The network should enhance innovation, not imitation

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The United States has YouTube, MySpace, Second life, China will soon be able to find hundreds of similar web sites, the latest published in the Taiwan "Digital Times" magazine published in the Chinese network of imitation of the lack of innovation, "the remainder of the King", pointed out that China's network is "imitation but very lack of innovation", And ask the question: How far can we go by the Chinese concept alone?

The main contents of the article are as follows:

A wave of Web 2.0, which sprang up on the other side of the ocean in 2005, swept China without jet lag, and this year began to be replaced by anxiety.

The term "WEB 2.0" contains a variety of meanings, and the understanding of a tool is primarily a new generation of web sites that provide tools and platforms that are designed to entice users to share content with each other. But some people like to regard it as a concept, advocating sharing, central, personalized web new "Bible."

Global venture money into China

The rapid expansion of the commercialization of the Web 2.0 of the 3-year history is extremely gorgeous, but when we calmly examine the Chinese web 2.0, we planted the dragon species, where is the harvest? Is it a real dragon or a flea or nothing?

Again came the restless reincarnation-"At that time the plane from the United States to China is always full cabin, first class investors in the economy to visit the cabin, you can find a few returning entrepreneurs, a lot of cooperation from the aircraft began." "This is the story of the first generation of entrepreneurs, former Yahoo China president Zhou, in the context of the 2000 years before the Web 1.0 bubble burst," he said.

VC began to "hug" with the entrepreneur, the date is the Pacific West Bank of China, the Joint Code is Web 2.0.

At that time almost every week there are people to start the news, the network triggered the Web 2.0 entrepreneurial tide, have blogs (blog), RSS (automatic subscription) and other new technologies, the seeds of new concepts sown. This comes mainly from the catalysis of money. "At that time, the magnitude of the venture was only million dollars, now it's so much more billion," said Sohu CEO Charles Zhang. In fact, some of the top ventures that have invested in Yahoo and Google, such as Sequoia, Kleiner, Accel Partner, Matrix Partner, and other international ventures are also wrapped around billions of of dollars, money into China.

Web 2.0 with the network of broadband, personalized development, new applications emerge. RSS, SNS (community) friends, tag (tag) subscription, Peer-to-peer (point-to-point) transmission, these concepts have become the application of many network users. Search, photos, music, audio and video, mashup Applications (mash-up), wikis (wikis), blogs, communities, together make up the rich content of the Web 2.0 boom.

Will the Chinese Internet weather the weather?

The vast majority of Internet users first through the blog to know the Web 2.0, the blog is also perfect embodiment of the characteristics of the Web 2.0, users to create content, sharing, to center, unlike traditional Web sites like the need for editing and full of elite content.

Blog immediately broke through the scope of the text, video sharing will be pushed to the front desk. The main difference between podcasts (podcasting) and blogs is that blogs are based on text and picture messages spread through the web, while podcasts deliver images and sound messages. In fact, the development of the two has already sketched the main vein of the history of Chinese Web 2.0.

"Web 2.0 those new businesses want to overtake us extremely difficult," NetEase founder Ding Lei said in 2005, the three major portal sites can replicate the Web 2.0 enterprises at any time to explore that point, unless the new enterprise with "supernatural powers."

This view has been recognized by the old portal, who believe that the Chinese network is "The remnant of the King", today's surviving companies have experienced setbacks and have explored the real business model. Zhang even bluntly: "China's Internet (network) will not be the weather." ”

With the rise of blog sites, the user base expands rapidly. The traditional portal site also finally to Web 2.0 can't restrain. In September, Sina launched the blog Web page, officially opened fire on professional blog sites.

"Sina blog post is a landmark event," Lvben, a network expert who believes that Sina built its own blog camp on the basis of huge traffic, making blogging a mainstream from the edge of the web.

and professional blog site directly facing Sina and other import sites competition. Xingdong, founder of the largest Web 2.0 Web site blog (formerly blogger China), said that China would overtake Sina, a blogger that has won tens of millions of dollars in investment and plans to go on the Nasdaq listing. Now the blog network has been left in the cold.

Since 2005, when the blog network received tens of millions of dollars in investment, China has emerged a succession of more than 10 of blog service Providers (BSP), but almost no traffic in exchange for advertising, the profit model is elusive.

Now, it seems, Sina's intervention in the blog, so that professional blog site is difficult to expect, the two sides will be in the blog field of fierce competition, but Sina already has a large user groups.

"It's hard to make money on blogs alone," donews producer Liu Yan said, and Sina can drive news flows through blogs, and other services such as SMS services. In comparison, the profit model for professional blog sites is uncertain.

Blogging is growing, as e-mail services require large companies to provide, and blogs need big companies to deliver. In fact, blog competition and e-mail, but also the technology and strength of the competition, when the user group of large, the consumption of resources is very large, only large companies can afford to pay, professional blog site can only Pianan corner.

Another market-style venture

Chinese AV podcasts are almost in sync with global development. Since the April 2005 "Tudou" On the line, China's similar size of the number of sites in 150. Yau Video Network, OPENV, Tudou, and I also won millions of of dollars to tens of millions of dollars in investment.

Do those Web 2.0 sites, which have been burning in the spotlight, have the same lucrative potential as fame? China's podcast sites are beginning to face this kind of torture after blogging failed.

Podcasts subvert the passive viewing mode, making users an active participant, and giving users a greater choice of audiovisual content and viewing time, a typical Web 2.0 way.

The American AV website YouTube has become the global network Star, its creation the sharing network audio-visual model, manifests the formidable vitality. Chinese podcasts are getting in the hot of the American miracle.

According to statistics published by the Research institute Hitwise, YouTube occupies a share of the U.S. network multimedia market, higher than Yahoo, Microsoft MSN and other giants. VC interest continues to the present, almost every VC has invested in a video-sharing podcast site, podcasts have become the "essential product".

This has also contributed to the proliferation of podcast start-ups. The business model widely discussed in the Chinese AV podcast industry is "patch advertising". That is, advertisers provide audio and video ads, the original podcast after the application, the work of the front or back end of the small period of advertising content, and advertisers will be based on the content of the podcast to pay the corresponding advertising fees.

Wang, the founder of Tudou, said the network's advertising is still too small to be expanded, and that television advertising should move as far as possible on the Internet, which is a trend.

While the wave of audio and video podcasts has swept the world, there is no clear, stable profit-making model for a single service provider. Even if YouTube succeeds in fame and flow, it is still not profitable. At present, the profit-making model of AV-sharing website is relatively single, mainly through the form of advertising revenue. and AV Embedded advertising because of the audience dispersed, for the promotion of brand advertising is not conducive.

The 2006 China Broadband Podcast Market Research report points out that charging a large number of broadband podcast users may be the best mode of operation, but according to the report, only 28% of broadband users are willing to accept service charges, while 42% of broadband users are currently only willing to accept free broadband services, The proportion of users who agree to the website charging behavior is low, which becomes the main problem restricting the development of the Broadband Podcast website.

CCW Consulting analyst Xiaodong pointed out that in the absence of profit-making model, the contradictions between user traffic and network costs, but also in the embryonic stage of legal services, advertising services, illegal piracy content on the market and the price of genuine content, have become the broadband podcast industry must face the development of the problem.

The main reference standard of AV website is content richness, but at present the user is too dispersed, original AV content lacks. Web sites to enrich the content and mutual replication, can not make the characteristics.

In addition, copyright issues have been plagued by audio-visual sites, due to the excessive reprint, so most sites have potential copyright risks, in the case of YouTube, the defendant will often encounter infringement of the incident. And for users of personal production of audio-visual content, often appear copyright disputes.

As the audio-video-sharing boom surges, China's YouTube-like video-sharing site runs more than 500 in a year. Social networking site MySpace was News Corp After the takeover, China has sprung up with more than dozens of copycat internet companies.

This is the case in the world, which accelerates the vicious competition of Web 2.0 and makes the users of the Web 2.0 feel "aesthetic fatigue".

Bill Tancer, an analyst at market research firm Hitwise, found that only 0.16% of all visitors to YouTube were uploading for others to watch; Similarly, only 0.2% of all visitors to Flickr, the photo-sharing site, To upload new pictures. The vast majority of Web 2.0 users are not much different from the people who watch TV on the couch all day, like watching rather than creating.

The profit model is not new

In essence, Web 2.0 essentially does not create an updated profit-making model, and is still in exchange for ads by clicks and traffic. Take a look at Web 2.0 's benchmark corporate YouTube, which does not even have a profit-making machine to find a better way to make money. This is a reminder that the industry is a little calmer about Web 2.0, which is really exciting, but it's a lot of business.

Web 2.0 website 139.com CEO Han Yutong said, the current Web 2.0 confused, is the last year "Chasing Star" the normal results, many Web 2.0 enterprises both lack of profit model, and lack of stable real service, so that consumers and investors disappointed is inevitable.

In addition to YouTube, Flickr and Wikipedia, famous Web 2.0 sites include social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, as well as Photobucket, a photo-sharing website. This is also the Chinese Web 2.0 Enterprise Replication object. The Web 2.0 era of China, in addition to imitation, has not seen more bright spots. In an era of endless Web 2.0, China needs to explore more and more successful models.

Investment agency Bain Capital Partner Topaz believes that the success of Web 2.0 as an application does not represent the success of its business model, and that Web 2.0 companies are not good at turning traffic into revenue. Web 2.0 is "King" from the perspective of application and media, but it is "beggar" from the investor's point of view, technological success and commercial success are different. So Web 2.0 companies should humbly surrender to companies with mature business capabilities.

Chi Investment general manager and partner Chen said, looking back, at that time overheated investments, such as Network magazine, wireless music, and so on, many projects caused the capital congestion, some projects business model, charging mode is not clear, financial performance is passable. At present, it is impossible to rely on investors to get the money in. Many early investors have been injured in the virtual economy for the past two years, so there will be some adjustments.

The Web 2.0 network World began to gradually differentiate: 1% of people make content, 9% of people spread and share, and 90% of people just consume content, they don't care about the Web 2.0, which means that the network for most internet users is just a way to get information.

There has to be more patience.

It is not to be overlooked that, despite the low level of user participation, the number of Web 2.0 Web site visits has increased by 668% over the past two years. The survey shows that the demand for Web 2.0 technology continues to grow, but the Web 2.0 technology of big companies is more popular, according to the Fereste market research firm, a leading consultancy.

The survey surveyed 119 chief information chiefs and more than 500 company employees. The findings show that they have a strong demand for Web 2.0 technologies, including blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS, social networks, and content labels. Currently, well-known software vendors such as IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle and BEA system have started to integrate Web 2.0 technology into their products, and the integrated products are convenient for enterprise use.

Fereste Market research company analysis points out that some of the smaller, more business than the single Web 2.0 technology companies to seek greater development, should be with the larger companies, because in the current situation, the integration of the Web 2.0 market will still be the trend.

According to Thomson Financial and the American Venture Capital Association, emerging companies with a VC background in 2006 averaged $114 million, up 19% from 2005, to a record high since 2000. During the dotcom bubble, the figure had been as high as $337 million trillion.

At present, China's network industry as a whole has maintained a prosperous situation: more than 140 million internet users, more than one-tenth of the total population, network economy (including E-commerce, games, voice IP, search, network bank, etc.) total close to 500 billion yuan, accounting for the total number of Chinese economy.

In the 1999, only 2.1 million Chinese internet users, e-commerce, network payments, logistics and other difficult problems to solve. Today, the number of netizens is 60 times times the same year, financing scale more than before the scale, network infrastructure is complete. What internet companies need to do is find a model that suits China.