Location check-in interpretation of new ecology: Map will become an important portal for mobile internet

What can be done based on geographic location (LBS) After the start of the check-in service boom? How to do it? How can big companies and startups find their place? These issues became the focus of the first phase of the discussion at Sina Xtalk Salon.

Check-in is rubbish?

In the past two years, the type of Foursquare check-in mode, become the main force of domestic lbs service, muttering, playing the quartet, the street side, the royal cut off the equivalent of quality products up to dozens of.

The so-called sign in, refers to the user through the above products actively record their location, through the points, medals, lords and other honors to motivate users, users can get a sense of satisfaction.

However, the value of check-in services has been questioned. In the United States, although Foursquare has been born in the United States for 4 years, the research firm Forrester report last December showed that only 4% of American adults use lbs apps, and most users don't even know the check-in service exists.

Opening CEO Murong said the Check-in service only meets the needs of a small group of people, wants to spread to more people, and needs to find more specific service points. At present, the opening has begun to introduce content from micro-blog, strengthen the construction of social circle, the aggregation of valuable content.

The royal cut is done more thoroughly, simply abandoned the check-in function, turned into a geographical location based discount information, group buy aggregation tools.

Wang Yuquan, the bank's capital partner, even thinks the check-in service is "rubbish". "Check-in service is meaningless, single factor attribution, it is difficult to do clustering success." Wang Yuquan explains, "for example, many dating services are clustering people in the same school or the same place, but the aggregate user commonality is too weak." My classmates in Beijing have half, we actually don't greet each other. And in a small county, suddenly found a college classmate, two people must greet. ”

"Multi-factor clustering can often be successful," Wang Yuquan said. For example, the same school, and particularly love to play football, see every day on the court, can make friends. So it is very difficult for lbs to make a business independent, but it is possible to succeed only if it crosses other factors. ”

For lbs developers, Sina Vice president, Sina Wireless general manager Wang Gaofei the suggestion that lbs developers should consider breaking the barriers of mobile Internet, and more competition with the traditional industry.

In Wang Gaofei's view, lbs business in China is a relatively advanced business, only less than one-third of users will be active or passive use of location services, this user volume relative to the entire Internet business is only a small.

"If lbs itself can cover as many users as possible, it is believed that many traditional industry killers can be produced in the industry." Wang Gaofei said that many traditional industries, such as second-hand trading, but the business is only billions of of the size of Beijing, so the competition with the traditional industry to produce a market scale far beyond the internet companies such as Sina or Tencent.

The entrance effect of lbs appears

For the value of LBS service, Baidu Mobile-Cloud Business Department general manager Mingyuan that lbs to the mobile Internet entrance effect is emerging.

"Buying a computer ten years ago usually requires more than 10 software, but now there is nothing to install, because all the features can be done through the browser." "Maps will be the most important function of every cell phone," Mingyuan, a map that is just like a browser to a computer. ”

In Mingyuan's view, the Internet competition to today, is always an entrance competition, before the browser became the most important web portal, and today lbs will become the portal of mobile Internet, who control this portal, who is more powerful.

Mingyuan said that the map is the basic services, is the production tools, production tools is particularly difficult to make a difference, and itself is not too easy to make money, which forced Baidu must map to create an open platform, Baidu provides the basis of data, positioning services, by third-party developers to combine their respective advantages, Use this tool to meet the real needs of users.

"After the waves of the past few years, lbs application has been eliminated 90%, now the industry as a guide to the application of lbs gradually emerged," Sina wireless lbs platform Product director Miaolin said: "For example, search around the restaurant, preferential information, cinemas, etc., but the service has not been excavated a lot. ”

Miaolin the taxi industry For example, "I can shake the phone, share my position, the taxi driver knows my location to drive over, this is a very valuable service." ”

"Now many applications have 100,000 active users, combined with lbs, there may be 300,000 or 500,000 or even 1 million, now the income of hundreds of thousands of per day, combined with lbs, may have a very big impact on income." "He predicts that the 2012 lbs will be combined with more industry applications, not just for simple check-in but for a more in-depth business."

Miaolin revealed that Sina Weibo will soon be combined with its own advantages to launch the LBS open platform, the platform in addition to providing basic map services, will also be integrated into Sina Weibo, a large number of active users to create a variety of location-based content, with the interest map and social map of the two major features.