The future of the application of tools from the perspective of Camera360

On the way to realize the independent commercial value of the popular tool class, Camera360 this more famous application of exploration and destination, will have a strong demonstration significance.

Since the start of the 2010 mobile internet boom, there have been a number of Chinese app developers who have been gongchenglvede overseas, and then competing with tech talent overseas. Most of these new applications focus on two areas of gaming and popular tools. And some of them in the North American area of the App Store is full of pots, while others are accumulated a large number of users at home and abroad.

And from Chengdu Fruit Technology produced by mobile phone camera application--camera360 No smell is one of the earliest, and fans most of the application. Xu Xian, chief executive of Fruit technology, revealed that Camera360 has more than 30 million users worldwide. And in Chengdu, China's newly rising science and technology start-up city, fruit and technology is definitely a flap-response pioneer team.

With outstanding technology accumulation and huge number of users, fruit technology has been the hands of a tricycle investment in the organization. This is rare in the Chinese developer team, which is one of the few to get a second round of financing.

The news that the industry has had a photo-sharing app for only 13 employees, Instagram by Facebook with a 1 billion dollar takeover, is a boost for mobile camera applications, including Camera360.

However, the Instagram outcome, which is as Camera360 as the number of users, reinforces the industry's conclusion that popular utility applications are hard to find independent commercial value. Under this big background, Camera360 this Chinese vanguard can break through the bottleneck to seek to own independent survival road? This is still a question.

Technical route and Social route

"Instagram was bought by Facebook for 1 billion dollars!" Fruit Technology CEO Xu Xian saw "business value" reporter, excitedly spread this industry news.

Xu Xian that although Instagram was acquired before finding his own profit model, it has fully reflected the potential value of the camera application.

Camera360 and Instagram users are similar, the former on June 8, 2010 has been on the Google harsh landing, at that time Instagram has not yet been born. Camera360 released, in a week time download volume reached 100,000, become Google harsh multimedia class ranked first application. On the June 22, 2011, Camera360 was transplanted to the iOS platform by the fruit team, and 24 hours later became the top app store for similar applications. Its 2011 users were 6 million, now close to 30 million.

Unlike Instagram's "photo sharing" positioning, Camera360 's positioning is "photo experience." Gorgeous and rich photo filters, the introduction of a SLR camera to the axis, manual metering and other functions, is Camera360 difficult to match the technical threshold. Xu Xian to reporters, "to change the phone into a SLR," or "Leather card machine's life" is the Camera360 positioning.

This positioning makes Camera360 a veritable high-tech product. In fact, it is precisely because it became the world's first to have the processing of 8 million pixel photos of the application, Camera360 won the favor of many overseas users, and in the Instagram program called Camera360 to take photos, and then in the Instagram album inside Share, Become a lot of overseas users of the use of habits.

In fact, after the birth of Instagram, there were 10 similar applications born in 2011. But almost all of them simply copy the concept of "picture community" and fail to make a substantive breakthrough in technology. Most of these teams have been silenced for 2012 years.

So far, Camera360 and Instagram have been entirely separate. The former has only a key share with social networks such as Sina Weibo and Renren, and has not yet built its own photo-store. The latter did not devote much effort to photographing technology, and it was worth 1 billion of dollars only with the simple and humane concept of "photo sharing."

Since 2011, CAMERA360 has maintained a major update every six months, once every half month the application of micro-innovation update frequency. Xu Xian to "business value", as of Now, CAMERA360 is a technical route, operating in the company's day-to-day business does not account for a lot of energy. The promotion is basically not spent money.

Profit is a long process for popular utility applications, and "accumulating users" becomes their only focus. However, for the pioneer Camera360, who has got 3 rounds of financing and sits on 30 million users, exploring the profit path is a problem that Xu Xian must face.

The technical route and the social route decide the possibility space of Camera360 business model. Looking at the industry products that you can refer to today, this space gives people a limited imagination-take the technology route, sell the advanced version of the app, or charge for technology in a free application, take a social route, build your own picture-sharing network, and provide a large enough space and services for paying users.

Camera Awesome is a pioneer in the search for fees for social routes. Its applications are free, and the SmugMug site, which is backed by Flickr, charges users who open their own photo stations.

The path to the business model, at least in China, is hard to get through. User stickiness is Camera360 and the United States compared to the biggest disadvantage of peer-similar properties of domestic products, the user is extremely dispersed. Domestic social networks have more motivation and advantage than Facebook to do such things. In the April, the network launched a similar path to the private social mobility application of "beautiful carved", is the evidence of this situation. and the micro-letter 4.0 sweeping all the more can not be ignored. Therefore, the easy social model of profit attempts in this unfavorable context is becoming less successful for application developers.

In fact, in March, Camera Awesome introduced a key share to the Instagram function, which meant that the former's path of independent exploration basically failed.

And the other way-take the technical route of the charge mode exploration, and Camera360 its location of the same 2011 App Store non-game category Sales champion--camera+ has made a good demonstration.

In January, camera+ production company Taptaptap announced that its sales applications have accumulated revenues of $5.1 million trillion. Among them, its application in 2011 download volume soared, accounting for the historical download of 5/6. At the end of March, Taptaptap announced that it had sold 10 million camera+ applications.

However, if the 5.1 million dollar is split into the 18 months after the camera+ line, and then spread out to its dozens of employees, it is just flat with the operating costs.

The future of popular tools

"Our team is more conservative. Xu Yuantan told reporters. "We see social demand is not rigid, the only rigid demand at this stage is to take pictures and fool." ”

In order to ensure Camera360 to achieve a certain user stickiness, community, platform, these are Xu Xian alternative considerations. Xu Xian said that although Camera360 has no layout in social socialization, it will certainly take this route in the future. But when to go, how to go, all depends on the opportunity.

There is no denying the fact that Instagram's 1 billion worth is really persuasive. But it only does a short, independent life of the user not to explore the profit model, and it seems to suggest that there is only one way out of the public utility application: wait to be acquired.

Realistically, a tool star application life expectancy, than the game class applications, and its fans more than the game class. However, the real problem in front of these popular tools is that the number of fans cannot be changed into commercial value for a short time, and the team is in a state of loss and profit. In this context, Instagram by Facebook, but also to increase the awareness of this reality.

Take a look at the reality of Camera360, the photographic family born of outstanding technology accumulation and huge number of users at home and abroad is its biggest advantage. In terms of disadvantage, the local social route with a low success rate, and the fees that may lead to user churn, are unpredictable variables.

In fact, Camera360 also faces a potential disadvantage, that is, Apple. From the trajectory of iOS upgrades, the system layer continues to extend to the application layer, eroding the developer "cheese", which is a more obvious trend.

Those who intend to "rebel" in a closed garden face the risk of being purged. At this point camare+ had a "criminal record". It landed in the app Store in June 2010, but because it called an Apple's internal function, allowing the user to use the volume button to take a picture, it violated the "Apple rule" and was then forced to stand down. The camare+ team was forced to cancel this "deviant" innovation in its 2.0 release in 2011.

However, for this, Xu Xian has shown a more optimistic. The Giants, he argues, are unable to take full account of the user experience and are bound to adopt expensive pricing models. And this is the living space of Camera360. "Microsoft has OneNote, and Evernote still gets a lot of fans to prove it." "Xu Xian to Business value".

It is clear that the use of popular tools to explore the profitability of the road will be long. However, the ubiquitous theory of "coupling value" on the Internet should be the ultimate guarantee for the application of tool class.

The "coupling value" of a tool with a huge amount of user capacity and a large platform is often considerable. In fact, the value of Instagram also suggests that for a product, this coupling may not be as low as the return on its own.

In front of reporters, Xu Xian no high-sounding denied Camera360 this possible destination. But he thought it was a matter for the future, "to succeed Instagram continue to explore the way of profitability, this is a pioneer mission." "Xu Xian said.

(Via commercial value)