Independent search difficult to survive: so dependent on Sina Weibo independence

Intermediary transaction SEO diagnosis Taobao guest Cloud host technology Hall

[Guide] the past 3 years and so has not too much search share. Also wandering between the market and the player, its figure is always looming.

Tencent Science and Technology Lei Jianping November 5 Report

China's search market has been set, but small and medium-sized search engines are still encountering shuffle, in the "national team" of the immediate search and Pangu search between the integration is also accelerating. Since November, immediately search the home page has changed significantly, only the remaining news, pages, pictures and maps of the four services. Before the immediate search Zeng push "exposure Taiwan", "Food Safety", "medicine", "video" and so on a number of search products all shut down.

Instant Search page Search results have been directly to pan Gu search, analysts believe that this means that the immediate search and Pangu integration in the acceleration, instant Search is likely to enter the shutdown time.

In the immediate search for a time of upheaval, its former partner and so the independent development of the road has also looked bleak. In September this year, Tencent strategy to buy the night of the dog, Baidu released news: Social search Network founder Liu has joined Baidu, as the vice president of Baidu Technology, to leave this network.

The early Google (microblogging) of the Chinese team staff has basically left, Liu like a "rear" role. Such network products vice President Cheng Weibo name has been changed from "So Sheng Jia" modified to "network Letter Sheng", certified as Pioneer Internet Financial Group Executive President. So technical vice President Sun Yu has joined 360, and so former colleagues Chenli again become colleagues.

People familiar with the matter said that, based on Liu and Innovation Factory chairman Kai-Fu Lee (micro-Bo) in the past good relations, and so the team moved to the Innovation Workshop in the 9th floor, a lot of people who have put it, and so will carry out large-scale expansion, not material situation within one months of upheaval

Just a few weeks before Liu left, Liu Internal Mail revealed that and so with Sina Weibo has reached a new cooperation, in addition to the technical team, other teams will be abolished, Sina Weibo will be all the other team members are the merit of the game. Liu will also leave soon, and so business to Sina Weibo search director Huang Yuanwen temporarily take over.

For the past 3 years, so in the search market has been no too many search share, however, in the luxury of Google China support, and so has been wandering between the search market players, for the immediate search to provide technical support, and 360 to achieve cooperation, even in the immediate internal unrest, and so the figure is always looming, The focus of this year has been much higher than the city's position.

Google as an elite founder of the search engine company, and so have a very unique temperament, but in the third year of the establishment of life and death test, finally failed to survive.

Liu Readme: If I stay or become a barrier to development

And so was founded only more than 10 people, in the Zhongguancun Dragon Mansion office looks empty. However, it has developed very quickly and expanded to over 100 people in a short time, reaching 240 at the peak of last year and moving to the Avic Industrial park.

The story has been reversed from the end of last year, and immediately searched for the chief scientist's Liu this year before the Spring festival into an instant search inside the bucket, has been trusting Liu's immediate search CEO Deng Yaping was marginalized, people's daily airborne executives to search immediately, deputy general manager Wang take over Liu responsible for research and development The cooperation between the Web and the instant search stalled until it stopped.

Into the July this year, and so face a new round of financing the threshold, in the new capital introduction and so the team and the early investor Sina Weibo contradictions. Sina Weibo has been occupying such a large stake, and its attitude towards capital increase is that the founding team to give up control, and product development direction to adjust.

Sina Weibo has asked to give up the big search cost savings and do its best to do microblogging search support Sina Weibo. Sina Weibo is now fragmented and users cannot find valuable information in the ocean of information. Because of the lack of a key factor in the microblogging ecosystem: search.

So at the end of last year and Sina Weibo began to conduct micro-blog search cooperation, its business logic is, micro-Bo and search connection has congenital advantages, so long as the user can locate on the phone to the most useful information, as long as the user feel the information is correct, business model will naturally come. It has been proven on PCs that companies can make more money if the information they provide is more accurate and useful.

But the goal of doing Weibo search is very different from the company positioning so product positioning traditional Web search + Light Blog system + Social Quiz + microblogging search, the core of the logic behind the social search, which is the previous Google, Baidu, 360 and Sogou search players did not involve new areas. Social search has also gained greater attention after Facebook launched graph search.

For such, micro-blog search is just so big search business supplement, once give up the big search only do micro-blog search, the equivalent of a radical change in the direction of the company, psychologically unacceptable, and micro-BO search is only a child of Sina Weibo business, once incorporated into the Sina Weibo, Where Liu and its team members will be is an issue that must be considered.

Ultimately, the power of capital plays a decisive role: Sina Weibo buys and so on. According to a number of former employees disclosed that this July, Sina co-CEO Xu Liangje with Sina Weibo search head Huangyuanwen together to such a net, and the staff said that the two will be more closely together, after Sina is using a money to raise micro-blog search and so two teams.

A former employee said that Xu Liangje's message is clear, Sina Weibo control costs is a priority, and so the team and the microblogging search team need to integrate.

Xu Liangje The original intention is to take over the Sina Weibo search team. such as Sina a senior to Tencent technology, and so the team Weibo search technology than the original team of Sina, merged with the team to be responsible for micro-BO search, the original Sina team responsible for other peripheral business, which makes since July, Sina Weibo search team has been laid off.

However, cooperation at the end of August has changed, after Liu left the Sina Weibo search team took over.

Liu already in Baidu work, accept Tencent Technology interview said, temporarily will not tube such network business. And so to continue to develop, it must be with Sina Weibo business integration, its various data and information to get through, integration is inevitable.

Liu said, "I continue to stay here, but it will be a hindrance to the development of the company." Leaving is also a good choice to do something that interests you. "People familiar with the matter pointed out that Liu's comments pointed to the obvious, if Sina Weibo is just investment and so, certainly not assured that the data completely open to such, after the incorporation of Sina Weibo system, the core data can also be shared fusion."

A pity: Sina Weibo has fallen too fast

Do search engine one cost is the server, another cost is the flow to obtain the cost, therefore the big search extremely consumes the fund. So there is no big flow to get costs, and directly use the immediate search server, which makes the initial cost is relatively small.

According to Tencent Science and technology, and so the first two years of entrepreneurship and not too much loss, in cooperation with the immediate search, to help the national Library to build the text of the search are greatly benefited. Public data show that so and Sadie consultant this year together with the winning the National Library, the entire marked amount of up to more than 60 million yuan. Liu has said that the completion of the National Library project, so not only not to lose money, but also to gain profits.

All this has changed with the end of the instant search cooperation, and so have to restart the "lesson". But when the way NetEase will web search to 360, Sogou integrated Tencent's search, Pan Gu immediately after the merger, and so then put into a big search is outdated. Liu to Tencent Technology frankly, the traditional search pattern changed the situation has been difficult.

A former network of the middle-level Tencent technology, and so from the time to catch up with the search engine first camp has been very difficult, and the technical level and so also lost to Baidu, from the channel layer, and so the network is not 360 as powerful channels. Although so and 360 have had cooperation, but the user from the 360 import but in such a system can not form a closed loop, the next search users or from 360 search into.

The middle-tier complained about the lack of support from Sina, say so do search web support, Sina also did not put the flow into so search, from the investment level, and so is Sina Weibo investment company, and Sina Weibo and Sina Network is two parallel departments, Sina website did not give the search business to So, There is no intention to import the flow.

Of course, Sina also has realistic considerations, Sina investment Search is better than searching, Sogou layout late, and investment is not much, but Sina's own business status is not good, Sina 2013 the second quarter of the operating loss of 18.2 million U.S. dollars, operating profit margin of 12%, is the second consecutive quarterly operating losses, In addition, Sina microblogging activity is still in a downward trend.

The microblogging search is similar to the Facebook search for Sina Weibo, and the Sina data is inconsistent with Facebook data, a former source laments. The social search engine is worth exploring, but now half the effort, just beginning, but not.

In the view of the above, the current Taobao and Sina Micro-blog launched Sina Weibo Taobao version, and Alibaba on Sina Weibo ad investment is only a very low-level match, if this data can be given to so, through such positioning to individuals, you can determine the user's friend relationship, And based on the share of micro-blog can also be analyzed for its commodity preferences and other information.

"There is no chance." "A veteran search industry said to Tencent that it is attached to Sina Weibo and, more importantly, that Sina Weibo has a strategic investment in Alibaba to get a lot of commodity trading information."

A former employee said, "Taobao does not give, may not have talked about this step, Liu as a technical personnel, want to talk about Ma Yun (micro bo) The conversation itself is difficult, MA can understand, there is no interest in doing there are problems, and this thing to Ali is trivial, and so is a big event. So is the big data. Did not extend to this step, and so on the ' sacrifice ', or a little regret. ”

So unfulfilled: Maybe it was wrong in the beginning

Compared to the previous Sina Weibo mobile search can only search for people or micro-blog, and so on with Sina Weibo at the mobile end of the cooperation can also search for news, pictures, web pages, or even the content of Sina. Liu previously accepted Tencent Technology interview, said, and so do this work than the traditional search engine more advantages.

Liu said, one is search, one is social, not blunt pull together into social search, the search technology itself needs to be fundamentally improved. Social search to do is to break the large account of the user's one-way information flow, through the search to give high-quality content exposure opportunities, the establishment of "content publishing-search-interactive" information forward loop.

The importance of social search is not without reference. This August, Twitter officially launched the universal search function in the Twitter.com Web page, and in the original "results", the integration of people and photos to facilitate users to search the flow of information, but also to find relevant people and pictures. Twitter also supports the search results based on user search keyword advertising push, and then realize.

Twitter search from the "Site search function" to the "mainstream search engine" transformation, with social, real-time and local characteristics, and Google and other web search engine to differentiate the competition, grab advertisers ' search advertising budget.

On the other, Sina Weibo is now commercialized mainly by display advertising, information flow advertising, a small number of value-added services, micro-blog Marketing Trading Market, the application market and games based on microblogging platform. However, microblogging search ads have not been mined. For Sina Weibo, after the incorporation of Sina Weibo to strengthen data mining, the original advertising can be more accurate.

Liu has failed to achieve this goal. Outside even once commented that this group is almost entirely composed of technical cattle companies, in the market, the user's thinking is missing, and even its complex and large also and do not pick up the hook.

Some insiders say that even if social search is feasible, it cannot be the same in China. Social networking sites are easy to cut into, because there are users, traffic, and social data;

Google, Baidu in the socialization has been broken. Google + is far less active than Facebook, and Baidu's account system has not been sound, Baidu space has been not plague. There is no money, no manpower and it is obviously impossible to pry this market.

Perhaps Baidu can carry Liu's dream. Liu is currently responsible for the company's Technical Strategy Committee (TSC) operation, support Baidu key business development and innovation.

A former such net personage discloses, Robin Li is the person who understands the search, although Liu is not successful in so on, but some of its ideas, the idea Robin Li more agree, Baidu or is willing to take out the fund and the resources attempt, the promotion Baidu social search ability.