How long does it take to become a billion company?

The company has slowly turned its past "creeping forward" into its own biggest asset. And as a result of the popularity of smartphones and become from the line to the line of the commercial bridge, the public comments on the network also ushered in their own achievements of tens of billions of market opportunities.

The CEO of the Zhang is actually not accustomed to face the camera, he is a pioneering age has more than 8 years of Internet veterans.

In the past years of entrepreneurship, Zhang is very low-key, and also enjoy the process of a small business in a down-to-earth way, but, perhaps he did not expect, at the end of 2011, when the entire electric and group buying industry encountered the capital cold Aihongbianye, their company began to be peers, VC and the media closely focus on, talk about, and even research, and the outside world to see their eyes like the original purchase opportunity when the surprise and excitement.

In fact, such intensive attention is not unreasonable. In the October of 2011, public comment network by the Qing branch, such as more than 70 VC as "the most investment value of the year"; As of the end of 2011, the public comments on the number of independent users of mobile phones has exceeded 18 million, and with Sina Weibo, mobile phone QQ together to become a lot of smart phone standard application; In the field of group buying, although not the earliest to enter and run the fastest, the mass comment Group has become a few of the few cash flow health and good Word-of-mouth group purchase sites, but more crucially, the mass comment on the platform on the huge number of users and online merchants of great impact, as of the 4th quarter of 2011, The public reviews the active user more than 42 million, the comment quantity nearly 20 million, and the platform includes the merchant more than 1.5 million, may even have many small shops to the public reviews the merchant brief, the user comment mounts, as the signboard puts in the doorway to solicit the customer.

In fact, just six months ago, the public comment network is a less conspicuous internet companies, because of the Chinese Internet everywhere are full of noise and hot spots.

At that time, the media on the tens of millions of dollars of financing at all, Beijing East, Fank such billions of dollars to really attract their eyes; investors always have to attend meetings and speeches, and in the meeting and in private, people are talking about lbs and O2O these exotic concepts; The CEOs of many startups are more than happy to be in the spotlight, even in a big, entertaining, large recruiting reality show like "Post Office" and "You're not", executives from internet companies can easily occupy half of their guests.

By contrast, the public comments network is not a bit trendy and fashionable, even if they won the third round of financing in April 2011, but also in a conference room in the company opened a conference-Zhang with many peers, into the Internet 8 years seems to not know how to create hot spots, Attract eyeballs and talk about concepts.

However, those who had the lively and noisy like a flashy feast with the arrival of capital cold wave, when the winter came when people suddenly found, once how the people before the landscape is not as solid as the foundation after the steady growth. Business is the case, a company can ultimately achieve what, always inseparable from its basic value level of grasp and consideration.

Creeping forward for 8 years

To understand the public comment network, the company can not put aside its founder and CEO Zhang.

Zhang, the CEO of Chinese Internet companies, is a person who looks less full of internet genes.

He is a tall, not tall Shanghai middle-aged man, shirt outside a woolen vest, looks stable but not fashionable, standing in front of the camera will also appear a bit uncomfortable; Although the public comment network is always likened to China's Yelp, Groupon plus Foursquare, But Zhang is not keen to talk about these concepts, he does not like to use the aura of the Internet packaging himself, but more willing to comment on the public as a real business--in his words, and open a restaurant, run a factory is no different.

Zhang grew up in Shanghai's business culture, graduated from the Wharton School in the United States, before returning home to serve an American IT consulting company ERP department. In 2003, when he decided to return to Shanghai to set up a public comment network, he had already studied and worked in the United States for 10 years, starting from the original hobby of looking for food.

The early years of experience to a certain extent, decided later Zhang Entrepreneurial path, perhaps the realization of financial freedom after the choice to entrepreneurial let Zhang have a young entrepreneurs are the most difficult to have the calm and enough patience; Growing up in Shanghai's business culture and having 10 years of Internet experience in the United States also gave him a clearer idea of what the business was all about, and it set the tone for the company for the next 8 years.

Looking back now, Zhang's original idea of entrepreneurship is simple.

Zhang is a pay attention to the taste of life and mood of people, after returning home to find that even if the Shanghai eat to eat is always so several hotels, Lenovo to the United States had seen the index guide on the restaurant, 2003, Zhang began to try to use the user's comments to move the restaurant information to the Internet.

There is no precedent for doing this at that time on a global scale. It was not until 2004 that Yelp, nicknamed America's "public Comment network", was founded in San Francisco. In the Internet far from Universal 2003, using the network to do business comments or a stones thing.

At first it was just an attempt, because the Chinese people's character is introverted and that period of time the netizen structure is young, even Zhang oneself are not sure this mode can not line.

The results of the verification show that although the Chinese are introverted, but in the Internet is still willing to express; In the relatively developed business environment of Shanghai, the city of restaurants makes the netizens naturally have the desire to choose and compare to where to eat and drink; this also let Zhang firmly believe that one of their principles: do reviews must choose that kind of competition, Information-rich areas where users need to make frequent choices. "If we had chosen to do real estate reviews or massage parlours, we might have died already." Zhang smiled and said that it was good food that he liked.

By the year 2003 of October, Zhang tried to put the initial accumulation of restaurant reviews information out of a book, the response incredibly good, on its website, also did start a group of core users all day sticky in the community, write quality comments content. This also let Zhang began to have the confidence to walk out of Shanghai, will the initial model in Beijing, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shenzhen and other cities to replicate.

The process of copying is equivalent to doing it again in the new city of Shanghai. From the local restaurant information to find people to write reviews, and then to form a community atmosphere gradually let users produce content, a little plowing, nothing like internet companies occupy the field market when the mercury and diarrhea. This kind of hard work lasted more than a year, by the end of 2004, the public comments covered more than 20 major cities, the next thing to consider is how to find a profit model.

However, even at that time, Zhang and his public comment network in addition to the model looks relatively new, is still a far from the mainstream of China's Internet small business, "the idea is very good, rely on what profit?" Become investors in that period to the public comments on the main questions.

In the flow of the 2004, the king of the public comment network in the investor there does not look "sexy"--and do not say that the 2004 total number of Internet users in China only 80 million, which is willing to eat and drink to write comments are rare, The mass comment of that point of traffic can not impress big advertisers to put ads, in the "flow = Advertising = Revenue" of 2004, in some investors eyes, the public comment on the value of the network even far less than a Web site navigation station to become directly.

And before that, the development of the public comment has been relying on a few founders from the point of the money to start funding, since the financing is difficult to find a way of finding a profit model has become a life-and-death choice for this site.

The transition ultimately comes from the Zhang contact with the offline merchant rather than the attachment to the online traffic.

"At that time, contact with the merchant found that many businesses have their own discount cards, we would like to have a unified membership card, the user consumption of 1000 points can be integrated 100, this money can again consumption, can also change gifts, recharge cards and so on, we have made a membership card, at that time also rely on this to finance. Zhang recalls.

2005, by virtue of membership card business public comments finally won the Sequoia Capital led a round of 1 million U.S. dollars financing, although with the same period when, excellence, billion, such as tens of millions of of billions of dollars of money is less than the poor, but for the beginning of the public comment Network has been a timely relief.

However, in Zhang hindsight, membership card this business model from the idea is not clever, but the implementation is more difficult than imagined.

First of all, membership card demand is there, but only a small number of people's needs. For the average user directly discounts on the line, complex integration calculation experience is not good. And from the merchant side, membership card business needs to change a lot of merchants have long been accustomed to, for the time of the merchant, do discount cards they can barely understand, but do membership card to do points to include a series of cash registers, and for the traditional merchant, the change of marketing methods is the most difficult.

"The lesson of this is that we have to be cautious about the innovation involved in the charging model, and try not to do anything to change the habits of the merchant or the user, unless it brings immediate and great benefits." Zhang afterwards summed up the way.

It also allows Zhang to start thinking differently from the internet as a real pain point for a traditional merchant--the traditional merchant doesn't really care about any of the hype patterns and concepts in the Internet field, they only need partners to bring real passenger flow, merchants need to cooperate with the settlement method as simple as possible, At the very least, the cashier who has a low educational level can master it.

This leap from the Internet to the offline entity merchant has once let the public comment network team extremely painful: the Internet language merchants do not understand, and VC is just like a variety of trendy Internet concept, sandwiched between the identity of the two at both ends let Zhang in the membership card mode after the last couple of years of profit model exploration.

Looking back, the two years of continuing to explore the profit model are a bit doom for the team. In fact, in 2005-2006 years it is UGC (user-generated content) concept of the popular Chinese Internet, the public comment network is relatively early through the UGC to explore the Internet enterprises, if Zhang "smart" initiative to package their own, Or are willing to follow the investor's hot spot to adjust their business direction, financing is not a difficult thing to accept any temptation can let the public comment at that time have more relaxed cash flow, but Zhang still want their company to remain focused, clear their core positioning-to help businesses do marketing, Help consumers find concessions.

It is in this near-bite business model to explore, after nearly two years, the public comments network found the electronic coupon This simple direct marketing method.

"Membership card mode at that time is not mature one reason is that our traffic is mainly online, and membership card is online consumption, which can not be a good use of our online flow advantage, and will be more and more heavy, we are still a small company, we hope to be able to do a lighter product, the final choice of electronic coupons. "Zhang said.

For the merchant, discount promotion is often the business behavior, in the past in order to promote information by more people to see also cost human resources to produce DM single Street, the emergence of electronic coupons to solve their needs. And for the small size of the public comment. E-Coupon is a lightweight product, the cost of trial and error and the cost of understanding the merchant are very low. At the beginning or free to the merchant, see the coupons bring effect after many merchants began to choose to pay, on the basis of the public comment on the foundation of the network also gradually clear their own profit model.

Zhang knows that internet thinking is always easy to design the business model is too sophisticated but too complex, but the key to the business model is to see whether the traditional merchants can understand and smooth docking, on the surface, the electronic coupon model is simple and rough, but because of its "simple", The public comment Network has also been able to continue to be a light company without being dragged down by an overloaded business.

2007, the public comment on the network ushered in the second round of 4 million U.S. dollars financing, the scale is still small, after all, in VC opinion, a not complex coupon products seem to be not worth much money, perhaps such a public comment will be a small rich that Ann small company that is also good.

But the ensuing financial crisis changed everything.

So far, Zhang will be very serious about thanking the 2008 financial crisis, not because the crisis has overwhelmed many of the audience's competitors, but because the cold winter has forced Zhang companies to reinvent themselves from management to marketing.

"If there is no financial crisis, we originally planned to carry out the 3rd round of financing in 2008, the financial crisis to find financing in anyway, do not want to melt the money, they start to think about how to promote in sales, the company's operating rhythm to go some further." When the financial crisis came we didn't have enough money to burn the time, later we may not hold up, and a little earlier, our sense of crisis will not be so strong, so this time point for us is a lucky. "Zhang said.

Today, if there is no financial crisis, perhaps the public comment on the network will rely on electronic coupons created by the small rich that Ann is slowly attributed to quiet;

Unlike other electric business enterprises, the public comment network business model determines its operating cost is not high, it does not need to rely on sufficient funds to occupy the market, on the contrary, the foundation of its business model from the user quality reviews information, the establishment of this atmosphere requires years of down-to-earth hard work and execution, This ability, once formed in the winter of capital, will explode with terrible energy in the spring and create huge barriers to competitors.

In the 2008, Zhang found that its many years of local life began to appear strong rivals for technology and money. A shadow of the technical aura of the opponent is the original Baidu CTO Jianguo founded Love Help Network, with its "vertical search technology", the public comments on the Internet some of the comments were directly copied to the Love network platform.

At the same time, Yahoo's Word-of-mouth network has also begun to dabble in local life services, relying on huge funds and Yahoo's traffic advantage industry once believed that the face of strong resources of Word-of-mouth network public comments may be doomed.

It is at that time, the public comment network began to covet local life in the field of the later people feel its many years to build the strength of the community: from the capital, flow to the size of the staff, the public comments on the network are not the giants of the opponents, But its many years of accumulation of the building of the atmosphere and the resulting in the merchant Word-of-mouth is a time-consuming and laborious "bitter business", there are many things in the internet that can make money easily, and it is hard to build a community and create an atmosphere.

More than creating a good community atmosphere to discourage the later people is the public comments over the past 5 years in more than 20 cities have accumulated a bit of the line of Word-of-mouth merchants, until then Zhang found that 5 years of hard word-of-mouth for local businesses and brand accumulation has not been wasted, The trust that local businesses have built after countless collaborations with the public to comment on the brand has become the most difficult moat for the internet giants when the Giants invade.

Willing to focus on other people do not want to enter the bitter business and adhere to the years just formed the public comment on the industry barriers. With the establishment of industry influence and the further advance of business such as electronic coupons, the public comment net at the end of 2008 finally realized the profit; At the same time, the financial crisis during the sales and operation of the promotion also began to receive results, in addition to electronic coupons, for merchants to provide keywords to promote a public comment on the network and a profit point.

"In this way, we have been profitable every month for 2009 years, and by the time the situation grew naturally, it would have been possible to reach the market by 2010 or 2011, even without a subsequent group purchase and a phone explosion," he said. "Zhang said.

The explosion of the smartphone lead

The world thanked jobs thousands of people, but Zhang said he wanted to thank jobs with a very serious and serious tone.

If the initial 5-year public comment Network is like a firm, tolerant, lonely ascetic, then the iphone-led smartphone wave means a real time for them to come.

In fact, entrepreneurship for many years the public comment on the network just firmly around two things: Help merchants do marketing, help users find concessions. This determines that their business naturally has localized properties, and in the localization of this, the mobile phone features exactly the same.

Because of this, Zhang very early know that the mobile phone is really the key to detonate the public comment on the business.

2005, before the PDA as a senior executive Longwin by the old classmate Zhang invited to join the public comment network responsible for wireless business, the public comments on the mobile phone field began to explore.

At that time, the public reviews have tried to help users find a place to eat and drink around by SMS. For example, a user in the trade bridge sent a text message, the system will return to him a beer and skittles near the submenu, through a few rounds back and forth, eventually to help users find the local restaurant information he wants. "But this process is more troublesome than checking charges, at the time of the environment, the user experience and terminal can not keep up, how to promote not open." "Longwin said.

But the advent of the smartphone era has changed all this. In Zhang's view, for the public to comment on the business, the emergence of smartphones is simply the sky drop artifact. For example, for video sites, the advent of smartphones is simply an increase in the number of channels of communication, and for the native localization of the public comments, the smartphone experience is better than the PC, Combined with geographical location can be used anywhere to make a lot of the previous not on the PC to find beer and skittles of the high consumption capacity of users to become a public comment on the new users.

At the end of 2009, at the time of the domestic iOS developers still rare, the public comments on the iOS and Androping platform at the same time developed their mobile clients, now through constant updates and iterations, the public comment on the client has released more than 15 versions, the number of independent users of mobile phones more than 18 million.

In fact, in 2010 when the public comments began to force the mobile phone client for Zhang, another temptation followed, that is Groupon's rise in the United States. In August 2009, Zhang saw the first report on Groupon on TechCrunch, when the company was founded soon after the end of 2009, with its big second round of financing coming in, Groupon began to fire, To the 2010 Spring Festival after the founding of the United States Group Wang, in the domestic real will buy this mode of detonation.

But in Zhang's view, at that time the company resources are limited, group buying is a good model, but the development of mobile phone client priority should undoubtedly be higher. In foreign countries, Foursquare for the old review site Yelp's subversion and transcendence is to let Zhang firmly put the mobile phone client to the company's strategic priorities.

"We look at the American Foursquare his SoCal is just a cut, and if you think clearly, he was initially competing with Yelp." The amount of information that Foursquare now generates is already 1 billion check-in, and Yelp and we are 20 million, which is not a magnitude message. There's a lot of information coming out of the sign-ins that will hit Yelp a lot, and the reason why Yelp is not on the market is because it's not on the side of the U.S. phone, and Groupon is too slow to get into it, which is a real reason. Zhang analysis.

Because of this, although in the Group buying field to enter the speed is slower than the opponent 3 months, but with the focus on mobile phone clients, the public comment network by the popularity of the smart machine quietly formed to make the opponents difficult to go beyond the threshold: the advent of smartphones to the PC era of the Web site traffic to become a complete history, and in the mobile phone end of the first entry, Enough installation to allow its clients to become a standard for later smartphones, which fully released the public comments over the past few years and the relationship between the online merchant, but also greatly promote the influence on the merchant, at the same time, the resulting massive attendance information to make its future value more imaginative space.

December 2011, as a partner of China Unicom wo+ platform, Unicom users will be able to directly log in with their mobile phone number, the operator has the user's real identity information, and the public comment Network has the user's consumption information, the combination will produce a huge imagination space; Unicom also opened its positioning capacity, now the majority of users are located in the city relying on base stations and WiFi positioning, can not rely on GPS, with operators to provide accurate positioning information will let the public comment on the check-in to do a better user experience.

Mobile client field to do a solid, the public comments to go into the Corps to buy it appears to "workers." Although not the first batch of enterprises to buy, but now the public comment has become one of the most trusted group buying platform, the growing number of mobile phone users, continued to increase the attendance information, resulting in a steady stream of comments on the information are added to the public comments on the web at the merchant end and the user side of the influence, Those who are trying to find the merchant resources and find ways to pour the user flow of the group purchase site for the public comment on the vast number of data will only envy.

Slow Company

Most Internet companies advocate lightning-like rise, but the public comment network is indeed a slow company, this slow is not only a kind of attitude is determined by its business model. In Zhang's view, the business model of the public comment Network decided that they could not soar in a year or two.

From start to finish, the public comments do is a localized business, localization means that only a city to do slowly, in Shanghai to do a good job in Chengdu to restart. From the establishment of the community, to guide the atmosphere to the Community users continue to produce content and through the mechanism to ensure the impartiality of the comments, not two or three years is impossible to do.

At the same time, how big a local consumer market can be is inseparable from the level of offline business development. Just imagine if the public comment is not the choice to start in Shanghai but open in a small and medium-sized city in a inland province so good marketing tools in the case of a lack of user choice is powerless. The growth of this business environment takes time, and in the 2011 China has more merchants than in 2003, and there is an urgent need for marketing, which is one of the reasons why the public reviews the rise of the two years.

On the other hand, the Internet, especially the development of mobile Internet, so that the 30-40-year-old users gradually become the mainstream, before a wave of internet features are young netizens, which brought in the first 10 years of Chinese Internet games, instant messaging tools, entertainment applications into the mainstream, And in a more consumer-capable mature people are gradually integrated into the network, out of the quality of life and economic strength, their choice and consumption of beer and Skittles will have a stronger demand.

One reason, of course, is the progress of the tools. It's an incredible thing to be able to sign in or visit the public on a mobile phone just five or six years before the phone can send a message. At that time, the traffic on the PC is still the mainstream, but if not a long planned dinner, and how many people will decide to go to which restaurant before the meal to find a place to use a PC to check the evaluation of it.

Public comment Network in the past so many years to establish the influence of merchants, rely on is also a "slow" mentality. The user's true comment is the foundation of the business model of the public comment network, therefore, guarantee the impartiality of the comment become Zhang hand charge of the most important. In the public comments inside, there is a Zhang direct leadership of the mysterious organization, known as the "integrity Group", this organization contains from the technical department to the backbone of the Operation department, responsible for data analysis and other means to ensure that the content of the fairness of the comments.

For example, when the background data displays the same IP-intensive publishing reviews or a few of the businesses that have been reviews in a short period of time, will cause the "Integrity group" vigilance, if the investigation found after the merchant to brush their own comments or competitors malicious attacks, these comments will be judged as invalid comments, Will not be counted to affect the merchant reputation of the weighted score, in order to ensure the impartiality of the comments.

In addition, no one in the sales department has the right to interfere with the impartiality of the comments, although some partners will choose to pay the keyword search business, but users in the search for businesses to see these merchants will be marked as a cooperative merchant promotional activities, does not affect the normal search algorithm.

Although the mobile phone client after the launch of the public comments on the number of users in the rocket-like growth, but the relative is in the assurance that the fairness is still calm and solid, in a way, in this field, slow is fast.

2011 Whether it is Word-of-mouth or the explosion of the number of users to make the public comment network has become more and more people focus on the process of attention in the same way, "the public comments will be listed in 2012?".

People expect the public to comment on the listing as soon as possible. In November 2011, the investors dubbed the "American version of the public comment network," Yelp to the Securities and Futures Commission submitted an IPO application, before this, Groupon and another Comment class website Angie ' s List of the listing, from the outside environment, for the public comments on the listing this is a positive.

In the domestic, the gradual breakdown of the group buying bubble let people see alone chasing the concept of weakness, before the accumulation of 8 years to do the full strength of the public comment on the net into the group after the light and easy to make good results, and in the field of lbs, more and more people realize that check-in is only means, the service behind the check-in is the core, As for the ability to mention services, no company can compete with a public comment network that has huge data accumulation on both the merchant and the client side. In the developer crowd, many teams in the LBS field are looking to collaborate on resources with the public. More and more investors believe that in the next wave of O2O-led, the public comments will certainly become a landmark company.

However, to the outside world this kind of near "Huang" expectation, Zhang but appear not anxious. In Zhang's view, the number of employees from less than 300 a year to more than 1600 people, how to digest the rapid growth of the company is a more urgent than the listing of things. Public comments on the field is online and offline docking of the battlefield, from the business whether it is to buy or sign in, the final focus of competition is the ability to compete online. And the key to the offline competitiveness is the competition of management ability.

"There have been some problems with group buying recently, and the most problematic aspect of the industry is management." If management is dug by sheer digging, then the cohesion of the team will be a problem, everyone is on the interest of the listing to stimulate, once the market will also have problems, if you do too radical, stick money or advertising burning money burning too fast, cash flow fracture can also be very dangerous. These are management issues, human management, corporate financial management, cultural management and so on. "Zhang said.

Because of this, in 2010 from IBM's human resources management expert Lingzhenwen joined the public comment Network as the vice-president responsible for the HR team, "at that time also felt that we a hundreds of-person company to find a management of tens of thousands of people's enterprise personnel experts come over is not a bit of flak to hit mosquitoes, It was only after 2011 years that the rapid expansion of personnel found that the management of the rainy day is too necessary. "Longwin said.

Zhang at the present stage of the charge management of cautious behind the public comment network relatively robust expansion strategy.

Arguably 2011 business by leaps and bounds, Zhang is not willing to "should be left Yong chasing Sanko" like bold expansion. In his view, the expansion of people is following the company's strategy. The original blind expansion of the basic are shuffle wash off. At the same time, the public comments is a local business, is anxious not to, at the same time he believes that the company's expansion is essentially a management problem, the foundation is not deep, the future building will be poured out, there is no good cultural heritage, there is no good management mechanism will be problematic.

He also does not think that China has nearly hundreds of cities suitable for localization marketing, in fact, there are more businesses in China there is no more than 40 cities in the market demand, "on this basis we will not blindly expand the number of cities, and will be further in every city to do a solid." "Zhang said.

Concentration is a kind of ability

In addition to not impatient, the public comments in the past 8 years have done more solid also inseparable from their focus.

"For us, our core location for businesses is to help them do marketing," he said. We will consider products related to marketing. Coupons are to help them bring in users, search keywords are also helping them to bring new users to help them expose, and these products we will do. But none of this is going to touch us. Zhang explained.

For example, from 2003 to 2008, blog once fire, video is also hot, "but these are not our concern," the abstract, the public comment on the net merchant end products are around the marketing; The client product is around two aspects, one is to help users find information, the other is to help them find concessions. Help the merchant to do the marketing, help the user to find the information, help the user to look for the preferential benefit to become the public reviews all business three basic foothold.

Because of this, when group buying and mobile phone almost at the same time, Resources Limited Zhang not hesitate to choose to develop the client first. In his view, group buying is just a marketing tool, it is the essence of a paid coupon, with this tool can let the public comment on the marketing icing on the cake; but if the mobile phone this position, once someone using mobile phone to do business and user data accumulation, for the public comment is undoubtedly a fatal blow.

In Zhang's eyes, the positioning of a company is crucial. "What do you do, the core is to do what positioning to clear, to think clearly will not easily be tempted." ”

For example, there has been a period of time, investors suggested that the public comments can be used at both ends of the merchant's influence to get involved in the take-away, looks based on catering, with users, platform and a lot of business resources, do take-away is a logical thing, but Zhang that this is not the core of the public comment network, The only benefit is to make more cash flow, but the negative impact is related to the quality of services and many other links to the management of the business will become more and more heavy, simple to make a meal will not outweigh the gains.

"It's up to you to think clearly about what you're doing and what you want to do to meet what needs to be done, and focus on that." A lot of companies don't focus on one because they don't have enough power, but one of the most important reasons is that he hasn't figured out exactly what the company is going to do, what group of users you're serving, and a lot of people don't think clearly at this point. He will be affected by the patterns and products. Zhang concludes.

Public comments on the focus also reflected in the face of Word-of-mouth network siege when the unmoved. June 2004, Alibaba former engineer Li Zhi quit the establishment of a positioning for the life of Living Community Platform Word-of-mouth Network, 2006, Word-of-mouth network to obtain Alibaba's strategic investment, 2008 and Yahoo merged the establishment of Yahoo Word-of-mouth Network, a menacing.

Li Zhi in the beginning of the acquisition of a second-hand housing rental site, and did a good job, from the early reliance on rental sites to bring traffic, to the subsequent merger with the flow of Yahoo and resources to import and resource advantages so that was still very weak in the public comment network looks precarious. But Zhang that the history of Word-of-mouth network also determines its development over the next few years.

From the earliest rental site traffic injection, to the subsequent generation of Yahoo traffic, sufficient resources instead of the Word-of-mouth network in the strategic fatal error: Want to do too much, positioning too large. And do rent, and eat and drink, to the late turn into a city portal above news information, too large positioning will eventually drag themselves to death.

"There are many aspects of local life, not including all the local related things are suitable for comment on this model." Second-hand housing is really related to the local, reviews are suitable for high frequency consumer places, and it's lightweight decisions; second-hand housing does not belong to this, it's decision-making process is very long, a person's life is two or three times; and his information provider is the agent, he is the most suitable for the practice of the tenant, product shape decided not to do with the comments. "Zhang said.

In Zhang View, reviews are a means, not any business is suitable to comment on this product model. Public comments is a kind of comment, watercress is also a kind of comment, this product way corresponding to the user's two needs one is to find information, the other is to find concessions. Eating and drinking is characterized by high consumption frequency, decision-making and relatively lightweight, not as formal as buying a house, at the same time need more advice and Word-of-mouth to help users make decisions, the way to use comments is undoubtedly the most appropriate.

The same focus is also reflected in the field of lbs. The rise of mobile clients let the public comment on the localization of the huge advantages accumulated, some have suggested that Zhang can do to do geographically based social, but Zhang that this advice sounds exciting, but based on the geographical nature of the social itself is a pseudo proposition.

"We have studied for some time and finally found that it is not tenable to simply socialize through location, or that social networking is done through social networks that are extended from acquaintances, and that social relationships created through the same geographical location are not social," he said. Location is an information-centric platform, social networks are people-centric platform, information platform can not do human things, people's platform does not do information things, to think clearly will be easy to choose. "Zhang said.

Public comments internal staff jokingly, the new concept of all new ideas are naturally not a cold company, may precisely rely on a "blunt force" finally "O2O" such a most fashionable concept smashed, this is accidental, is inevitable.

Where do billions of values come from?

The rapid development of the 2011 let the public comment on the network is no longer the original only focus on their own products can be immune to small companies, with the increase in the energy of the public comments also inevitably with the industrial chain on all sides.

At the merchant end, the public comment network is currently the most influential Internet platform for local merchants, while in the client, the popularity of smartphones is constantly adding to its influence in the client side, which in turn continues to enhance its impact on merchants. In addition to the enormous influence, more real is the public comments 8 years of accumulated business and user data has been built a barrier that outsiders can not go beyond, but also means that with more people have based on this cooperation opportunities.

For example, there used to be a travel route for mobile phone application developers, they find Zhang very much hope to get the public comment network API, you can integrate hotel restaurant attractions into the tourist route. With the localization of business around the online and offline docking more and more attention, the public comment network has gradually become the key force to pry into China's O2O market. As a result, the concept of "open platform", which was frequently preached by Chinese internet giants in the past year, has also hit the public comment on the O2O field.

Asked if there was an intention to open the platform, Zhang said firmly: "will do." "But then with a large text to explain" the current resources and personnel are not in place, the current priority or in the management, organizational structure, personnel recruitment continue to exert force. To open the fundamental principle is to hope that our information and concessions can let more netizens see, not limited to the public comment on the platform, is currently in preparation, we hope that 2012 can be done this matter. "People familiar with Zhang know that his eyes have been fixed on the complex system behind the word" open platform, "because openness is not a value or concept, but a complex ability. Whether the technology is in place and how the rules are set up, these questions Zhang frankly are not fully prepared.

But openness is already a necessary strategy. Zhang that the local consumer sector is a huge market, because of the natural local characteristics of mobile phones, eat and drink a lot of demand can be solved anytime, anywhere with mobile phone, this area is far from being developed, now people can see the opportunity is only the tip of the iceberg. And in this huge market, the public comment on the unintentional and impossible to do a single.

"We will see what suits us to do what does not fit, we will not be like Tencent to do anything, already can someone do very good words we will open the platform." The core of the public comment network is to find beer and skittles, as for the following things we do not need to do anything. For example, we may do hotel reviews, but the hotel reservations we do not want to, in the future, if someone does a good job we will ask ourselves what and they compete, our advantage in where, the user is not necessarily, do not need a one-stop solution, or too heavy. The nature of the phone is a narrow application, he is the lighter the better rather than the heavier the better. "Zhang said.

In fact, it's not uncommon to talk about open Internet companies in the past year, but the open platform that the public reviews is really likely to allow the Internet to reach offline with mobile phones, and pry the O2O into a trillion-dollar huge market.

In the conversation with Zhang, he repeatedly stressed that the core value of the public comment is the POI information it has accumulated over the years (point of intrest, the points of interest that the user has left through the phone and the network), while open poi means that the point of interest in implementing changes around the user creates countless opportunities for application innovation, There is a bridge between the Internet and the traditional business of offline.

For example, currently in the mobile phone app Store, the hotel's talent, Flight Butler, gourmet talent and other apps springing up, many developers want to use the characteristics of mobile phone localization to the user's interest, demand network and offline merchants to connect, which marks the Internet really began to integrate and reshape traditional society, Ordinary users will be in every corner of life due to the existence of the Internet more convenient, and these applications and functions of the implementation relies on developers to obtain more users real-time POI information.

American Network founder Wang in the interview in the Geek Park, once said, the biggest value of group buying is to activate a lot of traditional industries. A large number of O2O based applications are the same. And for most developers, the accumulation of massive poi information is an unrealistic choice, and the public comment network through its open its own API interface may be for these traditional industry to make a key tipping point, and such a platform to create, through a certain pattern of partitioning, It will also give the public a chance to become a company with tens of billions of dollars in value.

From the big trend, the further popularity of smartphones has set the bridges from online to offline, and the next wave of innovation in Internet models and applications will blossom around localization. Obviously, the public comment network needs to continue to use the 2012 carefully, let it after 8 years of hard creeping and dirty live dirty accumulated value, in such a rare environment excited under the blooming in full bloom.