lbs fail mai: The last company to transform and socialize

Does anyone else "sign in" on the phone? Today's users are in micro-blog, micro-letter brush sense of existence. This makes two years ago very hot mobile phone geographical check-in application lbs (Location Based service, location-based Services) Independent mode completely shattered. Play turn quartet, cut off, open and muttered sadly exits, China's earliest to do lbs check-in, and later is only a focus on lbs sign up to the company Street, and finally transform to do social applications. Once thought to be the next SNS tipping point of LBS application completed a phased mission in China.

Street in July 2013 launched the 5.0 version, the new version through the scene, Circle people, stickers and other functions to highlight its social properties, while the traditional combination of sign up mode is almost hidden, the original lbs data was thrown to the October Street to launch the food subdivision lbs application pick. For senior users, the street transformation is full of farewell flavor. "All my college life is on the street." "The street ID called the Big Sun" was one of the first 800,000 users to be set up by the side of the street in 2010. She works in Wuhan, once on the phone sign addiction, every 2 minutes will brush the street side, "But today's street is like a ghost town." ”

Liu Davei, founder of the street, once wanted to be a Chinese version of Foursquare, now wants to make the street a third exit between microblogs and micro-letters. "How do you better share, record, and connect?" he told the Business Week/Chinese version. Now there are microblogs, there are micro-letters, but these two may have a third model, this is what the street want to do. ”

As of November 2013, the street has more than 5 million registered users, including Starbucks, LV, Burberry and so on more than 9,000 cooperative merchants, the monthly active user ratio of 36%. Like the e-commerce website Warm Island, the street side is also the HTC Chairman Wang Investment "I in the Information Technology (Beijing) Limited liability company" the incubation project.

The US social location website Foursquare has been online since 2009, and lbs applications have fallen. "Foursquare is also in rapid decline," said Zippi, vice president of the Angel Bay venture, "Whether it's check-in service, game mechanism, or business preferences, it's also obsessed with lbs itself." "Up to now, as the mobile internet LBS founder-level company, Foursquare only 30 million users, 1.5 million merchants."

Eric Consulting industry analyst Shen Yu that the pure lbs company Maki, but lbs as a mobile application standard service began to show a trend towards O2O. SNS website such as Weibo, Renren, MO, etc are equipped with lbs function, micro-letter "nearby people" through lbs contact strangers, MO depth embedded lbs, let you and charm congenial people come together; the public comments network, Ctrip, including those taxi app, etc., provide lbs access. In the end of 2012, China's mobile phone service users were close to 510 million, mobile internet users 606 million, and lbs users reached a record high penetration rate of 84.2%, according to the consultancy.

"A lot of street users are switching to alternatives like path. "Liu Davei said. In the new version of the street, 16 of the scene tags based on user data analysis are widely available in the user interface, "work", "Sing K", "Eat", "drunk", "travel", "Blood spell", but the new navigation bar and radio, TAG, hair photos and other functions and micro-bo, watercress and so very similar. "We haven't fully found the maximum meaning and core value of new users using the street, which could be a bigger problem." ”

"LBS is a technical model, not a business model," he said. "The previous LBS concept was heavily mentioned because the mobile Internet was just emerging and the market was unable to find the difference between it and the traditional Internet, and on the technical level, the most obvious part was the location of the mobile internet," said Dong Ji, marketing director of China Telecom's application plant. ”

Le gang marketing director Loruzi told Businessweek/Chinese edition, "lbs is a pseudo concept, it is like a car airbag, not the engine, although each vehicle must, but also can play a supplementary role." "Before 1.5, the main lbs reward for the help of the app music to get Angel Bay investment," then almost everyone wants to do a lbs application. "On the Le Gang, you can offer a reward of 10 yuan to buy a newspaper for you, or a reward of 30 dollars to ask the girls nearby to drink coffee," but the Chinese people are accustomed to the circle of acquaintances, lack of trust in strangers, nor the habit of tipping. ”

Dong Ji judged that lbs would not be mentioned as a separate unit but would be incorporated into the entire concept of mobile internet. The Internet era to move, relying solely on the provision of location services products (maps, navigation, etc.) are free, lbs become the standard service. The internet giants have integrated lbs into their services. October 2012, Baidu split Baidu map, set up lbs division, from Baidu Map, positioning, cloud storage and other functions to integrate lbs; Taobao from "Map search" to "local life", but also acquired a gold map, Tencent claimed to create "open" lbs,11 monthly micro-letter to provide Tencent Map API interface, Begin to provide a geographically based comprehensive solution to the third party micro-credit public account.

At the end of the street, China's last lbs company, the initiative to abandon lbs, spread its arms to SNS. In fact, the street can continue to do lbs, after a period of accumulation, better technology, better data, based on lbs or there will be opportunities, even more insurance opportunities, can be made into a good medium-sized company. It's safer, but it's not the biggest chance on the street. "Liu Davei said. The Chinese-American, who grew up in Silicon Valley, looks forward to becoming a younger version of Zhangxiaolong, Zhidong, and a rival to micro-letters and microblogs. In short, lbs as a separate service in China's desperate end, the last lbs service Street side of the difficult transition to do social networking, and the major internet giants are not the same as mobile standard services.