The world of the Internet "a long time will be combined, long will be divided"

The rapid development of the internet world, there will be new changes every day, and these changes seem to hide some of the rules-combination and split (bundling and unbundling). Recently, Benedict Evans and Steven Sinofsky talked about the phenomenon in a conversation with a16z podcast, and discussed some ideas about the APP field. This article compiles from their conversations and [related articles][2]. Hope to bring some thinking to the entrepreneurs.

The idea of combining and splitting (bundling and unbundling) was made by Jim Barksdale at an investor meeting when Netscape was ready to go public. "There are only nonblank ways to make, bundling and unbundling". In fact, this sentence in the humor, but also a good expression of the internet era of development characteristics.

We thought, in the early days of Internet development, AOL appeared, and it combined all the information services you would use, including dialing. Then Yahoo appeared, and it split all the content. One of Yahoo's special services is search, and then Google appears to have split the search. One function of Google is to search for people, and Facebook appears to give people a much better way to find someone. What is now being seen is that Facebook is acquiring companies that could threaten its core business through acquisitions.

The shift of sight to the mobile internet is a more obvious phenomenon. On the one hand, some companies in the product of the interesting features out, to do a single function of the APP. If Facebook takes out its Messenger function and makes a single APP. Another trend is to integrate more and more things into their products, like mainstream social applications line, micro-letters, Kakao Talk.

As Evans and Steven talked about: Usually, you start with an idea to accomplish a function, and you create the product. Then you find that the idea is linked to other ideas, so you start adding new features, and maybe one day you can integrate the entire vertical function of others into your product. It will never have a separate product that works, but at least it will keep your users away from using other products. Until one day, everyone will say that your product is too bloated and complex, so you start splitting the product into different functions. And during this time someone will see one of your functions, feel that you do not go deep enough, they will make a new product for your function. (now the most obvious example is the photo processing in the product, almost every APP that uses a photo has some simple photo processing, plus some filters, but they never have a professional photo-processing software.) ）

This makes the entrepreneur in a dilemma, you are constantly improving your photo processing function to make the APP more and more bloated or lost love to deal with photos of this group of users?

So how about splitting the photo feature out of a single APP? The survey showed that everyone used the number of apps in one digit. Data from ComScore suggest that almost two-thirds of users in the United States will not download any new apps for one months. How the new APP gets users is a big problem. How to find balance in combination and split is key.

And we noticed in China, Baidu is doing a very interesting thing to the map. It integrates a variety of functions based on geographical location, taxis, peripheral entertainment, catering and so on. Seemingly bloated, but can be used without feeling. Because these functions are based on the natural "flow" of content. For example, if you search a taxi on a map, it will display the real-time information of the taxi and call out the function of the car. This is a very clever approach, because it is not to do the blind function of stacking, but from the user's needs to start. (Note: This makes me think of the idea that Google now advocates, pushing the most needed information at the right time.) Two other giants, Tencent and Ali, are doing similar things to build a big platform.

However, despite the limited number of apps available to everyone, the top of the app Store rankings are already dominated by a handful of big players, but the less popular apps are often used by a group of professionals, often in the field of work. So unlike the PC side, several giants have almost put all the Internet portals on the mobile side, as long as your APP is fine enough to bypass the Giants and get users.

So, the combination and split is not good who bad, they are only two ways. When you combine too many things, your features become blurred and how to get users to learn to use them becomes a problem. And when you split up, how to get users has become a problem.

Find the balance, timely combination and split to maintain the leading edge. Splitting and grouping will continue with the development of the Internet.

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)