Microblogging, group buying: The next two big internet bubbles

Intermediary transaction SEO diagnosis Taobao guest Cloud host technology Hall

In the second 10 years of the 21st century, the world of digital commerce in China is the most popular of e-commerce and social networks. In these two segments, group buying and Weibo attract the most attention, more often occupy the media layout. I think that group buying and Weibo are full of bubbles. The so-called bubble, one is not worthless, one of the social value is still very large; the second is not entirely without commercial value, but it is said that it is difficult to set up as an independent business;

Is it difficult to buy a separate business?

There's been a lot of negative news about Groupon, the originator of Groupon. First, a lengthy survey by a domestic media about Groupon's high-level organization in China revolves around the massive layoffs of senior friends. Then came the September 6 news that Groupon decided to suspend the IPO. Despite the analysis, Groupon, considering the overall performance of the securities market in the recent poor, do not want to sell at this time, but more discussion on the company's operating conditions in the end. The domestic group buying website, several months ago has heard the litters group launches the IPO but was rejected by several investment banks, recently has circulated the handle, the American regiment wants to go public. If this is not the handle, the United States and its own processing of public relations events, then this when the mouth to the listing also shows that the purchase of the site's capital chain stretched to the point of how tight.

Recently, I personally feel that the group purchase site advertising seems to be less, whether the building LCD screen or car ads. The massive layoffs of senior friends have been confirmed, but there are still a lot of layoffs and rumors that don't look like fake group buying sites. If it is only due to external circumstances or the reasons for its own tactical operation, it is still temporary. If the site itself is not an independent business, then the collapse of the group buying site, is inevitable.

Can group buying actually become an independent business? In fact, it is not so much an e-commerce, as it is an "advertising platform." and group purchase website cooperation business, nothing but for two purposes to go: promotion and sale.

In terms of promotions, a new brand, new product to quickly open the market, so that consumers experience and then become a recurring purchase of the old customers. In theory, the consumer experience should be good enough to make an attempt to become an old client. Therefore, the promotional activities should be the current loss, which also determines that any one business will not frequent promotions, a few times a year, is very good. Since it is fast to open the market, the important thing is "fast" two words. The entire advertising industry today is talking about "accurate delivery". Accurate delivery can reduce costs, avoid meaningless coverage, and speed fast enough to quickly get the attention of potential consumers. The general sense of the site, are horizontal site, not any "accurate", if you have to say precision, is to face a group of very sensitive to the price of consumers.

Look at the sale again. There are two kinds of sale, or tail goods, outdated goods, businesses in order to quickly withdraw funds, not fast enough to sell out, or can not be stored goods-such as the hotel industry to provide the goods "rooms", and the sale of goods can not be stored, the same pay attention to fast.

These two goals have a prerequisite-fast, and fast premise is accurate. But the group purchase site in addition to get a consumer's e-mail can be repeatedly pushed junk mail, there is nothing fast, accurate can say? Today's group buying sites, are relying on high advertising input to drive their own traffic, with huge but very rough traffic to form their own business value. This value, in the Web1.0 era and its significance, but today, the meaning will be less and less.

Buy this kind of business tool, will certainly continue to continue, because the merchant always has the demand of promotion and sale. But the realization of this demand, is to be calculated: In order to this demand, business cost geometry? The ambiguity of the audience group of group buying website makes these two requirements achieve higher cost. In this sense, businesses will be more willing to bias professional vertical-type site group purchase channels, such as the hotel industry, catering, automobile industry, now have this trend.

September 7, Yahoo CEO Bartz to step down. This Web1.0 era of giants level site, in search and social impact, struggling. Large-scale horizontal site is not no way out, provided that its users have enough knowledge. Single group purchase site, as an independent industry, only by advertising to drive a large flow of users know very little, is very few outlets.

What is the commercial value of Weibo?

Compared to group buying has spread a lot of negative information, micro-blogging is also a "flower kam, fire" trend, especially Sina Weibo as the representative, almost become a synonym for Sina rebirth. Therefore, more space is needed to discuss the future of Weibo.

The first thing to say is that services that are useful to the public will not necessarily become a big independent business, and the best example is email. Google's empire as an example, it can be said that the Gmail system is a city of the empire, without Gmail, there is a lack of users seamless access to Google services, and the lack of Google and the link between the user a pipe. But Gmail is not an independent business, and it is difficult to become the current state of the business. e-mail as the main source of revenue from the company is not no, but are not the so-called "big idea."

Domestic micro-blog, the most successful when Sina Weibo, the only one can and it is a relatively short and long is Tencent (in fact, is nothing more than the number of users on the quantity, quality or can not be compared). But Tencent's investment in micro-blogging is not big, its current focus on the electronic business sector and open platforms, and even online video may actually be more attention than Weibo. I have always believed that Tencent Weibo is a defensive strategy, as much as it does not allow Sina Weibo to draw on the user's adherence and attention to the past.

Sina before Mbo is a "unowned" digital company, income, never more than two other major portals Sohu and NetEase, Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent is farther. In fact, Sina Portal display ads have encountered a strong challenge from the search domain keyword ADS-and the latter, not like the display of advertising market as the competition, but Baidu is a single big.

For Sina, a stale income model with a huge reliance (and only the digital companies that rely on display ads over 80%) is fraught with crisis. Cao Chao led the management of MBO, it is bound to the Jedi counterattack, a change of reputation and income does not match the situation.

Sina selected Weibo. It has been two years since August 2009. Weibo has almost brought a second life to Sina, and its share price has soared more than the hundred dollar mark. But if we take a closer look at the business model, Sina has not made a major breakthrough because of Sina Weibo. Several quarters of earnings show: Sina's overall income has not increased significantly, Sina for the existing display-type advertising dependence is still very heavy. The fundamental point is that Weibo is actually a social media, not a network.

The competition for Facebook and Twitter in overseas markets can also be described as one or two. The former is nearly 10 times times more expensive than the latter, and the latter is constantly looking for a reliable business model, even if the former is already profitable. In fact, two companies are advertising business, why does Facebook have to do Twitter? The reason is that audiences can subdivide. #p # subtitle #e#

On Twitter, few people describe themselves in detail, but on Facebook, the same user may have written out where he or she graduated from high school. The more detailed the user's information, the better the segmentation, the more the advertisers can save the promotional costs. For example, if an advertiser wants to find a man who is not less than 30 years old at a certain university level, Facebook can be easily satisfied, but Twitter is hard. This is the commercial nature of social networking and social media.

Sina Weibo faces the same embarrassing, or even more, Twitter. Sina Weibo was made up of celebrity (which is very different from Twitter), creating a "Look up culture" that commentators have said: people are chasing stars. Since it is chasing stars, what is the need to account for their own information? So, Sina Weibo, in addition to the V-word certification users, a large number of grassroots users, it is simply unable to sorting, and can not meet the advertising business Segmentation precision delivery requirements.

From the point of view of the flow, Sina is actually no more than Sohu, NetEase poor how much, to such a level of traffic, can make more than the other two high advertising revenue, Sina's sales team efficiency is high, is the industry's legendary. Sina Weibo once again brought to Sina is that it does not lack of traffic, but did not bring the most important thing to Sina-user segmentation.

The way out of Sina Weibo is three: one, to become an import service, through which the Internet users can then complete other Web services, acquiring the value of the portal (that is, splitting into other services); second, the transition to social networks, as advertisers like to be able to accurately launch advertising platform, third, as a pass service.

Let's look at the first possibility. In fact, the habits of netizens are very difficult to change. Refer to E-commerce, they or run Taobao or go to Beijing East, when, excellence can be as a choice, why first on Sina Weibo? And for the electric business, Taobao, Beijing and the east of the electric platform more easily attracted to the real sense of the consumer, rather than run to see gossip about the various events of the crowd, the conversion rate is clearly higher. So what about the game? Tencent is eyeing it, and mobile platforms like the ipad and Android make it easier to take advantage of the user's fragmentation time. From this point of view, netizens so-called "have a micro-bo do not have to see the portal" is the biggest tragedy of Weibo: For a long time, but to see the news on Sina, changed to see the news Sina Weibo-or watch the news.

Sina Weibo recently has a few very hot games, such as "micro-city." I have a general look at the charts in this game. The three biggest rankings (the richest, most prosperous, happiest) have almost no V-word users. And who is the root of the user's Plate? Sina Weibo and micro-currency with the Tencent game, Q-Currency competition, playing routines are people who play ripe to the acme of excellence, I can not be optimistic about it.

The second possibility is to turn into social networks, allowing users to surrender their attributes, features, and descriptions. Why should I be so careful when I run to see the news? Without these descriptions, social networks as a business cannot be established, and segmented advertising is simply impossible to talk about. What's more, Sina is a network media company, the enterprise gene determines it can not be made into a social network.

Microblogging of the popular, the most easy to create the illusion is that so many enterprises are using micro-blog to do marketing, microblogging how can there be no commercial value? In fact, this statement is not tenable, how many enterprises today do not use e-mail? How does email become an independent business?

The last possibility-pass service, become the identity of various services, or the whole network of services, which means that micro-blog to become OpenID, this is impossible to achieve, or Sina has a lot of basic services, similar to Google's technical strength, Sina is not afraid of the force. In fact, even now, Sina faces enormous pressure. Tencent controls the Discuz, Alibaba control Phpwind, the two almost covered all China's BBS, plus the Chinese netizens have reached the point of close to a QQ number, want to do pass, is not so easy.

In fact, group buy and micro Bo are peremptorily heap of traffic but can not complete the user breakdown of the network services. Group purchase station traffic is by intensive advertising into the rush out, and Micro Bo, the original cost is not high, but in view of China's actual conditions, operation and maintenance of the cost of supervision is absolutely not low. Sina's operating expenses rose 24% in the first quarter from a year earlier, to $41.8 million trillion, which Sina explained as human and microblog marketing spending. Rumours abound that the entire content-monitoring Team has broken through thousands of people. Their future path will be extremely difficult.