The ambitions of the Giants

Absrtact: It is no easy job to open a shop in China that is 5 meters wide and not be backyards by Gould. January 8, 2013, in Beijing six outside the Changping Commercial Street, the gold map information collector Liu Shuai is such a work walk 5 meters, stood still, raised his hand

It would be no easy job to open a store in China that is 5 meters wide and not be backyards by Gould.

January 8, 2013, in Beijing six outside the Changping Commercial Street, the gold map information collector Liu Shuai is such a work to walk 5 meters, stand still, lifting the hands of the Samsung tablet computer to a restaurant to take photos, and then walk 5 meters ahead, filming the next backyards glasses shop. At such a speed, he had to walk 8 to 10 kilometers and shoot 300 or so backyards more than 5 meters from the store.

He also has 500 collectors such as Liu Shuai. They plow through the Wange, capillary streets of the country every day as workers, recording all "places where consumers may be interested" (as the industry calls POI). In the virtual world of the map of the gold, Changping Commercial Street in addition to the century, such as the large-scale supermarket, "for the People's lettering department", "novel photo studio" Such a small shop is also marked on it. If you want to solve a simple lunch, you can also consider the "Tai Bun" and "yu knife noodles" here next to each other.

Sometimes you may see a guy on a road that is full of cameras, infra-red, speed testers, and looks like a mobile surveillance car in a "spy on the plate." It slowly opened, road signs, traffic lights, illegal cameras, bridges are automatically input into the vehicle's equipment.

Whether artificial or car-mining, the data will be sent to the Beijing Changping Science and Technology Park, the German data production Center, 1000 data production personnel to regenerate it into electronic map information. They are then burned into compact discs for safekeeping in tightly monitored storage rooms.

This is the most traditional way for a tech company to work.

Since the company was founded in 2002, he spent a lot of time and thousands of people, positioning the Chinese buildings, merchants, latitude and longitude, collect information on road properties. In this hugely changing country (with 30% to 50% updated map information each year), it's a race against time. But this time-dependent threshold also makes it hard for others to enter the field. As of the third quarter of 2012, Gould had 12 million poi for navigation, covering 56 cities and 7500 square kilometres of neighborhoods. "You want to do one thing, first of all, from the most dirty and tired of work, then go to sweep the streets across the country." Cheng Congwu, the founder and CEO of Gould, explained his undertaking.

There are 11 companies in China with electronic map mapping, and finally, the four-dimensional picture of Gould and another map-maker has become the lowest-tier map data duopoly. Most of the electronic maps you see, including Baidu Maps and Google Maps, rely on them to provide map data. They also rightfully monopolize China's auto-pre-installed navigation map market.

It's a good business, isn't it? The 8th year of Entrepreneurship, the 2010 Gode on the Nasdaq listing, into a "retirement" from the martial, began to roam around playing golf life.

However, a year later, the 47-year-old from the military to restore the entrepreneurial period around the clock work. At the end of the day, after an interview with Caijing magazine, he complained to Jin Jun, the chief marketing officer, with a half joke: "You've arranged more interviews for me in a week than in the past year." ”

In 2011, the company's total revenue reached a record 127 million dollars, but at the end of the year, the decision to turn Gould into an internet firm. "Invest in mobile internet services at all costs." "he said.

Within two years, he joined CTO Trihai, CMO Jin Jun, VP of Cloud Platform Center Chen, VP Feng Hanping of Mobile internet products and other senior executives at the VP level, all of whom had internet and multinational backgrounds. The original gold in two categories of people-blue-collar collectors and car navigation sales staff, now more and more 85 after the group joined in. The chief of the map application is a. "There are two cultures in the company, and you have to switch back and forth in two contexts," he said. "Jin Jun said.

2011, the official launch of a personal user-oriented smart phone map. The urgency of Cheng Congwu's strategy of moving from business-to-business to Business-to-consumer is obvious. He has publicly criticized the team for not doing enough in the mobile internet era and has put an early retirement to an entrepreneur. The shift comes as the Chinese internet giants have launched a war on a map of the future.

In 2012, the first Apple to "expel" Google Maps out, even if its own technology is not mature, but also to slash and burn in iOS 6 in the company's own brand map products to the front. In China, "not yet got the mobile Internet key" Baidu suddenly exerting force, in the establishment of Mobile cloud Division, will lbs (Location Based service, location-based Services) Division of Independence, and Baidu map as a strategic level of products. Tencent is the so-called investment 200 million yuan step to do Street View map. And like the public comments network, cool News network, such as Che-type vertical web site map applications everywhere. The map is in the real sense of a revolution.

A map that synchronizes with human civilization, the last subversive change was the electronic 1992. With the help of GPS satellites and software, the map is no longer alone on the wall or on paper. By 2007, along with the advent of smartphones, maps appeared on mobile phones. But it wasn't until 2011 that the map began to be the key to truly connecting virtual and real space.

It not only helps you find a place, but also tells you where there is fun and delicious. Not just the name of a restaurant, but also coupons that show who has dined there, what they say--even, you can talk to any one of them, get to know each other and join an interest group to weave.

The change is based on the rise of mobile internet and social networking. Smartphone users used 3 times times more data per month in 2011 than they did in 2010. In the past, global smartphones have grown by more than 50% for years, and by 2012 smartphone holdings reached 1.1 billion, of which 270 million were in China.

Maps are becoming an essential tool in every smartphone. At the same time, based on the map of large data and location-based services to become the focus of mobile internet, mobile phone map has become the next heavyweight entrance trend.

This is an opportunity for Gould, but it is also a danger if not followed. The more immediate bad news is that Chinese cars ended up growing by 30% in 2010 for years, with less than 10% in the next two years. Providing navigation data for home cars has always accounted for more than half of the revenue of the Gould software. Continue to rely on car navigation products, the gold will hit the ceiling sooner or later.

In any case, the invisible champion of the traditional electronic map industry must now be involved in a new map war. As one of China's largest map data suppliers, Gould has the upper reaches of the industry chain, but the game is completely different from the mobile Internet war.

Grab a list

If there is no competitor's "grab list", perhaps the determination of the German transformation will not be so strong.

At the end of 2011, because of the poor tracking of the new European standard NDS, the BMW, once its gold customer, announced that four-dimensional maps of new navigation data would be preloaded in the new car system.

In the automotive navigation market, Gould has been the high-end model, BMW and Audi are its most important two customers. And NavInfo in the middle end car market dominance. Both accounted for more than 90% of the automotive navigation market. This "grab list" not only means that he has lost an important client, but also that his traditional sphere of influence has been squeezed.

Like Gould, the new four-dimensional map also has the basic data acquisition qualification. The difference is that the four-dimensional map is not trying to change to the consumer end, but through a series of mergers and acquisitions of their products positioning in navigation data, dynamic traffic information, car networking services, focus on map navigation industry chain upstream.

The bigger threat to Gould is that the old rival has started to accumulate technology on the internet and try to commercialize it.

Four-dimensional figure new subsidiary century Qualcomm also signed BMW's list to provide traffic information services. Traffic information Many map service providers can provide, but to achieve real-time and accurate is a complex process, and this data acquisition and transmission is the core content of mobile Internet.

Beijing East Three ring Jia Cheng Square, BMW brand exhibition hall. In a brand-new BMW 7-series car, Deng Fuan sits on the driver's seat, turns the button on the central console and opens a road map. At the late peak, the east third ring shows red congestion. Two or three minutes later, the Changhong bridge more congestion near, but the double well bridge has eased.

"Our traffic information is updated two minutes." Deng Fuan said that he is the BMW China Interconnection driving Business senior manager, is in China to form an interconnected driving team one of the four big senators.

Less than two kilometers from the Plaza, Phoenix Place Plaza, more than 10 data engineers are busy, they screened the data, and then enter the server, through an international standard port to all the Internet driving applications of the BMW. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, such data work again and again, but also rapidly changing.

Taxi companies are the core source of the century's High-throughput data collection, as taxis travel all the time on city roads, and the routes that travel are basically all over the road, and the data collected through it are much higher in accuracy and stability.

Century Qualcomm has established deep cooperation with taxi companies in almost every key city, in the form of purchases or resource swaps. This means that every taxi that has a partnership is on the road, passing a data collector, sending its location to the century Qualcomm database every few 10 seconds.

For the data sent by the taxi, the engineer responsible for data cleansing and identification will put the inaccurate pick aside according to the continuous trajectory of the taxi.

This is an extremely complex process. For example, the taxi back to the road information display does not move, the engineer will be analyzed, this is the driver stopped in a place to live, or it was on the way to meet traffic jams. At this time need the taxi company to give the information, this car is no-load or a guest. If you have guests, there is a greater likelihood of traffic jams. If it is empty, further analysis of road conditions, the car is in the main road or Auxiliary road. If it is on the main road, it is almost impossible for the driver to stop and live, the possibility of traffic jam is even greater. If it is a secondary road, but also according to its most recently sent back to the two track points between the judge, if it is in the airport or hotel, it is more likely to the passenger.

The data collected by taxis are known as floating car data, and century Qualcomm owns China's largest floating car data platform. In addition, century Qualcomm in other cities, there are some government-fixed detectors, infrared radar and other cooperation projects, they will convey some additional information to help engineers to judge the data screening.

To ensure the quality of the service, BMW has made strict demands on the security of information. The BMW China Security Handbook lists all possible scenarios, for example, server and server docking, if the server to do some expansion, how many days in advance notice, to the expansion of the specific steps reported up, as well as software upgrades, but also in advance in their own space to test how many days in order to give customers the car software upgrades.

In order to connect with BMW's demand, century Qualcomm also has its own management system to ensure the uninterrupted information services, such as the protection of the server is not malicious attacks, not viruses and so on. Century Qualcomm also has its own monitoring software, USB docking, disk write full, fan temperature protection measures, in the event of problems, these systems will alarm, technicians can immediately handle.

Obviously, this series of operations with mobile internet characteristics is not the same as the way the data was processed before Gould.

Different play

Getting more and more accurate map information is the key to competition in the map, and it is still. Just as Baidu's competitors join, the game is changing.

Baidu and Cool Network has cooperated in the Baidu map of the Web page and mobile phone end are presented from the Cool News hotel booking information.

Cool News Network is an online travel service provider, providing air tickets, hotels and travel routes recommended. Baidu sees its 200,000 hotel room type, the price and the latitude and longitude degree and so on a series of useful data. And cool News is a fancy Baidu brings the web end and mobile end of the flow of the entrance. "Like Cool News These more subdivided, more Web1.0 data, Baidu is rooted in the Internet page Search company is not likely to involve." This is also the biggest value of third-party companies. Chen, director of Cool News Unlimited division, told the sermon.

In fact, in the Baidu map 4.3 version of the hotel, Baidu not only used cool news data, they also used to go to where, Ctrip and art Dragon data to enrich the hotel class poi point. This is the Baidu map to repeat the algorithm put forward a very high demand, lest the same poi point appeared a number of different names, so that the user unknown.

At the same time, third party companies will be their own POI point of data access to different map platform APIs, the use of these Internet company traffic, for their services to bring users. Cool network is not only with Baidu cooperation, their data will also appear on the Web page of Sogou map. There is a typical example is the public comment on the web, you can in Baidu, search the map of the Web site to see the public comments and scoring information.

For most Third-party companies, it is natural that the more access to the platform the better. However, the platform will also select partners, and strive to present a high quality of information, after all, users will not have such a strong patience to go to a search.

Focus on the meal order preferential Food Network is also such a platform to "chase" the third party companies. In cooperation with Baidu soon after, Sogou on the initiative to find, hoping to reach a "strategic cooperation" with them, will be on the map of the food system on the chain into Sogou, but also for its map platform to provide hotel information and data.

"The restaurant data from the beginning is one of our employees ran out." "When it comes to their data, Shantao, the Assistant President of the Rice network, is very proud. These restaurant data are self latitude and longitude, preferential information, booking telephone and so on. This makes it very convenient for poi points to be labeled on the map. So, in search dog after the door, the gold also with the rice system to reach the depth of cooperation, will be the Food Network restaurant data for car map, but also the collection of their own restaurant data sharing to the rice, mutual help and win.

In the collection or update of the basic map data, there is no qualification and manpower to do the bottom data collection is the disadvantage of internet companies involved in the map, but their advantages are also very obvious.

Baidu's underlying data directly from the four-dimensional map of new, Turing maps and other data providers. This will certainly bring a lot of POI point information duplication problem, but the amount of data in the superposition of at least to some extent to make up for the disadvantage is not a self mining. As for data duplication, error, the use of algorithms and user error correction can generally solve these problems. "These low-level data providers are also constantly changing according to feedback, in fact, the data quality of Baidu map and the gap has not been so obvious." A management person from Baidu Map said.

This purchase map of the bottom of the data, their own first to do after the change or side to do the way, in fact, the major Internet map service providers consistent play. These giants level players are not afraid of errors and changes, for them, the Internet map of the existence of dozens of meters error is not a big problem. At the same time, with the user closer and the base is large, do not fear the lack of user feedback. The characteristics of Internet companies are product response speed, version update speed, the user needs of a more sensitive sense of smell.

"Our forum and backstage receive thousands of feedback every day, some say you this is wrong, some say you this How does not have this data." Sogou Map Business Department general manager Xiangxi. After receiving such feedback, Sogou will follow a certain process to verify. Simple road maintenance leads to different roads, which are marked after verification. Sogou own difficult to verify, will contact its underlying data provider four-dimensional map new to verify. Then the four-dimensional will add this information to the underlying data that is submitted to the first quarter of the Sogou.

At the same time, each internet giant itself has a lot of data, Tencent search data updates on the use of Tencent other products advantage. For example, some map POI point data Updates and verification, search map is directly on Tencent Micro Bo crawl user data mining. Each user on Tencent Weibo issued a micro-blog with geographic information location, it is tantamount to help the search for a map invisible.

This is Tencent other products on the map of a feedback. Just as Baidu, Sogou can be through the search engine for map products to bring the flow, by the company's other products derived from the ecological environment for the map of this space with a wide range of imagined products have a very large auxiliary role.

The ambitions of the Giants

If we compare these map information to one that can be useful to users, the map is becoming a platform-level medium. For maps, with more and more data, you can attract people with different information needs.

Among the many Internet companies involved in the use of maps, Baidu is undoubtedly one of the strongest drivers.

October 17, 2012, Baidu announced the split Baidu map, Baidu and other departments around, set up a special department of LBS. Then, Baidu's recruitment page appeared a large number and lbs-related positions.

Baidu "box calculation" of this one-stop train of thought on the map platform to do a translation. Before this, Baidu map mobile end product also carried on a large-scale upgrade, Baidu Map 4.0 version more out of "free voice navigation, indoor positioning, real-time bus, life search" four new functions. The slogan that loads the page is also changed from the Almighty Map Helper to "turn on intelligent life".

"Open intelligent Life" behind, is connected to a wide range of functions: Search the vicinity of group buy, concessions, food, hotels and a series of life information. The more data access, Baidu will know more, only need to select this behavior for users to dig, such as the user likes in which scenes to choose which services, and Baidu's entire account system once through the platform strategy of the business model will be ready. After all, in the concept of map platform, query is search. and search how to change, Baidu Nature is extremely good at.

"This can be regarded as Baidu in the mobile internet end of the most clear force, you can also think that Baidu is a missed lesson." "The above Baidu map internal staff evaluation."

Regardless of the cost of investment and Tencent.

In Beijing North Four ring China technology transaction Building 6 floor, Tencent Map Platform Department's data director Truss to "financial world" weekly calculate a sum. "The team that feeds more than 200 people is tens of millions of a year, buys a server tens of millions of, travel expenses for oil, server electricity, outsourcing costs, research and development costs, and so on, these add up, almost a few billion." He did not utter a specific figure, but was definitely more than 200 million of the world's vibe. This is only the current Tencent Search Street View team to collect Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Lhasa, four cities in the Street View data spent money.

But Truss did not feel that this is a big deal, he searched the map of the Street View products more excited: The map is finally no longer a line and a point, but also a picture of the free amplification can be reduced. "It's a revolution," he stressed, "The map-form revolution." ”

Why do you do Street View? Truss recalls that in 2007, when Google launched its Street View plan, MA showed great interest, but was abandoned because of the unclear business model. "Sell to the navigator manufacturer? One dozens of bucks a year and sell tens of thousands of units, even the marketing department can't afford it." Truss laughs.

But it's different now. QQ, micro-letter Tencent has a perfect ecological circle. Street View and killer application of the combination of micro-letter, has been the industry bullish. More crucially, the authenticity of Street View gives users an excellent experience. The latest search map application online less than 24 hours, has rushed to the App store free list first. This version of the 2.3 application has built-in Street View, hidden in the level two menu. The ability to share Street View images to micro-letters is hidden deeper-but it has been shared tens of thousands of times in just 24 hours.

The result was a surprise for the entire development team and a surprise that they seemed to see the potential of Street View, which had been thought to be of greater value for the Streetscape project.

The search maps monitored the access to four street-view maps on the line, and found a fascinating set of numbers: only 10% of visitors to the north-wide Street View were from the local area, leaving 90% of the city's surrounding provinces. "We make it impossible for people to go out and see places they might never have been in for a lifetime," he said. "Truss is very proud.

It also naturally derives the tourist value of Street View products. Online travel service providers and hotel reservations have come to talk about business partnerships that access the Street View API. With this kind of demand, the next Street View team will be clear: one after another poi points in the Street view of high-definition photos.

In fact, the Giants are not anxious to make money.

"The map of the business model is not clear, in addition to the short development time, the most fundamental reason is that the number of users of a single product has not reached a higher level." After 300 million, it makes sense to discuss this issue. "Xiangxi. He is the first batch of Internet map people in the country, has been in Go2map (the world) to serve. 2004, Go2map was renamed as Sogou Map after the acquisition of Sohu, the current general manager of Sogou map. According to his observation, in a O2O closed loop derived from lbs, it is too long to open the map application to find a merchant that can be consumed, and only a small number of users will complete the behavior chain. Business models can be explored only when the cardinality is large enough. Now, what the Giants are doing is burning money.

Gold counterattack.

As the "Familiar Stranger" in the market, the pressure is not to "burn money", but must learn how to use the Internet, the free mode of training users, and then consider the business model.

The change of Gould was even a bit radical. 2011, Gold has launched the iOS platform and the Android platform of the gold Map app, compared to the previous iOS charge 50 yuan of the German navigation, the function of a similar but free gold map and so on "self-revolution."

January 14, 2013, has been a low-key Cheng Congwu issued a micro-blog, which he has since June 2012, the 12th Micro-blog: "Gold map users over billion." "He said it was the gold map of this free navigation application."

Jin Jun, who left the country from Amazon in August 2012, did not agree with the "transformation" of the outside world. In her view, traditional map collectors dabble in Internet maps and mobile apps, just another form of use for existing data. "Rather than transition, it is a natural transition," he said. "She stressed.

But the transition is not easy. Jin Jun is in charge of the market and brand building work of Gould.

How low was he? As a Nasdaq-listed company in the United States in 2010, it was easy to confuse it with high de IR, another A-share-listed company, even mistaking him for a subsidiary of the latter. In addition, from the product level, it is not clear that the German navigation and Kay navigation is quite different. In 2012, a lot of people were curious to know that "AutoNavi" meant "gold" when he gave Google and Apple data on Chinese maps.

"If Gould had a Chinese logo, that would be great." Jin Jun was very sorry.

In addition to the introduction of personal-oriented apps, the most important thing is how to use these users to change the traditional data collection methods.

In the past to do business-to-business business, data updates are based on the year, the basic one-year upgrade of the company can meet the requirements of manufacturers. Mobile interconnection requires 24 hours to detect the background data, fully real-time grasp of user feedback and interaction. At the same time, the past POI information is the address, telephone and other simple information, now poi not only to have pictures, have content to introduce, but also have discounts and other depth of information. This presents new challenges to the data source and update speed of Gould.

One of the great benefits of the Internet is that users produce content at any time. But the content of how to merge into the Feng Hanping map of the bottom of the data, the trouble for a while. Some user-generated geographic data, according to the data collected by the standard is not enough precision, can not reach the standards. These less accurate but large amount of data, can not be integrated into the bottom of the High German data, is the traditional thinking and internet thinking a contradiction point. Eventually, the internet thought won. "We relaxed the standard, but also screened out a large number. "Feng Hanping said.

The advantages of the basic data, the construction of the gold platform does not seem to be so clear. One of the key points is the lack of ecology, that is to say, the user after the use of the product guidance of the German travel, other time can not think what to do.

This has sent gold and Sina's microblogging cooperation. The two sides opened the account system, in the Sina Micro-blog labeling location, the data will be obtained by the German. At the same time, can also use micro-blog account directly to the application of gold, "Sina itself before doing map data have difficulties, we combine with them just to achieve a win." "Into from Wu said.

In order to make up for the lack of traffic from the search engine, he also cooperated with Qihoo 360 in depth. November 30, 2012 on the line of the 360 map, the full use of the underlying data of the German. Like the Baidu Map, 360 maps also appear on the 360 search page. It is worth mentioning that Qihoo 360 chairman Zhou is the independent director of Gould. The two sides ' Alliance against Baidu is clear.

In addition to wrestling with new data, he has begun to confront the immediate interests of the new giants. In the 2013 BMW 5-Series Li-type car, Baidu Map became pre-installed automotive software. This is the first Cross-border Alliance of two representative companies in the Internet industry and the automotive industry in online maps. And in the mobile phone pre-installed map market, gold from Samsung and other mobile phone manufacturers to obtain the model of pre-installed cost also met the challenge. A Baidu insider said, they are lobbying some mobile phone manufacturers, pay the pre-installed Baidu map.

Cheng Congwu hopes to take the "four screens and one cloud" strategic layout to counter the long-term competition of giants. The so-called "four screens a cloud", four screens including automobiles, mobile phones, PC PCs and (SMART) TV, and "One cloud" is to open the data to partners, open the API to form an open, can support a variety of applications Terminal cloud platform. Despite all the challenges, he is optimistic about his position in the new world of maps. "Mobile internet revenues are expected to exceed car navigation revenues in about 2014 years," he said. He told the world of Finance and Economics weekly.