Subversive Tiger Flutter vertical web site small fresh counter attack

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The story of Tiger flutter at first appeared to be a small and fresh attack on the vertical web site.

If the Athens Olympics is a competition for reporting resources between portals, the Beijing Olympics became Sohu Sina relies on the capital to rob sponsorship of the war, until the London Olympic Games for the first time the human won the Palm Olympics, app began as the entrance alone, but in these sports industry surging communication war behind, Tiger Flutter has been a small capture of what little role, as a small fresh entertainment, silently doing their favorite things, but unexpectedly began to become a sports website can not be underestimated a new force.

Since the beginning of 2012, the Tiger flutter, which has always been low-key, began to uncharacteristically frequently in the public's view. One of the most sensational appearances is undoubtedly the first leg of the August 24, 2012 Spanish Super Cup Barcelona against Real Madrid. In the course of the competition, "Tiger-bashing Sports network" in the billboard on the side of the game, 5 eye-catching Chinese characters make many fans get distracted.

And just two months before the debut, Tiger Flutter just announced the completion of the 40 million yuan round of financing, and plans to 3 years in the gem listing. In fact, even founder Chenghang himself did not think, Hoopchina this year's amateurs, incredibly will take root in 9 years, gradually grow into China's most influential sports portal.

According to the latest published data, tiger flutter currently registered users have reached 16 million, the daily average of PV reached 100 million, UV over 4 million.

Self-made

Not chasing what the hot Internet concept, there is no wind-throwing, the establishment of tiger flutter was a no ambition to start from scratch, but it really caught up with a good time.

In 2003, Chenghang, a 24-Year-old student studying in Chicago, began planning a basketball forum Hoopchina, the predecessor of Tiger Flutter. The year before, the 23-Year-old Yao Ming was selected by the Houston Rockets, the 2nd to enter the NBA's Chinese players, basketball in the domestic new round of upsurge in this. People's enthusiasm has been ignited, but at that time the domestic basketball information is still quite scarce. Now the domestic basketball first big newspaper "the Basketball Vanguard newspaper" to be in Hoopchina on-line one year later only then officially launches.

January 1, 2004, Hoopchina officially opened to the outside, the day 7 people visited this forum with only 2 plates. These 7 people thy now can not be verified, but Tiger flutter the most fortunate is that it stood in those years basketball hot tide-almost any vertical site explosion is inseparable from the promotion of industrial environment, with the help of those years NBA in China's hot, The humble basketball forum has grown rapidly over the next 2 years into the online "Holy Land" of the basket-fan community.

Looking back, Hoopchina's initial success was primarily the use of asymmetric information between China and the United States. Compared with most of the domestic media at the time, Chenghang was able to get access to more first-hand NBA information in a city known as Jordan, which is famous for his work in Chicago.

Hoopchina The earliest content is the Chenghang translation written by the NBA Daily News Digest, review the day's match highlights and various kinds of outdoor news. For up to 1.5 of the time, Chenghang nearly 2-3 hours a day compiling content that foreign media reports are missing from the domestic media. In an era of less-developed information, it is a huge attraction for domestic fans.

With the entry of some senior fans, the content of the website began to diversify, the player reviews, technical analysis, historical stories, relying on these high-quality content, Hoopchina soon set up a very high reputation in the basketball fans group, which also brought a wealth of network resources, So that Hoopchina do a lot of traditional media can not do things. One of the most typical examples is the report on the return of Zhizhi to the United States 6 years ago.

February 27, 2006, a user in the forum has been stuck in the U.S. 5 years of Zhizhi is about to return to the country, and until 3 weeks later, the major portals have reported. Confirmation of the accuracy of the message, Tiger flutter immediately launched a welcome Zhizhi back to support activities. The April 12 of that year, Zhizhi returned, one day later, he personally in the tiger flutter on the post to fans and netizens expressed thanks.

By 2006, the registered users of Tiger-bashing were already close to 1 million, and ranked among the top 1000 in the Alexa world. Snowball roll bigger, users more and more, the test will follow. Tiger Flutter began to experience any forum in the process of growth will be unforgettable stage-how to increase the explosion of users at the same time to ensure the quality of the forum.

From Forum to Portal

With the increase in user volume, the quality of the forum will gradually hydration, which is almost any forum is lingering magic spell. Tiger flutter of the strategy is determined to remove the basketball content unrelated posts, delete and no substantive content of the reply. "There was also the appeal of a literary youth who felt that if you all talked nonsense, you would not say so." Chenghang admits. In addition, tiger flutter every year to launch a campaign to promote high-quality speeches.

In addition to preventing hydration such as the common problems faced by all the forums, Tiger flutter also needs to deal with the problems peculiar to the sports theme Forum-A group of irrational users.

Because of the particularity of competitive sports, the fans of different players, supporters of different teams, and even different regions of the user is very easy to win or lose the competition between the opposition, which is likely to cause the division of the Forum. To this end, the master and administrator will strictly "monitor" the comments of users, without mercy to remove all kinds of excessive insulting remarks. Tiger flutter of "small black House" has let many users have suffered.

Of course, only by blocking is blocked, tiger flutter will also adopt the way of dredging, through the subdivision of the Forum of the plate, such as the opening of various teams and other ways to ease the needs of different users, so as to reduce conflicts and balance the atmosphere of the entire forum.

It is these strict quality control measures to ensure that the tiger flutter this train in the high-speed speed of the process will not lose control, but also let it from the Silu, and so many of the same era of the basketball forum to stand out.

For the basketball forum such as the interest gathered community, the closed account system under the forum operation is very easy to maintain high viscosity and high activity, but also will give the founder illusory sense of success, because the good operation can not be against the industry law. Most vertical forums are strikingly similar in their path: "Elite output-Increased user-forum hydration-Loss of elite-Forum death"-has almost become a curse and countless forums have fallen in front of it.

If the tiger flutter has just insisted on doing a pure basketball forum, it is likely to have died early, at least also continue to be unknown. But Chenghang was early aware of the limitations of the forum, and began to subvert itself, trying to transform from a closed forum to an open portal.

Chenghang's desire is to do a service to the vast number of sports groups of the website, so doomed the tiger Flutter forum to take an open route. But the user size and forum quality is always inversely proportional, both can not have both, in the process of expansion, no matter what means to use, at most can only slow down the speed of the Forum hydration, and the loss of senior users is inevitable. So the key to solving the problem is how to control the metabolism of the forum user at an affordable level.

To do this, the direction is nothing more than two: open source and throttling.

The so-called open source is to recruit more users through new services. To this end, in 2007, Chenghang successively created the main football and motor racing Goalhi and helloF1 two sites, intended to replicate the success of Tiger flutter.

The so-called throttling, in fact, is to find ways to retain senior users. The specific way is still through the division of the plate to separate different levels of user area to avoid affecting the experience of experienced users.

2007, Chenghang returned home, with several partners co-founded the Shanghai Lei-AO Culture Communication Co., Ltd., began to operate the tiger flutter. Since then, tiger flutter gradually from the forum to the portal transformation, in addition to the coverage of sports categories, but also further expand their business scope, has involved in line activities, electric dealers and games.

April 2012, Chenghang will Hoopchina, Goalhi and HelloF1 three independent sites all unified under the hupu.com domain name, only this domain name spent Chenghang million yuan. At this point, a comprehensive sports portal finally formed a prototype.

Commercial exploration

From the day of the decision to transform the portal, commercial exploration must be put on the agenda, for the former pure content operation of the Tiger-bashing team, this is undoubtedly a subversion of their own and constantly trial and error.

In the early years, Tiger flutter relies on Google AdSense revenue barely maintained, the most difficult time Chenghang had to post to call users click AD Support forum operations. But this awkward time hasn't lasted long. With the rapid expansion of the tiger-bashing users, Chenghang finally do not have to worry about the survival of the site, tiger flutter value began to be recognized by sports brands.

Today, the flow of billions of dollars per day is still the most reliable source of profit for Tiger flutter. More than half of the annual income of Tiger is from advertising.

But Chenghang not willing to rely on selling traffic to make money. For tens of millions of sports fans of the tiger flutter, the development of sports category of vertical electric business is a matter of the case.

Sports equipment, especially sneakers, is an indispensable part of the topic discussion of sports fans. As the number of discussions on the topic increased, the demand for Hoopchina began to appear. In response to this trend, in July 2007, Tiger launched the trading area, similar to the early ebay, allowing users to publish merchandise information, transactions.

The trading area soon showed great commercial potential and was sought after by users. At the same time, a number of vertical classes of the consumer platform began to rise, good buy and Amoy have been small well-known. Tiger Flutter of course also want to be in this round tide to divide a cup of soup. March 2009, Tiger launched its own leading independent electric business platform-calorie mall. However, only 2 years on the line, the calorie mall quietly closed.

A senior user of Tiger-bashing users joked: "The calorie mall is the forum's trading area."

Trading areas of most businesses from Taobao started, in services, sourcing and prices are not comparable to the advantages of a calorie mall, and the forum started the tiger flutter at that time also lacked the experience of operating the electrical business. The trading area and the calorie mall's left-and-right mutual Bo ended up with the "closure" of the calorie mall.

After absorbing the lessons of the failure of the calorie mall, Tiger Flutter began to try another route of the electric quotient, November 2011, the tiger flutter low-key launched its own clothing brand--geq. GEQ specializes in sports equipment. Including sports tights and other products, the main selling point and decathlon similar, is the high price of the.

Tiger flutter on the operation of the GEQ is very cautious, although will be in the forum to play ads to guide the volume, but in the publicity but in the dilution geq and tiger flutter relationship, and, product category expansion, Tiger Flutter is also very abstemious, so far only less than 20 product sales.

Tiger Flutter did not disclose the sale of GEQ, but from its flagship store in the Sky cat, it can be seen in the past one months (mid-November 2012 to mid-December) sales of the top 10 of the product total sales of more than 1.1 million yuan. For the deliberately low-key geq, the result seems pretty good.

Of course, Tiger Flutter also did not give up the ambition of building electric business platform, June 2012, the bitter experience of the Tiger launched a new platform-the tiger flutter to the discerning. Tiger Flutter is the model of Mushroom street, that is, tiger flutter just as a shopping guide platform, which actually and the Forum on the transaction area is not the nature of the difference, but the forum is a dense transaction into the waterfall with pictures. The advantage is that it plays the advantage of the original trading area, avoiding the internal game caused by the calorie mall.

It's not much of a innovation, but this change has greatly improved the original shopping experience. According to insiders revealed that the current tiger flutter the most discerning PV day about 600,000, the turnover of about 100,000 a day, "basically in the pace of the expected." ”

After years of groping, tiger flutter seems to be finding its own point of step.

Outside the electrical business, tiger flutter there is another way to become present-the game.

The reason for the game is that there are two reasons, one based on Chenghang's judgment of the gaming industry, "I think sports and games are an industry and a way for young men to get a sense of victory." "The other is based on the reality of the consideration, the electricity business delay to make money, tiger flutter needs to be realized channels."

Since 2012, on the basis of the past intermodal transport, Tiger launched the first self-developed game, "Tiger bashing the world." Chenghang Introduction, this game is now monthly can bring the company 7-digit input.

Advertising, electricity dealers and games constitute the main current income of tiger flutter. Chenghang revealed that the 2012 Tiger rush year's revenue is expected to be able to break through the 100 million mark, the profit scale of about 20 million or more.

Subversion offline

The reason why Tiger flutter in 2012 frequently, with Chenghang own words is because "before owe class too much".

And the further excavation will find that Tiger flutter choice in this time node began to make up a lesson in the back, it is facing the external environment is undergoing rapid change.

Today's domestic media environment and Tiger flutter in the start-up period is very different. The NBA is no longer just a sporting event on the other side of the ocean, and China has become the 2nd largest market in the NBA outside the United States. In the process of promoting localization, the NBA is in alliance with the two traditional portals of Sina and Tencent. Sina not only has the NBA's online games broadcast rights, but also relies on the micro-blogging platform to create a LOVE-NBA community, training a number of influential basketball theme accounts. This is actually a scramble for users with Tiger bashing.

In order to keep their own territory, tiger flutter must do one thing is to further establish their own in the field of basketball authority, which determines the tiger flutter must be closer to the mainstream resources.

Because after all, with Sina, Sohu and other traditional portals compared to the strength there is still a gap, tiger flutter is still unable to get the NBA and CBA these two high gold content of the professional competition resources, so, tiger flutter to take a curve to save the road--with the help of their own forum to accumulate operational capacity, operating the official website of large-scale sports

Starting from 2012, Tiger flutter has become the official website operator of NBL (CBA's subordinate league). Because in the cooperation shows very high professional quality, the Chinese Basketball Association initiative to find Tiger Flutter, commissioned its operation WCBA official website. In addition to the official cooperation with the Basketball Association, Tiger flutter at present also with some of the CBA club, for them to operate the online community.

These measures behind the ultimate goal is only one, that is waiting for the right time to rob the CBA this temporary "occupy" the cake.

Of course, if you still stare at the traffic with the portal, and Sina, such as competition for sports resources, tiger flutter is likely to let himself into an asymmetrical war gradually be dragged down, although from forum to the door to Tiger flutter has been a self subversion, now tiger flutter also to subvert their own operating portal experience, Seek another strategic breakout.

In the mobile internet age, tiger flutter also needs to find its place again. At present, tiger Flutter has taken the first step, the mobile Internet team from the original department of Independent, and in November 2012 released a new product-tiger bashing ball companion, a can always view the NBA Live broadcast app. "We are putting the PC aside and making sport and mobile interconnection create value." Chenghang also revealed that in the next few months, Tiger flutter will also have a number of more innovative mobile end products came out.

And in the layout of the mobile end, tiger flutter found another one can go to subvert the vast market. Somewhat unexpectedly, the tiger-bashing is betting on the line.

November 18, 2012, tiger flutter in the bird's Nest held an international sports marketing summit, Chenghang announced that 2013 will invest 100 million yuan for local sports events.

"I don't position myself as a website company, I do sports, the Internet is my tool, but the core is the sports thing." "Chenghang told business value".

In his view, the United States sports industry is quite developed, the decisive role is not the NFL, MLB, NBA and other professional events, but a wide range of community, city, state-level competition, it is these grassroots events are active support for the United States sports industry prosperity. And tiger flutter next want to do is to activate the domestic grassroots competition.

Tiger flutter of course will not do a loss of trading, investment 100 million behind is actually optimistic about the business opportunities contained in the grassroots races.

Referring to the experience of the United States, because the grassroots competitions more close to the ordinary people, so that the local people are very high attention, "good sports resources are a strong sense of sports resources." "It is this sense of Chenghang that gives these amateur events no less than the commercial value of a full-fledged professional tournament," he said.

The goal of Chenghang, which eventually wants to build a well-developed sports ecosystem in the United States, seems ambitious, but not too far away. In fact, tiger flutter has been doing this for the past few years. Since 2008, Tiger Flutter has been holding more than 130,000 basketball games nationwide. "In fact, the tiger flutter of the offline activity has become our and advertisers when negotiating an important resource." "Chenghang introduced.

However, the tiger flutter of the offline activity is far from being as mature as the United States system. In the United States, a team can start from the community and get the state championship through the layers of fighting.

The secret weapon that can help Chenghang realize the dream is also the tiger flutter--The fan regiment in 166 cities across the country. These fan groups are responsible for the tiger-bashing headquarters of the offline activities of the docking department. "This allows us to land in the country, with tentacles, we can feel the first time what the fans really need." "Chenghang said.

From a small audience to today's comprehensive sports portal, tiger flutter all the way to a rather difficult, but facing the future, still challenging, tiger flutter can further complete the transformation of sports companies, and finally successfully promote the establishment of domestic sports ecosystems, only time can tell us the answer.