Sogou map Xiangxi to: Mobile end differentiation strategy focus on "travel"

"TechWeb Report" December 26 news, Sogou Map Division general Manager Xiangxi to be able to say is the field of Internet map veteran. 1999, Kong Xianglai from the Chinese Academy of Sciences come out, add Sogou map of the predecessor of the world, from a developer of map products to grow into a user ranked top five map products leader, 13 experience and rich user experience research enough to make him on the Internet map products have a profound understanding. Nevertheless, facing the rapid development of mobile Internet to bring the opportunity and challenge of map products, Kong Xianglai said Sogou map is still in the exploration of the forward.

Focus on "travel" to do product segmentation

For the whole market, the moving end of the map products are basically in the horse racing stage. Different from the homogeneous competition of PC Internet Map Service, mobile map services have more imagination space, the map service providers mobile end of the choice of map products are very different, there are Baidu lbs Division for the representative to do the platform, but also want to make the map into the flow of the entrance, everything is in the exploratory stage.

As with many successful products on the PC side, the Sogou map has also gone through a detour in the early stages of mobility.

Sogou map from 2010 into the mobile Internet, initially at the mobile end also only Sogou map a product, covering iOS and Android two platforms. Like on the PC end, the mobile end of the Sogou map is also to do addition, the product team tried to constantly add new features to the product, let it become more and more strong, rely on a product to conquer. "But after a while, we found it was not right," Kong Xianglai recalls, "the mobile end cannot support too heavy a product, we decided to adjust the idea, the moving end of the product to do as light as possible." ”

In the first half of this year, Sogou map adjusted the mobile Internet strategy, and finally determined to serve "travel" as a mobile internet to cut the diversification of the product strategy.

For why choose to "travel" as a focus of the entry point, Kong Xianglai that on the one hand, this is Sogou map differentiation positioning; On the other hand, in the map itself, "travel" and map of the most natural relationship, users to solve travel problems, the most natural will think of map applications, This nature of the product to eliminate the cost of educating users.

"We are relatively conservative, Sogou found that the most visible map of the concept of travel." So we in the second half of this year around the trip did a lot of product segmentation "Xiangxi."

Recently, Sogou Map released two mobile end application, Sogou Road navigation and Sogou bus, around travel needs to do a further subdivision. In Kong Xianglai view, navigation and public transport face two types of user groups, overlap is very small, after the separation can be for different users to do more in-depth demand mining.

According to Kong Xianglai, the current Sogou road traffic navigation app for the iOS version, Sogou Bus app for Android version, is expected to be the first quarter of next year two products will achieve iOS and Android dual platform coverage. Sogou Road navigation will be the traditional route of navigation upgrade to Intelligent road navigation, to help users avoid congestion routes, products improve the interaction problem, and provide "fool-type" convenient operation.

In addition, in addition to the introduction of Sogou map, Sogou Road navigation and Sogou bus three core mobile products, Kong Xianglai said, Sogou map will be in the Sogou inside do open, that is, to sogou other product team to provide map SDK and some technical support, the future of many products inside Sogou will form a joint situation. Similar to the dog "meet" form, "meet" is the recent introduction of Sogou a location-based social application, by the independent team operations, Sogou map to support.

Pan "Travel" concept

At present, Sogou map app downloads up to 30 million, for "travel", Xiangxi to have their own understanding, he thought that the average person refers to travel is equivalent to the concept of navigation, but this is just a link in the trip. Sogou map of the concept of travel to do a certain sense of generalization, from time to travel before, during and after the trip.

For the mobile map of the impact of the PC map, Kong Xianglai said that the current Sogou map of the center of gravity has been tilted to the mobile end, Sogou map PC end To do is the user travel in the front and back in tandem, do cloud storage, to achieve mobile phone-side synchronization.

Kong Xianglai introduced this year 11, Sogou map mobile phone end of the user's active degree has completely exceeded the PC end. In addition to the navigation in the travel, users are increasingly accepting on the phone to make the planning before the line.

In addition, Kong Xianglai said, Sogou map products in the Mobile field is striving for the direction of two, one is to change the traditional navigation products, the other is to get rid of the properties of pure tool products, there are some innovative ideas and breakthroughs in products, so that users create greater stickiness and higher user loyalty.

For Sogou map of the commercialization and profit model, Kong Xianglai that the current overall industry status and Sogou map of the user, consider the profit is not meaningful. "At this stage we have to do is to obtain users, until the Sogou map user volume to expand a level, to 300 million, the business model is the inevitable" Xiangxi. And according to Analysys International data show, Q3 China Mobile phone Map The total number of users has just broken 300 million, Sogou map to 9.2% of the market share in the fifth place. (Ningmeng)