Zhang and State digital: the future call for freedom of information

"Why do I give up my job to do something that is uncertain?" Deng and I venture together, although our character an extrovert, but all implied with the Internet gene corresponding to the thing, is freedom. ”

--Zhang

Time back to the 2003 canton, that day, Deng as usual came to Zhang's residence, from the fridge to take a bottle of beer poured a few mouth, seemed very excited, as if to announce a big event. Immediately, Deng took out that write a little book, said "I want to do a free mobile website, will become the 3G era the largest wireless internet portal site." ”

That year, is the golden age of Chinese media, Zhang or a reporter of the new weekly, but listened to the eyes of the Deng a lot of ideas, he decided to resign from the magazine, Entrepreneurship, together!

That year, State Digital Technology Co., Ltd. was founded, it is said that this is Zhang, Deng two people in order to commemorate the university in the North Lake in the drinking wine.

WAP Portal + Client set Jiangshan

2004, the vast majority of people think "WAP is equal to mobile Internet", the most popular is the mobile Dream Network for the representative of the toll of mobile internet business and value-added services. March 16 early morning, free to do mobile Internet service 3G Portal online. Deng and Zhang This plan: "For two years there are 1 million users." "At that time, they had only 4 or 5 programmers.

By January 2005, the 3G Portal had won its first 2 million dollar investment from IDG, with a 2007-year income reaching 30 million, and a company of nearly 500.

When the number of users of WAP portal is climbing, users also find that the mobile phone is not only optional WAP, but can be enjoyed by the client software as rich as the WAP integrated portal. So in order to maintain user viscosity, many WAP portals began to launch their own types of client software, 3G Portal is certainly no exception.

2008, 3G Portal to adapt to the situation will be changed to "the largest wireless Internet portal + full range of mobile phone client software cluster", and the development of mobile TV, mobile music, cell phone reading, cell phone stock, mobile phone theme, mobile games, such as a series of functions of 8 client software, These client software products have also become a major source of attraction traffic. Since 2009, the 3G portal has transformed from the website to the mobile internet platform.

At that time, Zhang had thought, in each area layout, not to leave too much space for opponents, it means that can occupy the user's mobile desktop as soon as possible, cultivate users of the company's products use cognition, after all, users are not very limited in the mobile phone storage space to install two companies of similar products. (August 2008 pioneering State magazine, "WAP Integrated Portal: Looking for Rain Clouds")

After the setback transformation, ushered in the second spring

Since 2008, smartphones have begun to move slowly towards ordinary people's homes. 3G Portal and Operator's content cooperation pattern is impacted by the industry's emerging forces, and the company's business begins to marginalize.

June 2009, State digital release its "Occupy Users mobile desktop" strategic products ――go Mobile browser, in the later years, due to some wrong decision, go browser in the industry UCWeb and other companies push browser products are not very good follow-up, in the technical resources deployment also made mistakes, The end result is that the Go browser product line is stopped.

2010 became the turning point of the 3G portal-on the one hand, Zhang tried to establish a mobile reading similar to the grand literature, using the 3G portal to do its own distribution, and with China Mobile, China Telecom and other channels to promote, seized the mobile internet early monetization opportunities. On the other hand, "Go desktop" project launched, the series of products in overseas siege to the long state digital ushered in the second spring. Now, the Go desktop has 70% overseas users, the world's top 5 apps for Android apps, and the entire 3G portal's mobile products also have 200 million downloads, accounting for 1% of all Google io downloads.

In the Deng and Zhang nearly 2 years of exploration, state digital began to embark on the internationalization of the commercial road, this is precisely for its and 3G portal to create a development of the Golden Road.

Three steps towards international commercialization

As a Chinese company, it is not easy to have a place in the U.S. market, especially in China and America. The Go desktop approach is to actively collect feedback from the Google Play store, as well as speakers in the forum, to learn that the top three reasons users choose to go desktop are depth personalization, various features, and unlimited application.

Gradually, Zhang also summed up the law from the different feedback from the Chinese and American markets--the theme of US users ' preference for novelty and high-tech experience, while Chinese users loved the cute theme of cartoon characters. American users are also more willing to pay for value-added services, while Chinese users prefer to accept advertisements rather than pay more. As a result, the Go Desktop business model takes two directions: business development with free software and premium value-added services, as well as advertising and gaming.

According to the state digital prospectus, the state Digital 2012 Year-on-year Growth 91.7%,go Desktop series rose to 448.9% in the first three quarters of 2013. At present, state digital revenue mainly comes from paid applications, paid themes, paid extras, paid book downloads, and broadcast ads.

The realization of the user's globalization is only the first step towards internationalization of the company in the eyes of Zhang, the second step toward internationalization of operations and income overseas, and the third step to expand the company's brand influence in overseas markets, is the next long period of time, the goal of continuous efforts.

The new opportunity brought by the recovery of the stock

In March 2013, Zhang posted an internal speech on his microblog. He likened the 3G portal to African prairie herbivores, who risked dying to rush into the rapids and seek a prairie to survive, if left in situ, they would starve to death. "If you go across the river, you may drown and be eaten by predators, but there is a chance of living." ”

At this time, state digital, its business in addition to the 3G portal, but also to the global user's Go series applications (go desktop, go lock screen, go weather, go sms, etc.), as well as domestic users of the 3G bookstore. These three pillars of business firmly grasp the user into the mobile Internet portal, with the advantage of proximity to users, mobile application distribution also constitutes a part of its revenue system.

October 23, State Digital to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to submit an IPO (initial public offering) application for the U.S. listing, the IPO state digital value of 386 million U.S. dollars, to the highest financing of 80.5 million U.S. dollars. State digital is starting to create new influence in global markets.

In early 2000, at the first Internet climax, Zhang wrote a phrase in his blog: "At that time, we were passionate about the momentum, not from the VC dollars, not from the glory of the IPO, is the future call of information freedom." ”