Sina Weibo misses the most suitable commercial year

In the first 3 days of New Year's Day of 2013, CEO Charles Chao sent Sina's 5,000 employees such an e-mail, Chao said in the mail, Sina has just carried out "for the first time in years according to the needs of the strategic development of the restructuring."

The new structure will be Sina split into a portal and micro-bo these two plates, the portal by Sina COO, Sales Vice President du is responsible for, and micro-blog by Cao Chao personally responsible, micro-BO Business General Manager is responsible for micro-Bo Wireless products vice President Wang Gaofei. Peng Shaobin, general manager of the original microblogging division, is responsible for the new "Product Innovation Department", which is responsible for the incubation of innovative product projects. According to Sina related news know, this is only a sympathizers, the so-called "innovative products" is already unpopular blog, light blog, such as Sina old products.

But the adjustment has gone well beyond the personal ups and downs of senior executives such as Peng Shaobin. "You can see this adjustment as the old Sina back to the micro-blogging business." Sina Weibo product manager Zhang An said that this shows that Weibo will replace the portal as the future of Sina's most important business sector. Dongxu, senior analyst at Analysys, agrees: "It looks like Sina is going to gamble on Twitter." ”

A 1.3 billion-person topic of products, for Sina, this should be an inexhaustible gold mine. But this business, which consumes hundreds of billions of dollars a year, has not yet brought profits to shareholders. In the past, the external analysis of the commercialization of Sina Weibo, mostly on products to talk about products, and its internal became a black box, very few people a glimpse of exactly.

Now, here's the chance.

Almost all of the Sina insiders we interviewed believe that it is Sina's corporate genes that determine the commercialization dilemma of microblogs. Open the "black box", we found that the microblogging division, the structure of frequent restructuring.

Asked if he was uncomfortable with the new architecture, Wang Yu, the product director of Sina Weibo, looked indifferent and "used to it". In the past 4 years, Sina Weibo has not been too long in the course of development, has undergone numerous structural adjustments, "every adjustment of the structure, in fact, is the result of factional struggle."

The faction in Sina is almost not a secret, not only our interview object to the various factions of the internal familiar, many media reports also pointed out that Sina is divided into "Four, North America, Taiwan, veteran" and other factions. "' in 3-month-A-minor, 5-month-a-major ', you can also see this adjustment as the end of another factional struggle," said an executive at Sina Weibo, which is the object of a scramble within the company.

By the end of last year, Sina Weibo had registered nearly 400 million subscribers, becoming a social network or a new media platform that no one could ignore, with about 260,000 companies opening official micro-blogs and more than 60,000 government Weibo.

The rapid development of the momentum has made Sina's share price from 30 dollars all the way up to hundred yuan, the corresponding market value exceeded 6 billion U.S. dollars. Many people even regard Sina Weibo as a twitter+facebook, because it has the media and social properties. The former 2012-year revenue reached 260 million U.S. dollars, the latter when the market has created hundreds of billions of dollars in market value.

According to the timetable announced by Cao Chao, micro-blogging will accelerate commercialization in the second half of 2012. April 2012, Sina launched a micro-blog advertising quotes, detailed listing of various advertising price, some people according to the advertising quotation to calculate, if all advertising can sell light, the monthly advertising revenue is expected to be Sina Weibo up to 170 million yuan.

The results were disappointing. In the third quarter of 2012, Sina Weibo advertising revenue of about 20 million U.S. dollars in Sina's total advertising revenue accounted for less than 20%. And most of them are launched by old customers of portal advertising, "80% of which comes from the packaging of portal ads." "Zhang An said.

Sina Weibo employees are more concerned about whether the CEO's personal command can end the previous factional battles, or "The end of a struggle is also the beginning of another struggle"?

No one can get rid of the influence of "architecture adjustment". "This month with this boss, next month for the boss, I did not finish the work or not to do?" many times the product will be chopped or reversed by the new leader. "said one technician.

These executives also have such doubts, but are still happy, "before the infighting brought about by the strong, organizational structure change, all the process must change." Now that the company is stable, I can do more long-term work planning. "he said.

"How long does it last?"

"Well, six months." ”

The paradox of the 2011

Chao's mail, did not explain the reasons for the Peng Shaobin. But most of the rumors about his departure point to the commercial plight of microblogs. As the head of the microblog division, theoretically, he should pay for the success of the product.

But "financial world" Weekly interview a number of Sina Weibo insiders found that Peng as early as the end of 2011 has obviously been out of business.

According to Wang Yu recalls, at the end of 2011, Sina to the micro-blog management to adjust: Technology from last year to move to Sina Weibo "Baidu Department" one of the senior executives Liu is responsible for, media operations were handed to Sina vice President, editor-in-chief Chen. In Wang Yu's view, Peng Shaobin has been largely elevated.

Peng Shaobin is said to have been increasingly low-key in the company since the beginning of 2012.

"He seems to have had a lot of aging," Zhang An said, before Peng Shaobin spoke, everyone in the office could feel his gas field, but last year Peng even spoke at a meeting in the Conference room, "I suddenly found that he was so small." ”

At the beginning of the 2011 years of a year ago, Peng Shaobin's popularity in Sina was still at a whim.

In the first quarter of 2011, Sina announced that its microblog subscribers were over 140 million. Spurred by the microblogging business, Sina's share price rose from the beginning of 2011 to 133 dollars, or nearly 90%, by April. Chao said that in order to better operate the microblog, 2011 will increase investment of 100 million U.S. dollars, while the micro-blogging department's staff size is expected to expand from 600 to 1200 people.

According to Zhang An recalls, at that time, Chao in order to express the support of micro-Bo, had openly told Peng Shaobin, Sina as long as you think useful people, you take.

The Peng Shaobin gas field is also unusually powerful, not only for VIPs from other departments, but for suppressing other executives at meetings. Inside the team, he also behaved exceptionally strong, Zhang An recalled that at that time, a management team party, we are wine huan, he suddenly received a message, found that the friend to him to complain about the issue of micro-bo, immediately let the person in charge back to solve, there is no room for negotiation.

Just one year in 2011, Peng Shaobin's career has slipped from peak to bottom, like a roller coaster.

What happened this year?

Sina Weibo's 2011 public mission was this: Chao has repeatedly said in public that Weibo is not in a hurry to commercialize, and that the most important thing is to improve the number of users and the user experience.

Many lamented that Sina had missed a good opportunity for the user experience – starting commercial operations in 2011, when Sina Weibo was at its best, was far more appropriate than in the second half of 2012.

The weight of Weibo in most Chinese netizens ' lives is no longer as essential as the previous two years. In the week from December 1, 2012 to December 8, Sina Weibo's daily average user visit was about 15 million, and the daily activity has dropped to around 4%, according to the data from Eric's consulting, which was 9% in the first quarter of Sina's earnings last year.

Sina really sacrificed the opportunity for commercialization to be active? The fact is not as idealistic as Charles Chao described.

Sina's board of directors made it clear at the end of 2010 that Peng Shaobin's mission was to split the microblog and to go public in 2012, with a plan to raise capital at around 300 million dollars, according to Sina insiders. At the end of 2010, after the establishment of the listing target, Sina Weibo officially enabled the new domain name (weibo.com), logo logo. In addition, in the domestic daily newspaper, evening paper and other graphic media to enlarge the advertising momentum.

In other words, the 2011 Peng Shaobin won the full Sina resources to support the implicit premise that the commercialization must be greatly advanced. Indeed, Sina Weibo did a good job of making technical preparations for commercialization this year-building a user information classification system.

User information classification, is to each person's microblog account with the corresponding label, including the person interested in things, people, and then according to the label classification, and determine the different categories of weights and so on. This system is the basis of intelligent sequencing, information flow advertising and other commercial products. The September 2012 fan headline was built on the basis of a product that ensures that micro-blogging from corporate officials can appear on the first page of the fan homepage and ensure that its information is not submerged.

Zhang An that the fan headlines and self-service advertising system could have been online by 2011. But the fact is that Sina Weibo has almost no killer commercial product this year.

Why Sina missed a year? The answer to this question is very complex, and one obvious main reason is to accept the a number of Sina people interviewed by the financial World magazine pointed out that within Sina Weibo, the contradictions between Peng Shaobin and Wang Gaofei and du were open secrets--and that the commercialization of microblogs would have required close cooperation between the three parties.

Sina Weibo development in the first two years, responsible for Sina's overall business du to micro-blog very little interference. Since 2011, Weibo's money-making plan to put on the agenda, Pendu two people's intersection suddenly increased.

The two men's infighting not only performance in the meeting diverging, both sides also poach, from each other's department rob People. Because the sales department needs technical staff to develop products for customers, when du began to layout microblogging commercialization, need to understand micro-blogging business technicians.

This is very rare within Sina, in any company, all departments will fully support the front-line management team-at least on the surface.

Wang Gaofei and Peng Shaobin also have business disputes. Previously, Wang Gaofei is responsible for the wireless product of Sina Weibo, Peng Shaobin is responsible for the PC side product of Sina Weibo. This fragmented architecture is thought to be prone to internal friction, indeed, because of the bottom of the micro-Bo architecture on the PC side, Wang Gaofei development of the product requires PC-side data support, "Peng Shaobin sometimes do not give or excuse delay."

However, several interviewees agreed that the Peng Shaobin should not be overemphasized. It can be said that his greatest fault is "the sin of the two," everyone wants to grab more control, which is not only about everyone's performance, but also benefits.

Eventually Peng Shaobin failed to settle all the relationships and keep his place.

The root of Chaos

In this process, Peng Shaobin's style of acting is also considered flawed. Peng is accustomed to the report of subordinates to understand business progress. He asked the management to write daily and weekly reports, and later the microblog division became more and more numerous, sometimes printed to Peng Shaobin's daily or weekly newspaper, "A pile of hills is so high".

Also, he prefers text to data, requiring work reports to be Word files, never looking at Excel forms, forms that must be sent to him, and only in Word documents.

Zhang An joked that he was most appreciative of writing good people, "Peng Shaobin never ask what you did, do well, he just what you write, write well."

In contrast, the replacement of Peng Shaobin's Wang Gaofei in the company more with the performance, the wireless business department is also more active than the micro-blog Business Department atmosphere.

Most people think that Wang Gaofei also know more about products than Peng Shaobin.

In Zhang An's view, Sina Weibo's top level has little to do with product origin, and technology-born Wang Gaofei is the only one close to the microblogging line of business.

"You can compare their micro-blogging, Peng Shaobin One months only a few, Wang Gaofei a day to send out his annual amount, can be used to test a lot of micro-BO products in the problem." "he said.

Moreover, Wang Gaofei has worked in Sina for 12 years, from the engineer step by step to do vice president, for the internal complex relationship to understand more thoroughly, "Wang Gaofei than Peng Shaobin more understand Sina." "Zhang An said.

But in Dongxu's view, the slow commercialization of Sina Weibo is unlikely to be immediate as a result of personnel adjustments.

Behind the commercial dilemma is Sina "backward" management structure--such as Sina will be sales and operation of a clear separation of the horizontal operating structure in the Internet industry has been relatively rare, more large companies using Tencent-style business unit system, "that is, each division's management team has its own business operations and operating rights." "Dongxu said.

In her opinion, the Sina traditional horizontal operation structure not only causes the operation right and the management rights to be fragmented, but each product's project, the on-line necessity needs the different departments discussion, the game, will certainly affect the efficiency.

In the game of multiple departments, most products are the result of compromise. And it's not easy to find someone to blame for the outcome.

Dongxu has been specially combed Sina Weibo these years of products, including micro-currency, micro-gaming platform, Enterprise version of Weibo, close friends, hotel management, is countless. It seems to her that there is little that really fits the needs of advertisers.

To find out why, Dongxu to Peng Shaobin and a number of product managers to consult. After a round of interviews, she finally came to the conclusion: the internal product set up a lot of games, not from the advertisers demand.

One Sina Weibo technician also recognised Dongxu's view. He said that although the product project has a special process, but it is difficult to really implement. The actual situation is very confusing, some product project product Manager can decide, some director is the boss, some Peng Shaobin, some call the shots.

Sina Weibo in the 2010 years, 2011, many product managers even when a product is offline for the first time to hear the name, "' Micro-girl ' I was in the offline when I heard, do not know what is the product." "Zhang An said.

Wang Yu, who was surprised by the "hotel housekeeper" product, asked the person in charge of the project, "Do you go on business on your own, instead of Ctrip, or where you're going, but on Weibo?"

"The commercialization of microblogging products is only a strategy, no strategy, are each other, there is no integration of products." "Wang Yu said.

Peng Shaobin had a chance to break the situation. Sina Weibo, a management staff, said that in 2011, Sina Weibo in the development of user information classification system, but also launched a self-service advertising system research and development. The ad system was Peng Shaobin responsible for initiating and starting the project, but it was finally transferred to du a few months later.

In any case, in the end, Sina Weibo launched in 2012, the product is very small, can be remembered by outsiders, only micro-interviews, fan headlines and a few. Coca-Cola Interactive marketing director Chenhui told Caijing World Weekly, and Tencent's packaging resources compared to Sina's products are too single.

This sounds ironic, in fact, Sina Weibo launched the product is not "single", but more than experts and their own staff are difficult to do. But most of these products have not really played a role.

Despite the recent staffing changes, there is no possibility of change, and what's worse is that the company has no real core. Sina is China's only founder has left the big Internet company, Tencent has Ma can finally make the final decision, Baidu has Robin Li sit in the array.

At present, the CEO Cao Chao as the representative of the management of the holding of Sina shares only 4.8%. As a professional manager, the first priority of Sina CEO is to balance the internal interests. Some people think that "if Zhidong is still in the company, Sina will not be the way it is."

Dongxu thinks, "Today we go to say that Sina should do a certain product or how commercialized, the significance is not big." Because many of the constraints come from corporate genes, it's hard to change. ”

Shareholders and markets are still looking forward to the next stage of commercialization. But it should not be much changed in the short term, as the new management's first job is to straighten out the internal structure. The new Sina Weibo management architecture, PC-side and wireless-side integration together, Wang Gaofei face mostly unfamiliar new subordinates, he is taking turns to ask the heads of the various business teams to eat.

At the same time, some people have begun to worry about the fate of this product. 2013 is Sina Weibo online 4 anniversary, in the cooler than the CEO Zigang, it will be a "robbery point."

Long-term attention to Sina's Zigang found a rule that Sina's social product life is only 4 years. Therefore, Sina also every 4 years to launch a new product: from chat rooms, forums, Sina Blog, to 2009 on the line Sina Weibo is so.

"Weibo is less than a year away from this curse, and I don't know if it's a decent product." "Zigang said.

Most people are not so pessimistic, they think, Sina Weibo is not a pure social tool, strong media attributes so that it can continue to survive. Only the user has the mass of debris information produced aesthetic fatigue, in the absence of hot event pull, the active degree will remain at the existing level, it is impossible to return to 2010 years of madness.

2013, the commercialization of the Lost

The commercialization of a fully-accelerated microblog is far from winning advertisers ' favor

Into the 2013, up to Cao Chao, down to the basic staff, everyone can feel the pressure of commercialization, "everyone in the operating department in 2013 all the assessment index doubled."

Advertisers can also feel the changes in the Sina Weibo operations team in the second half of 2012.

Liu, director of public relations at Millet company, recalls that last November, Sina Weibo initiative to find to come, put forward to cooperate at the end of a "first single social network shopping program", that is, millet company to provide 50,000 sets of Millet 2 mobile phone in Sina Weibo pre-sale, one months thereafter, after the two sides met several times, finally set the program of activities.

December 12, 2012, the pre-sale effect is good, only 5 minutes 14 seconds, 50,000 sets of millet 2 was snapped. Liu thinks, for millet This result is expected, "the biggest beneficiary of this activity is the partner Sina Weibo".

The partnership failed to bring direct revenue to Sina, but the more than 1.3 million Weibo users registered their microblog wallet, which most people had never heard of before, and Sina Weibo also took the opportunity to try out a social network of electric business.

361° Marketing Center Director Zhao and Coca-Cola Interactive marketing director Chenhui both feel that Sina Weibo's service quality has improved, in their view, the previous microblogging service is not good, give them "official standard" feeling. Chenhui is busy dealing with micro-blogging crisis PR before New Year's Day, when the online rumors Coca-Cola products contain pesticides, she daily with Weibo new staff contact, communication. Compared with many Sina employees who have worked together before, this time she feels very satisfied, "Sometimes, I will receive his work mail at 11 o'clock."

At the same time, Sina Weibo has launched a number of commercial products. September 2012, Sina Weibo's first information flow advertising fan headlines online. According to Zhang An Introduction, information flow ads are actually similar to Baidu's search page promotion, is according to the user's information classification to recommend ads, fan headlines can be said to be one of the simplest logic.

Ayyong, general manager of Sina Business Operation Planning, said that information flow advertising would become one of the important ways of Sina Weibo's transformation in the 2013. Before New Year's Day, Sina Weibo also launched a information flow of advertising applications, in the user's home microblog with a few recommendations related to their interest map recommendations.

This form further weakens the commercial flavour of the recommended microblog, compared to the headline of the fans, "It's hard to find out the advertising trail if it's not professional."

Ayyong revealed that this year Weibo will have a number of information flow advertising products launched. He believes that, backed by large data microblogging marketing, as a platform to build the party Sina than any third party has the advantage and ability to do well.

In addition, Chao pointed out that the small and medium-sized enterprises to launch their own advertising system will also be online in the first quarter of this year. According to Ayyong, whether it is a company or a person can automatically sell ads through this system, "this is a self-regulation of the advertising price system, and today's display ads are very different." When this system is launched, all advertising resources on Weibo can be sold automatically. ”

At the end of the year, the company is working on the Advertising procurement plan for the enterprise on Sina Weibo's attitude is different, a number of executives said they will wait to change, not listed as next year's procurement plan.

Chenhui that as the largest social media in the country, Coca-Cola will not despise the advertising platform Sina Weibo, but at the same time will not rashly investment, "The new media variables too much, if the micro-bo halfway out a good product, we will not buy." Now it seems that the next year in the micro-blog launch or activity-oriented. "The commercialization of Sina Weibo is a new noodle shop on the doorstep of the company, and I will not immediately decide to go there to eat, which is the same truth," Chenhui explains. ”

"Not to mention Sina Weibo's advertising offer is not cheap. "she added.

Two months before the fan headline, BMW China was invited to participate in the beta. BMW China Marketing Manager Qian has a deeper understanding of the product, she is not optimistic about the advertising model, "Smart users will soon find that this is the reality of advertising, slowly bored up, and then may remove the attention to the official micro."

For Sina, which has the same high hopes for search and mobile advertising, almost everyone thinks it is impossible to bring too much revenue in the short term.

Although Sina announced "move first" of the 2013-year core strategy, but dongxu that: "Now do not have too much expectation of wireless, Wang Gaofei can control the flow of wireless more stable is very good." Wireless is difficult to make money in a year or two, the main purpose is to survive first. ”

and microblogging search innate limitations, most people use search engines more accustomed to using Baidu rather than micro-blog search, can only look forward to the future with the electricity business platform, such as integration can bring income.

Meanwhile, Sina Weibo has begun to compress costs.

In the memory of Wang Yu, since the second half of 2012, the company began to have a hard time, but he did not expect to be preoccupied with this point: a few days ago, a few friends to his office to visit, he immediately applied to use the conference room, and to fetch a paper cup, unexpectedly was told that the paper cups must be registered, The administration department wants to count everyone's use, and he angrily thinks, if the paper cups are used more, will they deduct money from their own wages?