Zhang Chaoyang: Sohu borrows media platform to win third mobile internet ticket

China's internet is ushering in a mobile era. For the PC era of the internet giant Sohu, competitors already have a magic weapon to enter the field-Sina has micro-blog, Tencent has micro-letter. What does Sohu have?

Recently, a quiet year of Sohu board chairman and CEO Charles Zhang debut, for Sohu's mobile internet media Partners conference platform. The magic weapon of Zhang's is Sohu news client. Sohu hopes to take this with Sina Weibo, Tencent micro-letter Ding Samphi, in the mobile internet era to get a ticket.

"How are you doing?" Zhang was greeted by a rock star and a table at the conference site. In the past few years, every time Charles Zhang saw a reporter, his hands were fiddling with Nokia E71 mobile phone, this time, Zhang's mobile phone replaced by the Android phone Samsung note. Next, Charles Zhang tells the story of how Sohu is doing better in a 10 times-fold growth mobile internet market.

New challenges for Mobile internet

Lao Zhang is trying to figure out how to do mobile internet. In his style, if not clear, he would not casually come out to talk about industry trends. "Zhang Yifei, a senior commentator who has been watching Sohu for years, said.

11 years ago, in 2001, China's SMS business and later MMS business began to grow rapidly. Charles Zhang recalls that this is the first time China Mobile internet explosion-type growth, not only saved the Chinese many Internet portals, but also achieved the status of Sohu and other portal sites.

In this way, from the SMS ERA, Sohu has been closely involved in the slow evolution of mobile internet.

However, in the last 5 years, compared with other internet companies in China, Sohu does not have much to make people's eyes a bright thing. On making money, Sohu is less than Tencent, Baidu; on innovation, Sohu's old rival Sina, by virtue of Weibo harvest "city dream Rate", the share price rose sharply; in the popular E-commerce and mobile internet market, Sohu is not included in the ranks of large players.

Zhang continued to say that Wall Street's valuation of Sohu is low, "Sohu is the fastest-growing Chinese internet listed company in the past five years, faster than Tencent, Baidu and other internet giants." "The data show that Sohu's total revenue in 2006 was about $134 million trillion, which reached 852 million dollars in 2011."

However, in the mobile internet market blowout growth in 3 years, Sohu's two old rivals Sina and Tencent, respectively, by virtue of micro-blog and micro-letter, to become China Mobile internet market biggest overlord.

Facing the stepping press of Tencent and Sina, Charles Zhang needs to lead Sohu to hand over the new answer.

The rise of media platform

After nearly a year of dormancy, Charles Zhang finally at the end of 2012 Liang Jian.

"The entire Sohu Group 2012 business Scale of more than 1 billion dollars, when the mobile internet broke out, what can Sohu do?" Of course is to embrace the internet without hesitation. Embrace the way is sure to consider the core competitiveness, Sohu as the most important media in China's Internet, the starting point is definitely the media, this is our power point. "Zhang Chaoyang," Daily economic news reporter said, Sohu now to cut from the media, vigorously develop Sohu news client and mobile phone Sohu two products.

The same way with Zhang is NetEase CEO Ding Lei. Previously, Ding said his judgment on the entry card was that any killer app was the gateway to mobile Internet. NetEase News client and NetEase Application Center is the most import potential products in NetEase's eyes.

Reporters noted that the Internet access to news users have three main ways: Sina Weibo, Tencent Micro-letter and NetEase News client. But the social attributes of Sina Weibo and Tencent Micro-letter, both of the news attributes are not clear enough, a large number of business information and social information will obviously interfere with the experience of the news audience, this makes the focus on news push NetEase News client has been a good reputation in the industry.

Sohu News Client product release than NetEase late nearly a year, but in the second half of 2012 completed a reverse attack.

In fact, Sohu has been groping in the mobile Internet field since 2010. April 2010, Sohu News client's predecessor also called Sohu Express, push the content is also very simple, is Sohu morning news and a few stories. Sohu Mobile New Media Center General manager Ye Jianxiong also clearly remember, he went to talk about cooperation, each other will joke, "Sohu also do express?" ”

So, have not thought clearly how to do Sohu Express in June 2011 renamed Sohu News, Sohu News client new debut.

Turning point at the end of 2011. A telecoms company's leader used the Sohu News client's morning and evening newspaper after feeling good, so recommended China Telecom N79 customized mobile phone built-in. This pre-installed let Sohu Wireless department realizes, smartphone wave is about to explode, and Sohu News client also in the industry for the first time operators and handset manufacturers pre-installed as a key breach.

Zhang said that to Sohu's media platform, should do a larger product. So Sohu Wireless team quickly recruit, in May 2012 released the first real sense of the news client products-Sohu News 3.0 version. Since then, Sohu News client began a blowout growth.

Sohu News client's rapid rise so that Charles Zhang has a new plan. With the channel and technical advantages of the formation of industry barriers, Sohu News client will be in the future in the platform for further development, through the Open API (Application programming Interface) way, to attract traditional media, publishers stationed, to create a new "mobile media platform" to establish multiple barriers to avoid competitors to follow up quickly.

At present, the major internet giants are in the mobile internet field of happy enclosure. According to Fang revealed that 2013, Sohu in this field of investment will be more than billion. "We will never put all our eggs in one basket," he said. Apps and browsers are hard to say who killed who, especially for information-media products and services, both of which have to be invested, which is a strategy. ”

In Zhang's opinion, Sohu is now a company with 1 billion of dollars of revenue, every day 50 million people through the PC to watch Sohu video, 40 million people watching Sohu portal, there are more than 100 million people in the use of Sogou browser, play Sogou and swim games, more than 10 million people watching Sohu news and video. Next, how the entire Sohu department alliances in the mobile internet age, will become the key.

According to Sohu Vice President Fang revealed that from the entire Sohu framework, Sohu's mobile entry strategy will be "three legs" walk: Sohu Portal flagship news client, by the traditional Sohu portal and Sohu video to complete the media layout, the game company will be the main mobile gaming platform, Sogou to undertake Sohu's entire user platform and tools, Search tasks.

The exploration of business model

Charles Zhang is very clear about the future, in addition to attracting more traditional media publishers to enter, but also hope that many media partners in the Sohu platform to obtain tens of millions of millions users, while exploring new mobile internet business model, including open ads CMS (Site content Management) system, Let in the media can share the rights and interests of advertising, as well as the absorption of members to do value-added services, but also include the rights and interests of brand awareness, flow rights.

In fact, based on the client-side news platform, there is no clear road in the country. Zhang said that the first subscription content is not the same as the traditional PC, traditional PCs because of fixed characteristics, charging only advertising mode, and mobile phones and other mobile devices make subscription mode possible; second, advertising mode, client ads more biased towards brand advertising, brand-class enterprises and products and users of the interaction is very convenient, Can be based on the location of mobile phone users and so refined advertising operations.

"We have a dedicated department, and the big Data department has teams from big international companies that are already running," he said. Fang said that in the first half of 2012 set up a large data unit in the future to assume the responsibility of Sohu precision advertising marketing.

An insider told the Daily Economic news reporter, "Sohu News client of the" People's daily "has been experimenting with advertising sales. ”

Sohu tries another model is "class Amazon" media electric quotient mode, that is, through the news client huge traffic with some fashion products based media, E-commerce brand cooperation, through the flow of users and finally sell products to achieve business model exploration. However, because the current user size is not big enough, the income is not much. Fang that paid subscriptions are still a better profit model for Sohu news clients.

Last year, Sohu has been to the news clients have invested billions of dollars in costs. For money, Charles Zhang is not anxious, "the Internet has been developing for so many years to prove a point: as long as a sufficient size of users, making money is the right thing. ”