let him start to powerless, lack of energy and serious operation lead to difficult to sustainable development. As a result, he began to consider resigning, and for mobile phone home to ask for a full-time website editor. At this time, mobile phone home In addition to advertising, in the text messaging and mobile phone Alliance promotion and so on have some income.

Chunhui has set up a dedicated company to run his mobile phone industry portal, although the revenue from the site is not very high, but Chunhui firmly believe that the value of his site is there, "and those who rely on cheating to make money on personal sites simply can not be compared." Chunhui said, now is really the internet as a career rather than just personal interests to do. He believes that this seemingly non-mainstream Web site can create good business value, of course, it also makes the mobile phone home from the personal site into a network company.

As early as Chunhui do software download personal site Huajun in the circle is also famous. Huajun since 1997 to do his own download site-Huajun Software Park, this is 8 years. Huajun Software Park Now the annual income can reach more than million yuan, but he is still in Jiangsu Suqian's office as a clerk, the specific business is to give his friends to take care of.

A few years ago the dotcom bubble burst, Huajun wrote an email to Zhou, saying that he wanted to sell the site at a price of 500,000 yuan. Zhou then gave him back the letter, let Huajun don't sell, said his website value more than 500,000 Yuan 5 times times more than. When Huajun saw Zhou again, to the time of that letter very grateful, "if I was 500,000 yuan sold, today will be very regret." "Huajun said.

The income of the website is very good today, but Huajun is in the greater confusion, he said will be at the right time to do his site full-time, but he does not know how to expand his website business, is to do a software online distributor or into other areas? Huajun encountered a development bottleneck, perhaps, As long as the price is right, he is now more willing to go on the road to sell the site.

Huajun's problem is also a common problem for webmasters of personal websites. Obviously, for personal websites, there is a limit to the development of self-reliance. After having a certain scale and flow, how can you make yourself a step further? How to enlarge one's own value to play games with the mainstream commercial website? This question seems to be forever a problem in the "personal quadrant" that cannot be solved through limited funds and limited wisdom.

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Note: This is an old article, but the content is still very worthy of our now to learn and reference.