Products for the King

Some people ask "what are the companies that have a product in China?" "This problem to enlarge to talk about, that is the product of the core competitiveness of the internet have companies?" The problem is very sharp, because there are not many "internet" companies that have your product as the core competence, which is the root of many of the company's product managers who feel that their work is difficult. Bad answer, only through the fact that a few one-sided conclusions:

Popular understanding, not products as the core competitiveness of the Internet companies, do products very passive. A product is often a support department that supports operations and supports sales. Products are often "fire brigade" role, never have time to comb and plan, no resources to seriously do things, do out of the product also fragmented without a sense of achievement. And in the product as the core competitiveness of the company, the product department can independently project innovation, can control the rhythm of the product and have enough discourse power. There is no doubt that the product department has a good position, the Product department position is also compared with the former (money) path.

To the old Internet companies for example, the three portals-Sina, Sohu, NetEase staged the "Three Kingdoms." From their earnings data can be seen, Sina's main income from advertising, NetEase's main income from the game, Sohu's main income from advertising and games. Their three-bit characteristics, product homogeneity of the serious, and also do not rely on "Internet products" to make money. No wonder some people jokingly Sina is a media company, NetEase is a game company, revenue structure reflects the objective facts.

Chinese internet site for a long time, the only way to earn money is to gather popularity to sell ads, simple and direct. But even with a good advertising revenue, I think with the "product" also has nothing to do, but the strong influence of the introduction of advertising resources. After the money has also tried to do a lot of products, can continue to operate a few. Fine count so many years on the Internet product form, in addition to the regular mailboxes, albums, network maps, social networks, blogs, micro-blog, as if not too much innovation, and most of the copy. Since not much innovation, and homogeneity and so serious (can copy each other), doomed product design will not have too much difficulty. The most critical issues, in the company's attention and poor treatment, leading to practitioners will not be too high enterprise.

In the process of development, Sina has "blog" and "Micro-blog" two representative products very successful, but I do not think they design itself much good, the key is that these two products very fit Sina "do media" positioning. and Sina provided sufficient operational resources (core department) to support, although as always did not find a profit point, but indirectly consolidate the status of SINA's mass media. And I believe that if Sohu, NetEase before Sina do, will not get the results of Sina now. NetEase Compare lets the colleague impressive is "the mailbox" the product, once invested a lot of resources to do, also once in the market smile arrogant lake. But Gmail turned out to allow users to improve the taste of the mailbox to a level (Gmail's product design to Google's technical strength to play to the extreme), coupled with the qqmail response to the pursuit of a strong, quickly rewritten the market pattern. According to my analysis of the meaning of personal account, I think the losing of NetEase mailbox has been decided. Fundamentally speaking, is not NetEase mailbox product design lost to QQ mailbox, but Chinese users really inseparable from QQ, Tencent won in the Product Architecture system (1+1>2 effect). Sohu influence biggest product should still be "Chinaren alumni", haven't cared for a long time, do not say this.

Look at the young Internet enterprises, the three big giants-Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu staged "new Three Kingdoms." From their earnings data can be seen, Baidu's main revenue from the "bid ranking", Alibaba's main income from "good faith" and "Chinese suppliers", Tencent revenue mainly from "Internet value-added services" and "mobile and telecommunications value-added services." Their three-bit characteristics, the product is heterogeneous competition, and completely rely on "Internet products" to make money. Cater to the needs of the user is typical enough to cover the entire network of users to ensure the growth of space.

Which Alibaba and Baidu do similar things, to help businesses do marketing to make money, the difference is that Baidu is good at technology (a single model), Alibaba more good at products (mode of diversity). Baidu is relatively special, but also in the course of the products to attract netizens, such as bar, know that two products for today's status of the river is a contribution. Alibaba later split out Taobao, Alipay two-bit junior, also have their own independent product system, and form a set of mutual backing and support of the product group, firmly control the lifeblood of E-commerce.

Tencent is all the product line, the development of these years can not be underestimated, the use of a huge user base to do a little "micro-pay" on a lot of money. The qqmail mentioned above is only a very small example, playing "Made in QQ" trademark free and excellent products, the Chinese users have irresistible temptation. Not long ago, "computer World" explicit gripping wen "Dog Day" Tencent Sword refers to Tencent "has been in the cottage, has never been prosecuted." Seriously hit the entrepreneurial enthusiasm for innovation, I think Tencent sometimes too much point, but for the homogeneity of the conventional products, a highly centralized personal data storage can give users a better user experience, because there is no need to cross the platform, but also to avoid becoming a victim of the company's enclosure, I think it is not to change the "user experience Rules。

I am more optimistic about Alibaba and Tencent two boss, they have the healthiest Internet products "value-added services" ecological environment. On the strategic, Alibaba positioning in the "consumption" route, Tencent positioning in the "leisure" route, directly to the users of the rigid needs of the segmentation. But these two companies also need to innovate countless products to build their own product system, in fact, we all see that the current domestic best Internet products practitioners of youth groups, most of them in Alibaba and Tencent two companies (their professional product design team is currently the best), Rivers and lakes are just these two companies in crazy digging people to do talent reserves.

By the way, entrepreneurship is based on creative mode as the core platform to promote the model to produce value. I think the most typical and successful product is watercress, slowly grow, realize the user and product tightly tied together. Although such a product model does not directly earn money, but created a high social value, business value followed. The key point, Tencent did not imitate watercress, I would prefer to think that Tencent's own assessment that-there are higher barriers to imitation. Compared to those who rely on copy mode, plagiarism creative so-called grassroots entrepreneurs, I think that the innovation of watercress is healthy and upward, worthy of the exemplary, but also worthy of entrepreneurs to think.

Many products that are not the core competitiveness of products, the operation into the right track, the product itself to do is not the most important, the key is there is no resources to continue to support such a model. For example, the recent hot "buy", I understand that E-commerce is one of the models, this business I think the key in the operational capacity of the channel it? Enough to attract users of goods and prices is the king. The threshold for designing this type of product is low and there is no point in the "product" perspective.

After the above elaboration, I hope that the product practitioners understand the various types of companies to create value. In different attributes of the company, there must be a core department to control the strong resources, which is doomed by the company tradition. Because in business rules, the only criterion for measuring the quality of a product is whether it earns money.

As the Internet product designer who keeps the principles of innovation, I have been persistent in the innovation of products and the landing of traditional industry model in the Internet. I think that only by doing this kind of work, the product design has the challenge, moreover is the meaningful "makes the product".

Source Address: http://blog.rexsong.com/?p=11246