Mobile Internet becomes the darling of capital

Absrtact: This year, mobile Internet has become the darling of capital. In China's investment industry to raise, cast, retreat overall recession in the environment, mobile social, entertainment, E-commerce and other areas of competition has been extremely fierce. Capital appears more cautious. However, they have not weakened

This year, mobile Internet has become the darling of capital. In the Chinese investment industry "raise, investment, retreat" in the overall recession of the environment, mobile social, entertainment, E-commerce and other areas of competition has been extremely fierce. Capital appears more cautious. But instead of weakening their focus on the mobile internet, they are looking at some of the more cutting-edge areas where mobile online education is moving into the realm of capital. In mobile applications that are personalized and fragmented, can education occupy a niche and scale? This is a question worth discussing.

Mobile education first began in the field of early education, and gradually expanded to the field of adult education. In the first half of 2012, the main education field of social interaction, "chalk net" products have not yet been online has won the IDG million Yuan investment; Vipabc "won 15 million U.S. dollars to expand the Chinese market, to help recite the word" extension "to obtain the Xiaoping funds Angel investment. In the "cold winter" of capital, the enthusiasm of capital shows the potential of mobile application in education field fully.

Mobile education under the "era of fragmentation"

"Future use of fragmented time learning, situational and high real-time interactivity in mobile platforms will be the focus of this area." ”

Education industry is recognized as the "Money" field, the domestic authority of the investigation and statistics show that the national Family education services in consumer demand at least 100 billion yuan per year. Conco, marketing Director of the Chalk network, says the market opportunities for entrepreneurship in education are in two areas: first of all, education services are rigid demand, is an anti-economic cycle industry, not affected by the economic downturn, the more economic downturn, the education and training industry is more popular; second, this is a long tail market, the whole industry output value is very large, There is a great regional and expanding nature.

Theoretically, the huge user group and the stable expenditure make the education industry become a gold mine. However, in the field of education, the most successful listed are the traditional online education giants, such as the new Oriental, education, and so on, purely on-line Internet education companies rarely have success in capital markets.

VIPABC Group CEO Yang Zhengda said that the previous online education model is simply to the offline learning model of the curriculum, teaching materials on the Internet, to all learners have no difference in one-way cramming teaching, such services in the Internet is very easy to replicate, almost no threshold. This type of free service goes on and on, so it's hard for online education companies to build a stable profit model.

With the advent of mobile internet, capital began to put hope in mobile education. The first is the rapid popularization of intelligent mobile terminals, as at the end of 2011, China's smartphone holdings of 130 million, tablet computer (PAD) holdings of 30 million units. China Mobile will have over 520 million Internet users by the end of 2012, according to a report released by the research Center.

From the point of view of user demand and behavior pattern, the demand of vocational training is greatly increased, but the trend of time fragmentation is obvious. "The future of online learning on mobile platforms, the use of fragmented time learning, situational and high real-time interactivity will be the focus of this area of appeal." Yang Zhengda told reporters.

The application of mobile education to the traditional training and education industry a new development opportunities. Similar to the EF education training institutions, began to develop mobile application market into a new product output channel, extending the industry chain. "The innovation of future learning will be in the mobile arena," says Dr Enioohmaye, chief technology officer at EF Education. ”

Mobile education products are still in the groping period

Based on the social platform or a single application, the mode of extending service along the learning demand chain is the main product path.

At present, the domestic manufacturers of mobile education applications are divided into three categories. First, the original paper textbooks, the traditional publishers and educational content planning institutions of teaching and auxiliary products, such as the People's Teaching Society, the Institute of Foreign Affairs and so on, and the other is the enterprise, such as VIPABC Education Group, horn Education, the mobile Internet has created new opportunities for them to do educational training or children's education software development in PC. Third, some pure internet background of the team of engineers, they have the technical strength, but in the traditional education content development lack of experience, such as innovation Workshop investment in Le Dolphin technology and so on. Of course, there are a lot of individual developers who are weak.

From the view of product form, there appears the resource docking mode based on social platform, or the product path of the service which is extended along the learning demand chain with single application as the cut-in point.

To "chalk nets" as an example, provides an educational trainer and learner's online communication platform, the introduction of mobile clients, in a similar form of micro-bo, to do teachers and students exchange platform, "the future hope that students open mobile phone clients can find in the side of the teacher." Conco told reporters.

In fact, in the field of education, teacher resources in addition to the training of the school has been lack of real marketing channels, teaching level and style only by word-of-mouth dissemination, which caused the teacher and students information asymmetry. The purpose of the chalk net is to allow the teacher to be promoted, so that students can find their own satisfaction with the teacher. It is understood that the chalk online after the line to attract the postgraduate, examination of civil servants, the judicial examination, the test abroad, such as more than 50 subjects, including the new Oriental teachers even a group of famous.

From the perspective of the extension of the education and training of PC, the VIPABC mobility strategy is to extend the reality-based interactive teaching to the mobile terminal. Yang Zhengda introduces that one of the product strategies E in VIPABC on a mobile platform is to develop in the direction of fragmentation learning, and to separate and complement the scheduled, long time courses on the PC platform.

Traditional PC learning behavior in various stages, including "Preview" "Learning" "Practice" "review" and so on, there are corresponding mobile applications. A 10-minute session with a short period of time, personalized and situational content recommendations, embodies the mobility of "fragmented learning."

In addition, the development of a single application has attracted more and more individual developers and entrepreneurs to join, "cloud word" "extension word" "Hundred words chop", as well as "deep practice English" all from the English word learning to become the user's Auxiliary learning tool.

Profit puzzle

In the domestic market, users do not form a mature application download payment habits. Therefore, the development of educational content on the App Store does not make money.

Although the "mobile Internet ecology" is the future trend, but does not form, which has set a lot of obstacles and uncertainties for the development of current educational application products.

Yang Zhengda thinks, at present, the function of mobile application is only to fill the mainstream education vacancy, the user this kind of mobile platform usually do is to see lesson, not attend a class. And from the infrastructure, to achieve online mobile learning also need wireless bandwidth, timely interactive technology to improve.

Educational applications, while acquiring a large number of users on the App Store, are not many users who really want to pay. Especially in the domestic market, users do not form a mature application download payment habits. Therefore, the development of educational content on the App Store does not make money, which is a problem that puzzles all developers.

The scale is also a challenge, this kind of application although the user has the demand, but the education application is facing with the offline traditional education robs the user, with many online entertainment application clock's double challenge. Low awareness of innovation, once there is a popular application online, there will be a large number of later to imitate, the industry is the first product of the homogeneity of the problem. Homogenization leads to difficulty in scale and the life cycle of educational applications is very short.

Innovation Workshop investment manager Analysys bluntly, the current mobile education is still facing the problem of unclear patterns. Can not find a model to form a scale, you can not make money. and strong explosive force, high growth is the focus of investors. Another focus of attention in the field of mobile education is Team balance, background matching. Entrepreneurship in the field of education, the team must have a mobile internet people with education resources, people with educational resources also need to be a good product manager or research and development staff, which is actually a high threshold.

The mobile education market has not really formed

Education has always been a theoretical gold market, but over the years, online education lacks bright-eyed items, and gradually makes capital lose confidence. The advent of mobile internet brings new imaginary space for capital. Can the popularization of intelligent terminals bring about the subversion of the traditional education mode? How does capital view the "mobile" trend that the education industry is rising? An interview with Qiming venture partner Gan Jianping, China Business daily.

China Business newspaper: in the field of education, the application of children's education has gradually changed from blue Ocean to Red Sea. Innovation in education and training is also emerging, and how does the capital look to new opportunities in this market? What is the investment experience of Qiming venture in this area?

Gan Jianping: Education and training is certainly a very large market, in addition to exam-oriented education, plus some other small languages, as well as a variety of vocational training, covering a wide range of areas. With intelligent terminals, app apps can help you learn and have a great opportunity. But the key to see if the enterprise has its own unique place to meet the needs of users. The direction of innovation is to use the characteristics of the mobile phone, the current PC online education do a good or not much, with the mobile end will have a breakthrough, or to see how to do. In this field, we voted for a Taiwanese team VIPABC. They actually have a breakthrough in personal and situational teaching. Pay education to promote the teaching effect, cast this project is our education in the field of a very big attempt, hope to be bigger.

"China Business Daily": Internet online education has not been a very successful model or enterprise, for what reason?

Gan Jianping: Because the Internet users do not want to pay for the content, the company did not do enough innovation, the teacher wants to put offline education on the line, this is wrong. The users of educational products still have social needs and cannot be met online. There is no such atmosphere on the line, the most important thing is not a company to make a very innovative and suitable products.

China Business Daily: From the angle of investment value, what is the attitude of capital to mobile education?

Gan Jianping: In the field of traditional education, offline education has a large market, but also to create a lot of successful companies, but online education has been hundred defeats, there are few successful cases. Under such circumstances, we adopt a conservative investment strategy. Whether this market has yet to be observed, the development of these tools to enter the threshold is too low, for users may be dispensable things or gadgets, can not let users really get what they want and form stickiness. Such an uncertain market is unlikely to attract much investment.

At present, the market for mobile education is not really up, and no online education company has gained market profitability and scale. The emergence of so many entrepreneurs and app apps may be a flash in the pan, and there may be no pay for it, and the founders are prepared to fail.

Extension words: Rely on "small but fine" into the market

Anytime, anywhere online learning has actually happened in our lives: sitting on the subway, opening an English or other type of learning application can start a systematic study ...

Entrepreneurs have touched the needs of users, the problem is how to follow the user needs to guide the user needs. Extension of the word is the small and refined product line, from the intelligent algorithm to start, the passive auxiliary into an active guide, so that user activity and viscosity quickly improve.

Memory algorithm for mobile applications in English

"We worked part-time for the whole two years, only to start full-time in June 2011." "Shirtan admits that the initial choice of the entrepreneurial project did not attract VCs, the other two founders of a long time engaged in the e industry educators, as well as a middle school teacher, are also part-time.

From part-time to full-time is based on "believe that the Internet and mobile internet will change the traditional education industry, this change should ultimately be subversive, refactoring level." Shirtan said that if the development is smooth, the extension Word can give "the Internet changes Education" to explore a path, but this is still a ice.

Shirtan that words are the basis of a foreign language education, each foreign language learner, whether want to improve the level quickly, or to pass the exam, all need the word this karez.

In April 2011, Shirtan first made a web version of the extension, "from the beginning we have made up our mind to do mobile end, however, the core of the extension word is the memory algorithm, before the Web site optimization after the end of the move." Mobile end of the word online, in the app store price of 18 yuan. As a result, it soon became the first application of the domestic toll download for educational applications, which gave the extension the confidence to keep charging.

Shirtan revealed that at present, the extension of the word registered users more than 1 million, a hundred thousand of new users per month, 200,000 ~30 million activity, and the most exciting Shirtan is that each user in the extension of the word length reached 20 minutes, and there is a growing trend.

From "Single Application" to "Application cluster"

"Extension word pursuit of small and refined product ideas, users only need to open application learning." Extension words to do is to tell users how long each day to learn, what words to learn, each word when review. "Shirtan Introduction, extension words to make the back of the word to achieve simplicity, the front is simple behind the complexity of the background, extension words focused on the online memorizing the words of the Core memory algorithm development (to Ebbinghaus forgotten curve as the basis) and user experience optimization.

Intelligent guidance is based on the core competitiveness of the algorithm to establish the advantages, for example, ripe words passed the test automatically pass, new words automatically into the cyclic memory mode, reading dictation in several aspects of comprehensive training and automatic switching, to see or hear the word conditioned reflex-like correct recognition through the algorithm to achieve intelligent guidance.

Although this application uses a paid download mode, it still faces an unprofitable dilemma. Shirtan said that the current "extension word" of the user college students accounted for 70%, the rest is the work of the people. But the iphone version of the university accounted for a small proportion, in the current large environmental pay will not be strong, although the educational application of the willingness and ability to pay a bit better, but the monthly download income of tens of thousands of yuan, still can not balance 11 people's Team technology research and development, promotion of expenditure.

But the extension word is only one application, cannot form the explosive type, the scale growth.

In the business model exploration, Shirtan that the entire ecological environment has not formed before, the most influential is the application. Find the right product idea by developing an application. "At present we have found a clear product positioning, this is a slow field, we have a process of acceptance, back words are the basis for listening, training and reading are the needs of future users." Shirtan told the China Business newspaper.

Obviously, the "extension word" choice path is to start to test the market, market acceptance from a single application to upgrade platform application cluster, to achieve user diversion and scale effect. However, how the application cluster forms the brand effect, from the auxiliary tools to the gradual acquisition of user dependence to generate a continuous flow of cash is indeed such a practical problem to face.