xingping How to change body tyrants

Many people think that the success of Hao123 is a miracle of China's Internet development, very few people deeply, will find that it is xingping is the website owner is the customer this "two integrated" identity, only to build its core competitiveness.

This is already a long time ago acquired. August 31, 2004, Baidu announced a successful acquisition of the HAO123 website with 11.9 million RMB and 40,000 shares. According to Baidu Vice President Liangdong recalls: The acquisition, Baidu is listed before an important preparation work.

Compared to Sina, NetEase, Sohu and other network predators, hao123 almost never received media attention, but its founder xingping "Black Apple not bright" net name more well-known.

However, all this neglect does not preclude Hao123 's great commercial success.

In fact, Hao123 Web site since 1999 officially online to September 1, 2004 Alexa ranked 26th in the world, more than many famous professional website, even to Tom and other portal sites. From the day it was founded, hao123 with a concise page, relatively fair selection of the site, became a lot of netizens computer boot after the first choice, especially in the urban and rural internet cafes, hao123 is often set up as the home page, a lot of Chinese grassroots internet users experience, is from the click of the hao123 began.

Some people think that Hao123 's success is a miracle of the development of China's Internet, and an "accidental event" which cannot be duplicated. However, explore Hao123 's entrepreneurial development process and analysis of its success, it is the founder Xingping itself is both a website owner and customer of this "two-in-one" identity, the natural based on customer experience sensitivity, and can be anywhere to listen to this sensitive call to respond and improve the behavior , which Hao123 the competitiveness of this seemingly uncompetitive web site.

Grassroots xingping

Xingping, born in 1979 in Xingning County, Guangdong Province, is home to local farmers, xingping to earn a living after graduating from junior high School. 2005 years ago the first trip, the location is Shenzhen.

1999, the network in China gradually popularized, Xingning County also began to have internet cafes. At this time, began to become addicted to the Internet xingping in the local Internet café to find an Internet Café Administrator's work.

Because to help people save money for computers, he needs to use the Internet to find information such as accessories, and soon he found it very difficult on the Internet, not only the content of the Chinese site is not rich enough, the number is limited, and to the English alphabet to write down the Web site, is not an easy thing. So he came up with a solution, designed a personal web page, collected the sites he thought were good, and made links to them. The next time you surf the Internet, it's easy for him to go directly to these popular websites.

The identity of the Internet Café Administrator let xingping every day in the online, bubble in those who play games, chat, internet users. Soon, he found that many people come to the Internet café do not know how to surf the Internet, and then do not know where to find the content. At that time, the Internet fee is very expensive, but often at a loss at the loss of luxury.

He designed the humble personal homepage to begin to play a magical function. He began to consciously do the website address collection classification work, love to think of him to do a "web site Daquan" type of things. Six months later, Xingping's personal homepage began to have the embryonic form of hao123, he gave it the name is "Web site encyclopedia." He categorized the top 5,000 sites in China, grouped by purpose. Then he began to do some click ads and the Web site Alliance, as the traffic increased, the site's fixed ads followed.

The website has the income, he needs to register a name formally, "hao123" suddenly jumps into his mind. "There was nothing too much to think about, no special meaning, just think it simple, easy to remember." Xingping recalls.

Thankfully, he thought of "Hao" rather than "good" or "wonderful". In this way, junior high school graduates xingping with a primitive instinct to become the "hao123" of the father.

In the middle of the 2000, hao123 website has been basically formed and started to make money by clicking ads. Although the dotcom bust has caused many websites to die suddenly, hao123 is not deeply impressed by the cold snap. "The initial advertising fee is about hundreds of yuan, then the monthly income has more than 1000 yuan, gradually to four thousand or five thousand yuan, at the end of 2001 reached tens of thousands of yuan, to 2003, 2004, the income of each month stable in 800,000 yuan." Xingping recalls.

Hao123 has been only xingping a person in the management, low-key he has been "secretly" do this thing, his friends do not even know he is the site of hao123 webmaster. Of course, his workload is also very large, "a day about 6-7 hours in the check, update the link." But there are too many links, I can not check every day, so I often worry that some sites contain illegal links, pressure and workload are very large. ”

Because the early start, until 2002 years or so, Hao123 have no strong competitors. Until 2003 "265" and other sites appear, Hao123 's browsing volume has reached a certain scale, firmly occupy the navigation site first place. According to Baidu statistics, from hao123 Search request ads accounted for the entire Baidu search volume of 1/10.

Founder Xingping Junior High School education, internet cafes temporary work experience, these in the founder of the hao123 process instead become an advantage-just because do not understand, can deeply understand the difficulties of ordinary people online, only to provide a convenient hao123 for ordinary people online.

The market for primary internet users overlooked by large companies

If the xingping originally founded Hao123 just accidentally inserted Willow, then hao123 success is based on xingping my user identity, as well as the user experience of the natural sensitivity, so that the hao123 well fit the real needs of Chinese Internet users.

This is thanks to the precise positioning of hao123: A primary Internet user market overlooked by large companies. Just think of those young people who first surfed the internet in Internet cafes, the primary school children who had just bought a computer, and the elderly who could hardly use the keyboard to operate the mouse, and then analyze the positioning of hao123, and find that it was so precise that it caught the part of the new netizens that China was expanding rapidly

hao123 development stage, the most important users are basically the same as the xingping a few years ago, "rookie": they do not remember the Internet site, is not to lose the URL or lazy to lose the site, they stuttered typing, do not know how to use the search, and will not use the favorites.

A netizen who grew up from this stage said: "Even if you know your Web site is 888.com, these netizens can not reach your website, because they do not know where to enter the Web site!" You tell him to enter in the address bar, he will ask: what is the Address bar? Where is it? "

And the home of the hao123 Web site is for these people to serve. As long as the hao123 set as the first page, open the browser can see the most famous sites in the country's name, at a glance, click to enter.

In the survey users like hao123 reasons, the first four reasons are: 1, very convenient, fast and practical. 2, the classification is very clear, the content is many and full. 3, hao123 in the content of the choice of no virus and bad links, can provide services to meet demand. 4, simple interface, less advertising.

At first glance, Hao123 's page is like a classified ad version of a newspaper, a bit rustic, but it is this kind of "newspaper classified advertising"-style page that conforms to the reading habits of Chinese primary internet users. These netizens ' habits of thinking are more accustomed to browsing than searching, and open browsers like traditional newspapers to see a lot of news links. They only know that by clicking the mouse they can go where he wants to go, or see the news he wants to see, they don't want to explore the technical principles, they don't need to make a decision. Hao123 on the home page that lists a large number of selected URLs, and the internal links never more than two layers.

Which website is good, which website is worth collecting, Xingping's main choice standard is whether the content is rich, the user feels whether practical. The user feels not only himself, but also the netizens who come to his internet café, including all kinds of comments on the Internet, which is what he wants to refer to.

"I'm in the Internet café every day, and I know what kind of websites they like and what they hate." "This is the Internet Café Administrator Xingping has, any other webmaster do not have the unique advantages."

Easy interface

Hao123 Another advantage that makes many internet companies easier is the straightforward and catchy name. I'm afraid there are few more straightforward names in cyberspace than hao123, Hanyu Pinyin "Hao" rather than cares "big", the simplest number 123, "hao123" The combination of these 6 elements, even if the old lady does not type, illiterate, never learn English peasant brother, They can spell it correctly, and they all get it in their head.

Unlike the loud and rustic name "hao123", many large internet companies are keen to use esoteric names to show the knowledge of entrepreneurs. From the earliest "Sina" to the current "Google", is not a product of elite culture, and only "hao123" is xingping the junior high school name, as the "dog left" like a local flavor, but it is catchy, easy to spread.

Matching the simple name is hao123 simple interface.

Hao123 's page is still a static page, this is because the original xingping computer knowledge is limited to this, he designed the knowledge of the web only from the network to find some information, while doing learning. Later, xingping computer knowledge more and more rich, can also design more complex web pages, but, he found that the static page is simple and fast, nothing bad.

With the beginning of the time depending on the internet cafes, according to statistics, now hao123 nearly 60% of the user for home users, 26% for schools or units, only 11% for Internet cafes. Home users become dominant, but also benefit from the hao123 design simple but not fancy, no sexy attractive ads, no dazzling windows, static link features and clean pages, well satisfied with the simple content of these netizens requirements.

Xingping said he was first and foremost an internet lover, followed by a businessman. The creation of Hao123 itself does not have a commercial purpose, it is purely xingping personal "Internet notes" for the convenience of Internet. When he treats himself as a customer, in order to protect his visual comfort, so the page design fresh and elegant, to enhance the speed of the Internet, so links as simple as possible, direct target. Hao123 in the development process, xingping more from the customer perspective on how to improve the quality of the site, but did not consider the use of traffic for income, not to increase traffic and indulge a wide variety of advertising into.

According to hao123 current product manager Lin Introduction, since 1999 HAO123 since its inception, as well as in 2004 after Baidu took over, Hao123 has been maintaining its consistent appearance, including the clean purity of the page, link fast and effective, and later maintenance management mainly for the dynamic tracking of links, This includes the selection of new URLs, the elimination of dead links, and the management of ad links.

In March 2006, Hao123 's managers conducted a user behavior survey for netizens, finding that 39.97% of users surfed the internet for 2-5 years, and 31.15% of them went online for 5 or 5 years, both of which reached 71%. This shows that hao123 has begun to step out of the novice users of the Internet access education needs, the old users have a strong stickiness.

From the hobby to create a personal Web page, to 2003 monthly 800,000 of the advertising flow, and then to 2004 Baidu to 11.9 million yuan and 40,000 shares of the acquisition, the owner of this story is a junior high school graduates, a monthly salary is not hundreds of yuan of Internet cafes administrators. Hao123 's success may make those turtles who have a grand "business plan" and tens of millions of of billions of dollars in their home ventures angry, with what such a not understand the technology, and do not understand the management, do not speak cares more without strong funding background to support the "Earth Eight" won the war? Hao123 's success really shows that technology is not the most important, the important thing is that you "happy user's happiness, suffering the user's pain."

Source: Business Review 21st century