Top of the Great Era

Chapter 3219 Occupying the Pit
The current Ziweixing is different from that of previous years.

This is a big company.

Big companies have their advantages and disadvantages.

The most obvious shortcoming is the lack of creativity.

For some new projects, small companies are more likely to accomplish them than large companies.

Just like a takeaway business.

Fantuan is so far ahead that Baidu Nuomi and Alibaba's Taodiandian combined are unlikely to be Fantuan's rivals. This is not only due to the creativity of startups, but also to the management strategies of large companies and the hard-working spirit of small companies that are not afraid of wearing shoes.

The same is true for the short video business.

Ziweixing may not succeed if it does it, so it should open up space and let startups do it... Musical.ly may emerge in the market. After Musical.ly succeeds, Ziweixing will follow suit, either by copying or directly launching a merger and acquisition.

Compared to doing everything themselves, it is a more stable and likely to succeed option for large companies to give the market appropriate space, deliberately leave some development opportunities for startups, and then spend money to buy them when the opportunity arises.

It's just a matter of spending a little more money.

Zhou Buqi continues to pay attention to the short video market.

Now it seems that the time has come!
Zhou Buqi said: "Short videos can become the soul of the mobile Internet. They are the middle item that can integrate multiple fields such as social networking, e-commerce, film and television, and local life. This is a business that we must win no matter what."

Liu Qing has heard the boss talk about the importance of short videos many times in the past two years. She smiled and said, "Musical.ly's entry point is actually quite good, with market data statistics. Since the birth of imaging technology, the most popular short video in the world is music MV."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "Well, let's start with music."

As the name suggests, Musical.ly is a product built around music.

The same goes for Tik Tok, which was developed in imitation of Musical.ly, and its earliest positioning was also music.

The difference is the semantic difference between Chinese and English.

"Tik Tok" can be positioned as music, or it can expand outward from music, because Tik Tok can also be understood as "jumping sound". Whether you are telling stories, shooting funny clips, singing, dancing, or live streaming games, there is the spread of sound.

Chinese names have strong ductility.

Musical.ly is not good enough, it is dedicated to music and specific to music. It lacks scalability. It is too difficult to expand Musical.ly from music short videos to a wide range of short video businesses. It is strangled from the source of the name.

So if we want to have greater development, we must change our name.

Later, Douyin acquired Musical.ly, and after globalization, it abandoned the name Musical.ly and changed it to TikTok. TikTok is an onomatopoeia in English, a bit like the "tick-tick" sound of a clock hand moving in Chinese, which is very similar to the charm of Douyin, which can not only continue the dynamics of music, but also spread more sounds.

Liu Qing said: "Musical.ly solves a certain market demand. Because MV shooting is difficult, many people can randomly pretend to act in front of the camera, but not many people can speak and sing in front of the camera anytime and anywhere. So Musical.ly created a lip-syncing mode, which allows users to lip-sync and coordinate with audio lines to increase the fun of the content."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "It's a very good angle to enter. It's much better than most of the short video products in China now. There is a cognitive bias towards short videos in the current market, and people think that this form lacks depth and is more likely to be quoted out of context. As a result, it is difficult for content in most fields to enter the short video field. Music MV is a very good angle. First, build up this market and stir up the market heat. Once there is traffic and heat, there will definitely be a lot of non-music related content entering the short video market." Liu Qing whispered, "Because this is a pioneering new market that breaks cognition, we can't just take over everything at once. We have to tear open a hole first, and then make this hole bigger."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "Yes, music MV is a reasonable choice to think about the traditional long video model. Controlling the length of audio within 15-20 seconds can not only reduce the cost of expression, but also increase the interest of the content. The general trend is certain, and the mobile Internet will bring the world into a fragmented era."

Liu Qing nodded and said, "Well, Weibo has replaced blogs. The communication effect of long articles is obviously not as good as that of short content. Text information has already completed the transformation. Next, video content will also change towards short content."

"Short videos are more contagious than short texts." Zhou Buqi shook his head. "In the past, it was the PC Internet. The threshold for Internet access was quite high. You had to have a computer first. The transition from blogs to Weibo was not very obvious. It was not until the emergence of mobile Internet in recent years that Weibo completely crushed the long content of traditional Weibo. Another more important point is the popularity of devices."

Liu Qing hummed, "Indeed, it is not computers but smartphones that lead the global technological era. Smartphones, which are in everyone's hands, have better communication capabilities among the general public. Video content can also be more communicative than text content."

Zhou Buqi said: "So this Musical.ly must be taken down, there can't be any surprises."

"Get it..." Liu Qing was a little unsure, "How should we get it? Right now, the Musical.ly team is very confident and is actively seeking financing. This shouldn't be too difficult. Many investment institutions are optimistic about them. In the end, it is very likely that several powerful investors will invest together to share the shares."

Zhou Buqi didn't take it seriously.

The Internet industry is no longer dominated by venture capital institutions. The market is different from ten years ago. Ten years ago, venture capital had the final say. Even a big boss like Mr. Ma had to bow down to the investors.

It's different now.

The Internet industry is controlled by Internet giants.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

Even if you are a world-renowned venture capital firm like Sequoia Capital, you have to give in when facing industry giants like Ziweixing, Alibaba, and Baidu. These Internet giants are not only rich, but also powerful.

Zhou Buqi said: "We don't need to care too much about other investors. What I care most about now is whether Musical.ly can develop. Don't let us buy Musical.ly and end up doing something bad with good intentions. Musical.ly has lost its market competitiveness under the Ziweixing system."

Liu Qing nodded gently. "It's not impossible. Musical.ly has achieved great results, but it's just the beginning. The business, market and user levels are not stable enough. It may not be right to rashly break the status quo."

"So you need to make a good trade-off on this matter." Zhou Buqi explained the task. "If after the evaluation, you think we can ensure that Musical.ly will be successful, then we will directly acquire it in full without hesitation. If a full acquisition may affect the mentality of the entrepreneurial team and thus affect the development of our own business, then there is no need for us to be too aggressive. We should first invest in shares and occupy the position. When the time is right and Musical.ly's business is stable, we will initiate mergers and acquisitions."

Liu Qing said: "If we invest now and then acquire the company in full later, we may have to pay several times the price."

"It's just money." Zhou Buqi didn't care about that at all. "I don't want cost control, I want to make sure the short video business can be done! How big can the price be? $5 million or $10 billion, that's the maximum. We are looking at the long-term trend."

Liu Qing took a deep breath and said, "Okay, I understand what you mean. I will lead a team to investigate Musical.ly and make a detailed report."

Zhou Buqi said: "You are fully responsible for this matter!"

"Okay." Liu Qing felt that she had a heavy responsibility on her shoulders, but there was still one thing that she was concerned about. "Musical.ly is run by a domestic startup team, but the business is all based in the United States. Musical.ly can be a local company or an American company."

"Ah."

“Should we take over Musical.ly under the name of Ziweixing, or should we use Ziweixing International, which focuses on overseas markets? If it is Ziweixing International, we still need to communicate with them.”

"We should still focus on the landing business." Zhou Buqi believes that this is very critical. "We must make a good division of the short video business at home and abroad at the very beginning. Isn't the market of Musical.ly all overseas? Let Ziweixing International participate in Musical.ly and occupy this market first. In China, we can imitate Musical.ly and come up with a similar product. Just like Helo and WeChat, no matter how close the internal cooperation is, they should be two products on the surface and must not be confused."