Shang's Facebook

Source: Internet
Author: User
Keywords Facebook Tencent QQ product operations design Network

Maybe if you see me comparing Facebook with Tencent QQ I guess I'm going to get a scolding, but I want you to read my point, and my point is, why is Facebook not as mature as Tencent QQ in a business model that uses huge amounts of users to generate revenue?

At present, there are two types of business models. In the first category, such as Facebook, such as 360, such as QQ, the common feature of their quality inspection is that they are regarded as the most important or core part of the service or product, which is inherently difficult to generate revenue directly, And 360 of the revenue from the browser, games through the and navigation station , and Tencent's revenue from the online games, portals and wireless, if you want to ask QQ software itself directly to the Tencent brought how much revenue? I guess that's the client ad that's something that should be very small, so it can be ignored.

And through the core products or services to bring the user base and the degree of adhesion, through various means, can gradually guide the flow of traffic into the business of making money, and then through these businesses to create profits. QQ and 360 They are all doing this, and Microsoft's IE browser can also be regarded as the representative of this model, even including many people respected Linux, in a sense also.

The second category, such as Google, Baidu, such as search engines, their characteristics are, the main business is the source of income. Like Google itself, because the keyword advertising model exists, the search engine itself can generate revenue directly, it does not need to import search engine traffic to some other sites/services, you can make money. On the other hand, in the case of Google, the cost of achieving revenue is that the user (this time) leaves Google to go to an ad or link to a designated URL.

Are there nearly 1 billion users, whether Facebook is more business-worthy or Google's business worth more? Today, Google's revenue is far higher than FB, and why? Two key points: first, Google's users use the search engine with a clear appeal, The appeal is clear and easy to translate into business behavior, and Facebook's users are often hidden in their browsing of friends ' information, and need some way to emerge to be commercially available. Second, Google is not afraid of users leaving Google, and Facebook as a whole has been keeping users within their reach.

So you know, in fact, Facebook ads, not only now, but also for a long time, will not be able to surpass Google, this is not just the advertiser's cognitive level problem, which has a deeper meaning.

Let's say a simple example. 12 years ago, I was beginning to focus on the software QQ, which was plagued by business models. At that time, out of interest, I had conceived many different business models for this product, one of which was a keyword advertising system based on user chat content. Theoretically, if we have a way to analyze the user's chat content, through the selection of keywords targeted advertising, then the product should make a lot of money. What's the result? 12 years on, Tencent earns tens of billions of a year, how much is based on this model I said it?

Why does such a seemingly perfect model actually not make money? Three factors, the first is the technical constraints, at least in that year, the establishment of such a large content screening and matching system, Tencent is not easy, and there is no more explicit algorithm support, just because someone said " I use the notebook is Dell's "to show people The notebook ads, in fact, is not wise." The analysis and matching of user needs is beyond the time, even beyond the technical capabilities we can achieve today. The second is the privacy considerations, the user's chat content if it is used as advertising basis, that is disguised as the user said, I am watching your every move ... Obviously it's not a good idea. Third, the advertising content is the interruption of user social behavior, imagine a couple of unfamiliar men and women are talking about what the passionate topic, they are not the mood to pay attention to show the small ads next? In fact, they will be directly selective neglect.

This leads to a dilemma: in theory, a social/communication Web site should be much more knowledgeable about users than portals and search engines, but the reality is that when users are unwilling to offer or share their privacy, you are far less knowledgeable about them than anonymous search engines and news services ( Because channels and keywords will expose their real needs, but once you invade the privacy of these users, on the one hand you face serious privacy charges, on the other hand you will find that because users focus on specific people rather than abstract content, the effect of advertising is not as clear as the content of the site.

So we can see that in terms of revenue, Facebook's challenges are actually much bigger than they seem, and although he has a large oil field (user base and social connections), it can now only extract a fraction of its crude oil, sell it to refiners and make little money. To make a lot of money, either it can develop a technology that allows cars to run directly on crude oil (more accurate advertising mode), either by acquiring or building refineries and refining crude oil into advanced fuels in return for more revenue.

In this regard, we can simply compare Tencent QQ business chain is far more perfect than Facebook, whether it is a portal, games or wireless internet, Tencent is very effective to the IM users into the control of their own, lucrative direction, making money without losing control of the user.

Of course, many people will accuse QQ of not opening, and put Facebook's open platform strategy on the tip of the tongue. But is the open platform model really going to be the driving force behind Facebook's revenue? Let me give you a simple example, Apple's open market app STORE has an annual sales of $2 billion, of which the company receives 30%, or 600 million, a lot. But when we compare Apple's net profit for a quarter (note not a year) is 13 billion dollars, 600 million dollars is almost negligible. The real value of the App store is the sales boost to Iphone/ipad, not its own revenue! We can see that the open platform is a good strategy to maintain and expand the user base, but there is no evidence that it is a good business model.

Similarly, Facebook is paying developers 1.4 billion of dollars a year, which means its own direct income is just 600 million dollars. Plus advertising revenue, this total may be higher, but relative to its user base, this is really not a very beautiful performance.

So, make a bold prediction here: FB after the listing of revenue growth, will be lower than many people expect, the next 3-5 years, FB revenue and profits can not reach Google's level. The only possibility of breaking this prediction is that FB is starting to move into lucrative new business areas, such as Consumer-to-consumer, search engines and even game development (Zynga is not a good target if it doesn't take into account the superficial fairness). These derivative businesses will be the most important source of revenue for Facebook in the future.

Related Article

Contact Us

The content source of this page is from Internet, which doesn't represent Alibaba Cloud's opinion; products and services mentioned on that page don't have any relationship with Alibaba Cloud. If the content of the page makes you feel confusing, please write us an email, we will handle the problem within 5 days after receiving your email.

If you find any instances of plagiarism from the community, please send an email to: info-contact@alibabacloud.com and provide relevant evidence. A staff member will contact you within 5 working days.

A Free Trial That Lets You Build Big!

Start building with 50+ products and up to 12 months usage for Elastic Compute Service

  • Sales Support

    1 on 1 presale consultation

  • After-Sales Support

    24/7 Technical Support 6 Free Tickets per Quarter Faster Response

  • Alibaba Cloud offers highly flexible support services tailored to meet your exact needs.