To Ming: Free is the future of Internet companies operating mode

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China's internet has grown for more than 10 years, creating dozens of listed companies, including those listed in the United States and listed in Hong Kong. But most of these companies have an obvious feature that their products are basically free of charge and are available to users free of charge. For example, Tencent, Baidu, Sina, Sohu, NetEase, Grand, perfect, giant, swim, worry, etc., first through the free access to a large number of users, and then through the provision of some "different" services, to promote the initiative of some users to pay, or to allow business owners to pay, so that enterprises generate huge profits. Which rely on users to pay the company, such as Giants, grand, although the user probability of paying is not much, but the billion-level user base, even if there is little probability, the payment of the group is very large.

Take the game for example, the previous game is to rely on the time point card to obtain income, and now, basically the use of free mode, through the charging props to obtain income. Do not spend money can play free games, and the game's research and development companies need to invest in huge scientific research personnel, game designers, planners, art and other a series of different talents to work together to complete, Shi Yuzhu once said, not a billion best not to intervene in the online gaming industry. But the billions of dollars in the output of the product but let everyone play for free, if in the past, almost no one believed, especially in the traditional industry of the crowd, more likely to accept such a practice. But the fact that we were surprised Shi Yuzhu of this free game attracted a large number of players at the same time, there are large numbers of people in order to enjoy the "different" props and willing to take the initiative to pay, annual income of more than 1 billion, the journey also by virtue of this free game in the United States listing, which is free as an internet company operating mode

Of course, the Internet industry relies on free to operate a number of companies, Google by providing free search services, gathering hundreds of millions of users, and then began to charge companies through advertising, thereby achieving the status of global hegemony. Tencent QQ provides the IM service is also free, people can use anytime and anywhere, do not need any cost can use QQ chat software. When the user into the scale, Tencent launched its members, yellow diamond, red diamond and other "different" services, some users began to voluntarily willing to pay for money, created this in China's largest Internet enterprises. For the moment, in China's instant messaging market, the user experience the best software is undoubtedly QQ, Tencent is also in the continuous investment in research and development funds to improve the "free" products. Free products more easy to attract users, but also easier to have a certain user base, so it is easy to collect user feedback, so polished products easier, so that the introduction of better products to stick users. Some of the popular voice chat rooms in the market, entertainment chat software does not have a comparison of QQ, user experience is very poor. Free is not only easy to attract users, and even can provide better than the price of products.

The author of the Long Tail, Anderson, in his second book, Free: The future of Business, said: "The free business model is based on a huge consumer group, the strength of the group is huge, the popularity of earning enough, reputation rang, this is the basis for profitability." "Free is to expand the user, is to increase the visibility of the brand, is to increase the user's stickiness."

But as free products become more and more, people develop this free habit, and it's difficult to accept "fee-based" products. In other words, the Internet on any one of the charges of products, it must correspond to a free product. Even the future will be able to correspond to a group of free products, the price of the product because of the limitations of the number of users, even if there is a very weak profit, and only a little fee users will continue to go to the group of free users, free gradually become the internet company's products operating mode, people will feel that not paying for the enjoyment is taken for granted. Gradually, some companies will also break through the traditional mode of thinking, the single "Charge price" will not depend entirely on a single "user cost", but rely on a large number of users to pay the probability of active payment to obtain income. Free This mode of operation will be more popular in the future Internet companies, and even spread to the traditional industry trend. Some traditional industry companies are also gradually introducing some of the surrounding free services, such as testing, test drive, trial, demo and so on to try to provide some low-cost free things to attract a number of people first, and then let the user probabilistic payment. The traditional industry was born the product of the Internet, some of the products of the model is indeed "later on", in turn by the traditional industry learning. Of course, I don't think free is a business model, or rather, an operational model. So, I think free is not the future of Internet companies business model, Free is the future of Internet companies operating mode. (text/shark)