What the Chinese Internet bosses have done in the last two years

Absrtact: Let's take a look at what China's internet bosses have done in the last two years: Lei the millet with futures; Chen Tianqiao in the Grand Bambook E-book project nearly failed the results of the strong Bambook smartphone; Zhou hit the People

Let's look at what China's internet bosses have done in the past two years:

Lei in the way of futures to make millet in full swing;

Chen Tianqiao in the Grand Bambook E-book project nearly failed the results of the strong Bambook smartphone;

Zhou directly to the people for "special" coveted and with mobile phone manufacturers to launch Low-cost 360 special machine;

Mr Ma's doubly trusted Jian, during his tenure as Aliyun president, worked out four handsets and a Aliyun OS that had been deadlocked by Google protests;

Ma Tengens Tencent wholly-funded Brush Machine wizard and also continue to control the line under the brush machine channels;

Robin Li Although the fleeting times are "divorced" but Baidu through its Baidu Mobile cloud division of the card Strategy (master, the development of mobile input method) by the present-end;

Kai-Fu Lee's innovation workshop has been reduced to an Android factory all investment projects are concentrated in the mobile terminal applications;

Ding lei in NetEase set up within the mobile phone project team after the lack of confidence in the investment side and abandoned;

Even do the Luo of English training institutions (well this may not be the internet big guy), but also in the tens of millions of yuan investment after the follow Millet "first ROM hardware" flow curve into the mobile phone market ...

Compared with traditional hardware enterprises, Internet enterprises in the production, research and development and service supply chain does not really have many advantages, the network as an information platform in the marketing system, the highest value is just an independent sales channels, the user's purchase decision-making nature is not controllable, the smartphone market eruption is also by Apple, Google and Microsoft to dominate, why these big guys on the internet, when the pressure of competition to multiply daily also have a strong interest in mobile phone? Is it just because Millet's controversial myth effect stimulates their nerves? Or are users migrating to the mobile internet making them feel the risk of user churn?

We might as well look back to the Arizona, State Conference on Science and Technology, held in early November in the United States (the Techonomy conference), where Microsoft, which has just released its Windows 8 operating system, and Intel, which has lost all its "super" concepts, But the title of the "Fantastic Four" (Fantastic Loko), which is truly the star of the global Tech media, is: Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook. These four companies are recognized as experiencing setbacks and troughs, but by virtue of their own value and struggle to finally gain a place in their respective market competition, can represent (at least the United States) the future direction of the technology industry.

Figure I: "The Fantastic Four" are the founders of a very prominent style of enterprise;

That is, no matter how users migrate between PCs and mobile, but by the "multiple screen in a" trend of influence, users in computers, mobile phones, tablets and other terminal equipment operating behavior will tend to be unified, we can open the browser on the computer to send mail, but also on the phone to run the app to send mail, The difference between using the device depends solely on the environment and the scenario. Under such a big Internet concept, Google's search engine field, Amazon's E-commerce field, Apple's smartphone (terminal), Facebook's social networking field will be the four core of the future digital life, the need for people to access the Internet: Get information, buy goods , interactive experience and social networking.

The smartphone (terminal) is one of the most variable areas, because after nearly half a century of development, thanks to the never-fail Moore's law, computer computers today can be able to deal with all the basic user needs without the change of the replacement such as sending mail, browsing the web, video chat and so on, Ten years ago, computer hardware can be easily achieved, users of the computer's marginal demand has been reduced to the trough stage. But the smartphone (terminal) is different, techonomy that by 2018 the world will have 6.5 billion users, of which up to 70% of the increase will come from Asia, the Middle East and Africa, smartphones (terminals) and their contact will be far higher than the PC computer, think about it, A whopping 6.5 billion of consumers, from hardware to software and services, are destined to bring unprecedented market opportunities.

and search engines, E-commerce, Smartphones (terminals), social networks, these four areas if in China, you can find only the first no obvious giants occupy, understand?

At least in the tech industry, America is often a mirror of China, a joke said: "China's Internet future development is hidden in the United States now a high school students in the brain," so Baidu, Alibaba (including Taobao and Cat), Tencent has become the Chinese market value of the top three internet companies, they correspond to the search engine , E-commerce and social networking, "three missing one" is the smart phone (terminal) field, China has not enough to rise to support the industry's weight of the Giants, Millet is the closest one but even if it is too far away, lei create "City Dream rate" may be able to fool investors, But users don't pay for corporate bosses ' beats. Everyone worships jobs, but the reason for buying the iphone is because it's an iphone, not because Mr. Jobs's speech was glamorous.

Unlike the United States, the Chinese have a strong "entrance" complex, it is often said that a gas station has been built somewhere in the United States, attracting a lot of customers, so that in the vicinity of the gas station will gradually grow out of restaurants, convenience stores, bars and other places, and ultimately to form a more winning business environment, but in China, a gas station to make money, There's going to be people running a gas station right now. The content of this case itself makes it easy to be understood as an aerial joke, because China's reality is not allowed to private contractors, but if you really have business experience in China, at least you go to the Chinese rural market, you will find that in a country, people in the last year before planting season to ask which kind of crop profits the highest, And then almost all the farmers are going to swarm that kind of crop, and market supply and demand theory tells us that output is higher than demand, it will lead to price decline, so the harvest season, you will see a film of unsalable phenomenon, as well as the annual lines unchanged press release: A certain agricultural products unsalable, rotten agricultural products in the field and no one to buy, farmers lost their own ... ...

This idea is also reflected in the Internet's business system, once everyone respected the "end first" theory, no matter what products, must have a client, and then through a variety of promotional means to use the milk of the client installed in the user's computer desktop, which is the dark history (rogue Plug-ins, Trojan implants, bundled promotion) Everyone should know; Later, the browser led the entire web, become the user's core access to the Internet, the browser has become the most important projects, the most typical and most successful is 360, in the security of the user is huge but not profitable, relying on 360 browser products and derived from the site navigation , web games and other business directly help 360 on the city; cloud "and mobile internet, for the former, there is no technical strength to do, of course, also have to bite the bullet, such as grand and Ali, for the latter," end first "theory was transplanted over, compared to PC screen, smartphone (terminal) The screen is smaller and location resources are scarce, so using app to preempt the portal has become the first reason for Internet bosses to enter the smartphone (terminal) market.

Figure II: The market growth of smartphones and tablets determines the gold content of these two "screens";

Figure three: The main way to preempt the entrance is to app the product;

Value of the entrance

Representative: Baidu, Tencent means: Through the control of brush machine channels and tools, the application of their own embedded system layer.

Do you remember how difficult it was to uninstall software on your computer before 2004? In order to keep the entrance of the computer desktop, many software clients go deep into the system process, so that you can not uninstall, unloading, unloading and, this also achieved 360 of the results of the birth of no one than Zhou know how users hate this situation And how much you need the help of an expert.

But when you buy a custom-made smartphone today or a parallel mobile phone sold by a reseller, you'll find it easy to strangle malware on a computer compared with an app that deletes some of the system's "tapes" on those smartphones. Even though some applications we think users are basically not likely to use the initiative, but with the smartphone market blowout caused by the huge shipping rate, so that the system "own" its own applications even from a purely mathematical point of view is absolutely profitable.

It looks like a hard war, companies continue to pay the cost of their applications to stay in the smartphone, the user's continuous learning methods to the root mobile phone system to eliminate unwanted applications, this game indirectly proved the value of the entrance, even in the middle of the brush machine staff Manufacturers can use the tug of the two sides to make a pot full, if the end can persuade users to retain their own applications, then this means that more than 18 hours a day with the user, even if the user does not open the application once every day, but we can play the initiative, play this means, Internet companies are the best and most proficient at it.

Occupying an entrance on a smartphone (terminal) is the lowest threshold of a measure, it assumes a high uncertainty and an unknown risk, so even if it is as strong as a 200 million-user micro-letter, MA is only cautiously defining it as "micro-mail is just a ticket to help Tencent squeeze into the mobile internet," Because the application is too dependent on the growth environment, and in the smartphone (terminal) market, the future of the system platform still has considerable variables unlike the PC Internet, Windows winner-all.

Even in the traditional internet, history tells us that too much reliance on other people's ecosystems may have great potential for development, and in the 2011, the industry was praising how much of Zynga's successful use of social networks (mainly Facebook) to open up the social gaming market, the High-profile listing at the end of 2011, Seems to have made everyone see the sparkle of their business model, but in just one year, Zynga's share price has remained under 3 dollars for a long time, with more than 7 executives leaving, and this is not the result of a major decision-making blunder by Zynga, but rather a "host" Facebook's involvement, the latter's IPO (from 40 to $20) sparked public concern about the social-networking bubble, which led to a downgrade of Zynga's ratings and target shares by a number of investment-banking analysts, and Zynga was "shot in the Lie".

As the other side of the Mirror, China also has a vivid reference case: To develop "Happy farm" well-known domestic social game manufacturers five minutes have dissolved the team, the business bundled in SNS (NET, QQ space) of the chariot, with SNS by micro-Bo and other social media impact caused by the contraction, The once-hot social game was smashed to pieces.

That's why it's not enough to just grab a portal, while you can hit the cost of getting your app to cover all the mainstream, Non-mainstream system platforms, you'll always controlled: With iOS selected, you have to allocate 30% of your revenue to Apple, and you choose Android , you have to let Google contact your users, choose Windows Phone, you will have someone to choose Windows Phone? More importantly, as a smartphone (terminal) of the most important interactive experience level, an application can show the opportunity and stage, is too small.

But why are Baidu and Tencent, the two most expensive internet companies in China, simply choosing the lowest-threshold approach to the mobile phone market? Because they are large enterprises, the turn of large enterprises is very slow, think of Microsoft Bar, their every move is involved in shareholder interests, so we must carefully test the water, On the contrary, the emerging enterprises are relatively easy to bite, because it is a huge gap in the cost of error.

Figure Four: The competition pattern of the whole system platform gradually evolve into two strong hegemony;

Figure five: In China, the Android system takes on most of the user experience training;

Experience Premium

Representative: Millet (initial), Hammer technology (Luo), Aliyun os

Means: the introduction of ROM firmware or independent system, to provide a controllable user experience, cultivate user habits and preferences.

The word user experience, gradually from the product manager's information circle, the extension became a business word, a bit similar to the digital product market "price", the main purpose is to convey to the user the concept of "value", the iphone is good, but 5000 pieces of one, bought Routong, I have a mobile phone for only 2000 pieces, but my user experience is comparable to the iphone, in some places can be said to be better than the iphone, or to one?

Here, the experience is to be used as a premium for marketing, Lei curve to do the first step of mobile phone is to concentrate their own resources for the name of the civil team on Android to develop a MIUI ROM,MIUI to improve the experience of the ordinary Android phone, the user's expectations have been established (has already bought a mobile phone, whether it likes it or not, the mobile phone system can not be changed) in the case, provide more than expected (the mobile phone will be loaded with a new MIUI ROM) experience. When the MIUI succeeds, the timing of the premium return in Lei's plan comes naturally: "Make a special phone for MIUI enthusiasts."

Lei's millet technology has many problems, but its initial strategy was successful enough to enter the business school case, the "first ROM hardware" model of a sound and highly self-correcting, which also inspired Luo to enter the smartphone market has confidence in the realization. Ordinary people directly to do hardware equipment, it is difficult to even have the open support of Android, but the millet proved that you can do a ROM first, in order to obtain a certain size of the user, then to carry users to make investors, to melt more money to do hardware. Luo's confidence is that he is very trusting of his aesthetic taste, and the same as Steve Jobs is a designer of all ideas, plus he does have a certain degree of visibility and network resources, the Internet is a miracle of the place, what things can happen, It's just that Luo's cell phone rom is still in the renovation phase of the interactive design because of the progress of development. So what the future will be, it is hard to say, but simply because Luo no industry experience on the assertion that "not reliable", I am afraid should also think of MA in the Internet before the same as old, is teaching English.

But the premium of experience must be based on habit, Windows 8 is a great experience, but the market response is mixed, and many people agree that Windows 8 may be cool, trendy and innovative, but Microsoft has voluntarily given up on the traditional reregistering user habits that he has nurtured over the past 20 years, It is not an ideal condition for Windows 8 to appear to be an inherited product, rather like an independent product, and it takes half an hour for a senior computer user to learn how to send mail on Windows 8. Almost in the same vein, to Microsoft the former deputy Dean to join Alibaba's Jian, after several years leading the introduction of Alibaba's independent smartphone system: Aliyun OS, which is also an extremely risky move: Aliyun OS based on the underlying architecture of Android development, but not adnroid, This led to a setback in two directions: on the one hand, Google believes that Aliyun OS violates Android's open protocol, to the hardware partners to pressure Cup Gearion OS, so that the latter can not be universal support, on the other hand Aliyun os too independent, loaded in the language and Haier a total of 5 second-line phones, The total number of shipments can not guarantee the size of the user, which can not drive developers for the Aliyun OS development applications, and Microsoft is facing the same dilemma, no users, no partners, no developers, this is not the money can solve the problem.

If the application is the fruit, the handset hardware is the root, then the system platform is the branch, the branch is used to connect the fruit and the root system, transmits the nutrition, maintains the metabolism. Starting with the stems can save a lot of trouble, at the same time establish their own indispensable, the user experience premium is usually concentrated in the region, a successful company has proven that, based on a fully controllable system platform, is able to create many different directions, different types of premium experience, It can even subvert some of the traditional business models: App Store, ITunes, Siri ...

Figure VI: The global volume of smartphone shipments, the Chinese market is in the gold growth period;

Relay of the hardware

Representative: Grand, 360

means: cheap sales of its own or cooperative smartphone products, the hardware as a springboard to seek the profits of the user size.

Perhaps in the public sense, people will generally see the "software-system-hardware" as a progressive relationship between this is true, but in this article, the progression sequence is set up because China's internet bosses are not really trying to make a smartphone, which in its planning is just a piece of hardware that fills the market's needs, As a transit point role, it is like using chopsticks to clip beef slices into the hot pot in the bottom of the material, and then clip out to see the beef slices covered with a layer of oil.

And they choose the hard to take the hardware as a springboard to absorb users, just because in the brush machine market loss of opportunity, a grand disdain to brush machine, adhering to the Chen Tianqiao family entertainment dream, Shanda think only the hardware can really grasp the user, The Shanda main network game business brings to its management The cognition is: users can easily change a new game to play, but they will not easily change a computer; 360 is in the aftermath of its early impact on Tencent, in its Investment Brush Machine wizard, Tencent directly incorporated the entire brush Machine Elves team, forced 360 quit, Zhou this only found that the circle of capital operation than the security software circle so good deal with, had to alliances pull to two hardware manufacturers, let 360 in the form of the name + intermodal cooperation launched "Special for Machine", and then 360 of the mobile phone software installed to the default system of the special machine.

The size of the user will certainly bring profits, the problem is just how much, at the same time the user scale and profit margin must also be proportional to, shanda because of a variety of online game products, for the mobile phone platform to the ability to realize a high degree of confidence, so it is more want to control the user Bambook smart phones Despite all aspects are very mediocre, But it also sells cheaply, Shanda believes that users will be through the Bambook smartphone built-in Shanda game products, Grand Literature bookstore and other value-added services to contribute to the profit, this is a correct idea, but also a very narrow thinking, mobile phone games and PC client user differences and user compartments are very obvious, The former many for the short-term items, usually to leisure, fun, such as time to kill the characteristics of the debris, the user's pay is more equal, and then more for long-term projects, usually with the comparison, action, PK and other irritating factors, the user pay to present a polarized state, So far the industry has no PC online gaming manufacturers in mobile games successfully transplanted or developed a work precedent, and with the Aliyun OS facing the same, if the mobile phone hardware itself can not be guaranteed, the size of the user is no way to do, people may buy a mobile phone so will try to play the game on the phone, But not to play a certain mobile phone game to buy the designated mobile phone.

360 is also copying its experience in the PC market to the mobile phone market, regardless of how, first the "security" card out, to guide users to 360 of the application as the basic function of smart phones. This strategy has a blind spot, because it involves to cooperate with handset manufacturers, the other party will not sacrifice or play down their own brand to take out their own main models to 360 packaging into a "360 special machine", willing to give 360 of the model itself will not have too much market space and competitiveness, This makes 360 feel extremely laborious when shouting, the use of Computer client window can not use too many times, otherwise the inherent user experience, in addition to Zhou can rely on micro-bleomycin free to win some attention, 360 for the promotion of special machines is wool, a ring buckle a ring, The interests of all parties cannot be guaranteed, so the 360 operation in this direction can only be said to be a grudging one.

PC Internet play is the flow of cash, mobile Internet play is the user to become present, through the hardware springboard to obtain users the highest cost, while the user's migration is also relatively low, but this means of input and output than in the assessment will make investors look very ugly, in the impact of user purchase decision factors, brand, specifications, Design, such as occupy too heavy a proportion, even if strong as the Android Google, can not continue to have been placed in the Gphone life cycle, Nexus brand has been in turn to professional hardware manufacturers, MINGTU. Everyone wants to be the next Apple, but no one wants to be the first to experience Apple's more than 20 years of hibernation and frustration.

Figure VII: About the slowdown in the growth of China Mobile internet market, the impact of the "mobile Internet innovation business model has not yet broken, revenue liquidity is still weak";

Unknown "Money"

Thomas Husson, a Forrester Research consultant at information technology analysis firm, believes that the most important mission of mobile Internet is not to create a new business model, but to extend the existing business model so that it can fill the existing operating system of large enterprises more plump.

This is why China's internet bosses are invariably on the phone to increase interest and investment in the root cause, in the PC Internet highly mature today, including the most profitable Baidu, Tencent, we all feel hit the taste of revenue ceiling, Baidu was 360 accidental sniper, Tencent's income growth rate of 5 consecutive years, NetEase's growth also because of "World of Warcraft" life cycle of the impact tends to flat, 360 in this year repeatedly by Wall Street short, Shanda is shrinking ... Rather than the vast market of smartphones, rather than being a huge smartphone user who sees the opportunity to prop up existing business growth stimuli, the mobile internet has a stronger expansion than the PC Internet, which can be seen from the payment channel, a decade ago, when the entire Chinese internet plunged into a bubble economy, SP business has become the king of the Salvation of the world, and the channel of cash flow from the 2G era is still the user's mobile phone.

A less appropriate analogy is: the ultimate means of the first-order of the advanced civilization in the Cosmic War is "to reduce the dimension", and whoever adapts himself to the low dimensional cosmic environment will be able to gain the opportunity of civilization development and domination in the next Dimension universe. China's internet bosses are motivated by worries and expectations about the next dimension of the universe (the mobile internet market), and are willing to take the initiative to lower their own dimensions (to join the smartphone battle) in an attempt to gain the commanding heights in a new civilized environment (the mobile internet market).

However, Business Insider's Market research report is less rosy:

Figure Eight: 2011 U.S. advertising Market user contact time and user contribution income comparison;

The data shows that the ability and efficiency of smartphones is far from the public's expectation, and when the mobile internet is longer than the PC Internet becomes the second media platform, its advertising Ecpms only account for the whole media market 1%,business Insider that this and mobile internet monetization process is closely related, the solution includes: "1, establish profit direction, 2, localization of business opportunities, 3, marketing form innovation, 4, to solve fraud click." ”

Daniel Backhaus, founder of Silversurfer7, the German social Networking marketing agency, also believes that the apru of the mobile internet is low, which makes many companies less clear about the smartphone (terminal).

Premature intervention in immature markets may be at the same time as the occupation of the same, practice into the mire. Don't forget hit's Foursquare, which is now close to zombie with its copycat street network in China. What do people do with smartphones (terminals) What scenarios to do, what to achieve, what the business should be in, and so on, are waiting for the mobile Internet ecosystem to determine its own evolutionary direction, and the game and unification among the various standards will also increase the variability of future trends, ABI Reasearch once predicted that smartphones with NFC chips would dominate the market in 2009, and then Apple's iphone appeared, jobs didn't like NFC, and Apple's smart Terminal matrix didn't support NFC, so ... (Of course, although not as fast as expected, NFC is still one of the most promising transport technologies)

As well as ...

"I sing of the Lost and fear what is won."

I walk in a battle that I'll fight again

My emperor, the Lost Emperor, my soldiers, the lost soldiers

The footsteps that rise and descend

Always stepping on the same little stone. ”

Yeats, The Lost thing.

The only problem is that it looks as if, apart from Tencent, most of the bosses have not yet clear their own goals where, a Japanese entertainment program once to the artists to make mischief, when the artist walking alone in the empty alley, in front of a group of people suddenly flocked to grin, as if by what monster chasing the same, And unlucky artists after a short period of overwhelmed also subconsciously followed the direction of the flow of people panic run. For the direction of the Internet enterprises, blindly hasty quickly rather than deliberate after the slow, in making decisions, the classic 5W1H analysis method will never be obsolete:

What-what kind of business do you want on your smartphone?

Where-where do you concentrate resources and manpower?

When-how should your intervening time guide your planning?

Who-what are your configuration requirements for the team?

Why-Why do you do all of these moves?

How-what are your strategies, measures, and means?