Tencent Biography 1998-2016: Evolution of Chinese Internet Companies

Chapter 14 Turning point: 3Q battle
Sometimes significant events are detected in the air.

——Ryotaro Shiba (Japanese novelist)

In the Antarctic Circle, only penguins can survive.

——Rumours on the Internet in China
The breath of the storm
By around 2009, almost all Americans who came to China to investigate the Internet often made their last stop south, flying to Shenzhen to inspect Tencent.This is because this company was not included in the itinerary at the beginning. However, during the visits to each site, people will continue to mention Tencent, Tencent, and Tencent to them.As a result, Shenzhen has dramatically become the last, unplanned stop.

From the perspective of data and influence, Tencent has also played the role of conqueror since 2009. It was from this time that Tencent stood in the center of the storm, and it did not realize it.

In the second quarter of 2009, the revenue of Tencent Games surpassed Shanda for the first time, becoming the new "King of Games".That year, Tencent’s game revenue was 53.9 billion yuan, and its market share soared from 2007% in 6 to 20.9%.Stimulated by performance growth, Tencent's share price broke through HK$2010 (the price before the stock split) in January 1, and its market value reached HK$176.5 billion, surpassing Yahoo in one fell swoop and becoming the third largest Internet company in the world after Google and Amazon.

In an annual "Global Internet Trends" report released by Morgan Stanley, Tencent became the only Chinese company mentioned repeatedly.In terms of innovation ability, Tencent ranks fourth after Apple, Google and Amazon, surpassing Microsoft, Sony and Pay Pal.Tencent was selected for its "great success in virtual item sales and management capabilities".Ji Weidong, managing director of Morgan Stanley China, highly appreciates Tencent's business model. In his opinion, the community-centric Tencent model is the best example of winner-take-all.“We are all working for Tencent,” he said.

On the evening of March 2010, 3, the lobby on the ground floor of the Tencent Building was crowded with people.

At 19:52:58, the big screen showed that simultaneous online users of QQ had reached 1 million, and there was thunderous applause. At this moment, 1999 years have passed since QQ went online on February 2, 10. In July 11, when the number of QQ concurrent online users exceeded 2006 million, co-CTO Xiong Minghua once asked Ma Huateng: "When do you think it will exceed 7 million?" Ma Huateng replied: "Maybe I won't see it in my lifetime." However, The miracle came unexpectedly.

On April 2010, 4, in Ocean Spring Bay, Zhuhai, Tencent held a strategic management conference attended by more than 22 people, with the theme of "Platform Integration, Professional Innovation".Ma Huateng explained his views on the Internet and Tencent's strategy in his keynote speech.

According to his judgment, China's Internet has bid farewell to the era of portals and entered a new stage of competition. In the past March, Google announced its withdrawal from the Chinese market, Baidu became the biggest beneficiary, and Alibaba has been successful in the past two years. The transfer of strategic focus has been carried out in a timely manner, and Taobao has replaced the previous B3B business as a new growth point.As a result, Tencent, Baidu, and Alibaba respectively grasped the three most important application entrances.

In Ma Huateng's view, the second "enclosure movement" of China's Internet is coming to an end, and how to cultivate after the enclosure is completed is the strategic focus of the next step. Tencent must lay out and build on the enclosed land and start in-depth competition.

Under this new environment, Ma Huateng put forward two strategic requirements:
First, focus on "one-stop online life", rapidly expand the scope of business, increase investment in search, security, mobile Internet and Weibo, and strive to seize more shares in the chaos.

Second, Tencent's internal business units need to establish a new collaboration mechanism to break the "departmental wall" flexibly.

In his speech, Ma Huateng repeatedly expressed his concern about the "big enterprise disease". In his view, Tencent is in the most favorable development channel at this time. Therefore, the biggest crisis is not external competition, but internal coordination.He said that in the coming year, all managers must think about "how to integrate the advantages of platforms through their own business, and realize the professional depth and forward-looking innovation in their respective fields, and finally burst out the company's overall strength. growing up".

Ma Huateng's speech can be summed up as "going out to grab territory and focusing on internal coordination". This is an aggressive strategic layout, which shows that Tencent will continue to "take the world as its enemy".This positive and optimistic mood has spread to the entire Tencent management. Everyone is immersed in the joy of Genesis, and no one smells the breath of a storm.

This storm is indeed not easy to detect, because it first appears as a diffuse emotion.

In the Internet jungle, the increasingly powerful and far-reaching Tencent is expanding into a giant animal, and its way of existence poses a huge threat to other creatures.In the mid-term report of 2010, Tencent’s semi-annual profit was 37 billion yuan, Baidu’s about 13 billion yuan, Alibaba’s about 10 billion yuan, Sohu’s about 6 million yuan, and Sina’s about 3.5 million yuan. Tencent’s profit is higher than the other four. The sum of the Internet bigwigs is even more.

All kinds of dissatisfaction with Tencent are like thorny thorns growing wildly everywhere, like a storm brewing invisibly and dangerously. The industrial anxiety and emotional confrontation it caused cannot cause any harm to Tencent at the beginning, but they gather momentum. If everyone speaks for themselves, the crisis will be detonated in the most unexpected places.

The "Three Deadly Sins" of Empire Penguin

The dissatisfaction with Tencent boils down to three crimes: "I have been imitating and never innovating", "Going my own way makes others have nowhere to go" and "Monopolizing platforms refuse to open up".

Since being ridiculed as a "public enemy" in 2006, Tencent's reputation as a "plagiarist" has spread like whispers in the rivers and lakes.In many people's eyes, Tencent QQ has a large number of sticky users, so it doesn't care about colliding with other online products in terms of content; on the contrary, other product manufacturers need to avoid this from happening and try to differentiate from Tencent's products open.

There is even a saying in the venture capital circle: When an entrepreneur explains his project to investors, he must answer a question-will Tencent do this project?Or, if Tencent enters, how can you guarantee not to be "killed"?If these two questions cannot be answered, then the investment risk is very high.An investor sighed: "Many people want to know what to do next in Ma Huateng's notebook, so as to avoid meeting him halfway."

Among industry leaders, the first person to publicly call Ma Huateng a "plagiarism king" was Wang Zhidong, the developer of "Chinese Star" and the founder of Sina.com.In the early days of China's Internet, Wang Zhidong was one of the most famous product managers and entrepreneurs. After he was forced to leave Sina due to poor performance in 2001, he founded Click Technology. In June 2006, he developed the Lava-Lava instant messaging tool and became a direct competitor of Tencent.

In an interview with reporters, Wang Zhidong compared Tencent and Microsoft, and believed that Ma Huateng and Bill Gates were the two most talented plagiarists in China and the United States. He said: "Ma Huateng is a well-known plagiarist in the industry. And he is blatant plagiarism freely and openly." Interestingly, however, Wang Zhidong said in the following interview that he would learn from Ma Huateng's "spirit of plagiarism": "80% of Lava-Lava is absorbing the characteristics of mainstream products in the industry, not just Tencent, MSN, and even some concepts put forward by other non-IM products have also been introduced... While being copied by others, I should also actively copy, plagiarize reasonably and legitimately, and not only copy one, but every family should copy. In the early days, copying was the best way."

In the business world, plagiarism is an ambiguous term, sometimes it is a moral term, sometimes it is a legal term, and more often it is a synonym for competition.

Since Wang Zhidong, almost all industry leaders have accused Tencent of being a "copycat" at different times and occasions because of competition.Jack Ma believes that Tencent’s Paipai.com is a copy of Taobao. “The biggest problem with Tencent’s Paipai.com is that there is no innovation, and everything is copied.” Li Yanhong believes that Soso is almost a copy of Baidu; even Ma Huateng’s former Friend Ding Lei also turned against each other, publicly accusing "Ma Huateng of copying everything".

In August 2008, Guangzhou's "Yangcheng Evening News" wrote in a report titled "Interpretation of Tencent: Where is Ma Huateng's savvy": "When the outside world evaluates Tencent, it is inevitable to add the phrase 'victory of imitation'. Tencent has been imitating non-stop, it has tasted the sweetness from it, and it is out of control.” The report also quoted Ma Huateng’s answer in an interview: “Frankly speaking, China’s current Internet model is basically imported from abroad. , I didn’t say it’s too unique, it’s my own originality. After all, it’s hard for you to demand originality in business models, because there are only so many types, and the key depends on who does it well.” In the following years, Ma Huateng has been expressing similar views to the outside world At the beginning of 8, he said in an interview with "2010st Century Business Herald": "It is just that we are engaged in the industry that others have done, and there is no evidence to prove that we are plagiarism. If it is really plagiarism, legally we It has already been accused.”

Another accusation that makes Tencent very passive is "bullying the small with the big".

"Global Entrepreneur" wrote in a report on "QQ Farm": "The industry generally believes that 5 Minutes accepted this deal because if it does not submit, it is easy to be sniped by similar games developed by Tencent itself. It also has no ability to operate with hundreds of millions of users; and when Tencent makes a lot of money through this social game, the main income of '5 Minutes' is the one-time fee paid by Tencent at the beginning." As a startup company for college students, 5 Minutes Later, they did not develop a better product, but fell into the predicament of being on the verge of dissolution, which undoubtedly added to the atmosphere of sadness.

At the end of April 2010, another "overbearing" incident broke out in the media that "UC mobile browser was suspected to be blocked by Tencent".Some UC users posted on online forums that when they log in to Tencent's "QQ Farm" with UC browser, the system will lower the user level, and many users have to use Tencent's own developed QQ browser to "steal food" online.Tencent later gave an official explanation on this issue. The user was downgraded because they found that the user used illegal programs in "QQ Farm".

Yu Yongfu, the developer of UC browser and CEO of UTV, was very angry with this explanation. He complained to the media that UC is a standard browser, and its Flash-enhanced plug-in is equivalent to installing Adobe Flash player on the computer. , rather than third-party auxiliary software, the cloud computing architecture adopted by UC technology is also the technical method used by Tencent, and has nothing to do with "illegal programs".

Even within Tencent, there are different voices on the "user downgrade event".From the perspective of the wireless business department in charge of Liu Chengmin, UC Browser is the biggest competitor of QQ Browser. It is natural to use the exclusive and popular product "QQ Farm" to attack it in order to increase its market share. lift.However, in the Internet business department that Wu Xiaoguang is in charge of, UC is their partner. They have reached a cooperation agreement with Youshi Technology before, agreeing that users who have QZone Yellow Diamond can "steal food" through the UC browser, but the wireless business department The intervention of the company dispelled the privileges of yellow diamond users.

This internal disagreement reflects Tencent's two dilemmas in business cooperation: First, Tencent has both the roles of a platform operator and a product supplier, just like a referee and an athlete in one, when its own platform or products and external companies When a competitive conflict occurs, how to deal with it will inevitably become a dilemma. Second, Tencent has multiple platforms with a multi-billion level, and its business is cross-promoted. Internal coordination is already difficult. Once it involves external cooperation, it will naturally be even more restrictive.

Public Opinion Raid: "Dog Day" Tencent

The long-suppressed dissatisfaction with Tencent was finally released in a very dramatic way.

On July 2010, 7, major websites were suddenly covered by a long essay-like article. Its title was very bloody and full of foul language-"Tencent of "Dog Day".This was the cover article of the "Computer World" weekly, which was officially released two days later, and was posted online in advance. On the cover of the weekly that was exposed at the same time, a penguin wearing a red scarf was stabbed with three sharp knives dripping with blood.

Reporter Xu Lei wrote: “In the history of China’s Internet development, Tencent has hardly been absent from any Internet feast. It always follows at the same pace at the beginning, then imitates meticulously, and then surpasses decisively... In fact, Because of Tencent's notoriety of "shameless imitation and plagiarism" in the Internet industry, Tencent has made enemies across the board and become the target of public criticism. When more and more Internet companies start to be wary of Tencent from time to time, Tencent will no longer be as flexible as before."

In this report, the reporter described the various fears of Tencent in the industry:

—— On July 7, Tencent QQ group buying online launched, which made Wang Xing, CEO of Meituan.com, feel astonished and uncomfortable. Meituan.com, launched in early March, is the first group buying website in China. It has been able to break even after only 9 months since its establishment.But at this moment, Tencent, which had been silent all the time, came in, which caught Wang Xing completely off guard, and also took a breath of air from hundreds of group buying websites that were in their infancy.

——Also at the beginning of July, 7.com, a small game platform under Tencent, went online for public beta testing. The revenue has reached 3366 million to 4399 million yuan, and preparations are underway for a domestic A-share listing, and Tencent's participation in the war may put this plan on hold forever.

——Bao Yueqiao became an angel investor after leaving Lianzhong after he suffered a crushing defeat in the chess and card game.He told reporters that one of his investment principles now is to only do projects that Tencent will not and cannot do.So in the past three years, he has never touched games, and the medical equipment and data storage projects he has invested in have nothing to do with Tencent.

——When the major video sites are fighting fiercely because of copyright and are frequently going to court, there is also a voice circulating in the industry: No matter how hard you are playing now, when the market is almost cultivated, it will be Tencent's turn. It's over.This is indeed the case. The QQLive platform has been set up a long time ago. In the fight for copyright, who in China's Internet companies dare to say that they are richer than Tencent?

"As long as there is a bright future in a field, Tencent will definitely wait for the opportunity to act as a predator. It always lays out silently and quietly appears behind your back; it always comes out at the most appropriate time to disrupt the situation and make the peers feel at ease. Uncertain. And once the time is right, it will ruthlessly take away its own piece of cake, and sometimes it will even become the terminator and occupy the entire market.” Xu Lei wrote in a tone almost desperate.He also quoted Sina.com editor-in-chief Chen Tong's "anonymous curse" on Tencent on June 6: "A certain website is greedy, there is no field that it does not want to get involved in, and there is no product that it does not want to make. If things go on like this, things will go against each other. If the net is your enemy, you will die without a place to bury you.”

According to Xu Lei’s interview, he believes that Tencent’s core competence is “plagiarism”. "Tencent has never been the first to eat crabs, but it can always find space in mature markets and make a move. However, the path it chooses also makes it controversial, that is, imitation, sometimes even unscrupulous 'Counterfeit'. Starting from imitating ICQ and launching its first product, OICQ (the predecessor of Tencent QQ),...all of them are 'cottage products', which is the root cause of Tencent's hatred." The reporter also quoted DCCI Internet data Hu Yanping, the director of the center, questioned Tencent's innovation ability, saying that not only is it not an outstanding innovator, but it is the "natural enemy of innovation" of small and medium-sized Internet companies.

The report of "Computer World" was posted on every portal website in China two days before the magazine's official release. It was like an indisputable "appeal" and plunged Tencent into an unprecedented siege of public opinion.A Tencent executive recalled to me Ma Huateng’s reaction when he read this report: At the urgent office meeting of the president, a copy was placed in front of all the decision makers. people speak.Finally, Ma Huateng spoke, and he muttered to himself: "How can they curse?"

At that president meeting, no one proposed even an effective coping strategy, and everyone focused on guessing motives: "Why did the weekly newspaper that was supposed to go on the street on July 7 be suspended two days in advance?" On the Internet? Who did this?" Under the arrangement of the public relations department, Tencent issued a "Company Statement" at 26:7 p.m. Even without any interview with Tencent, they treated a responsible company with bad and vulgar words, and damaged our trademark and corporate image with bad illustrations on the cover... We solemnly condemn this behavior and reserve the right to prosecute it the right to responsibility."

Obviously, this is an empty statement that lacks substantive content, and it shows that Tencent is not well prepared for how to deal with the crisis of public opinion.Someone noticed a detail. The statement on Tencent's official website did not provide a comment entry, that is: to prevent everyone from making irresponsible remarks on this statement on Tencent's own site.

In the next few days, judging from the "public opinion" monitored by the PR department, the most terrifying thing did not seem to happen, and none of the prominent celebrities or opinion leaders in the Internet industry "added fuel to the fire."

Cai Wensheng is an investor in the small game platform 4399.com mentioned in the article "Tencent of the Dog Day". He wrote on his Weibo: "To be honest, it doesn't make sense to accuse Tencent of copycats. Many companies are also copycats. It’s just that Tencent has made the spirit of copycats to the extreme. If we think that Tencent’s myth is invincible, we will only scare ourselves, and it will not help us.”

Another well-known angel investor Lei Jun’s Weibo is as follows: “If the price of Tencent’s strength is to stifle the innovation of the industry and destroy the ecological chain of the industry, then the possibility of waiting for Tencent is the same as that of IBM and Microsoft: Anti-monopoly law and the anti-unfair competition law.” Xie Wen, an Internet expert who has always been scornful of Tencent’s innovative ability, said: “Tencent today is very similar to Yahoo in 2003, with its siege and territory. We know that without innovation, especially without in-depth, comprehensive, and platform-based innovation, we cannot continue to lead.”

In Ma Huateng's view, these viewpoints are within the acceptable range, "Tencent" is already the highest level of attack, and the future work is "how to dispel the 'negative effects' of this report".What he didn't expect was that a more precise and ferocious attack had been simmering in the dark for a long time, and it was coming.

The Emergence of the Enemy: From Drug Maker to Drug Killer

After the "dog days" incident, Tencent seemed unaware that a more serious crisis was approaching, and even on the surface, it seemed like a horse in fresh clothes, killing all directions.

At the 41st World Expo held in Shanghai, Tencent was the "only senior Internet sponsor" for a while. It got a lot of exclusive news resources, but it caused dissatisfaction on some websites. In August 2010, the annual Internet Conference was held in Beijing. The Internet Society of China, the organizer, gave Tencent too many "display resources", which caused great dissatisfaction among other Internet companies.Media reports said: "Tencent spent 8 million yuan to obtain various 'special' qualifications and reporting resources from the organizer, including the official strategic cooperation portal of this Internet Conference, the officially designated exclusive cooperation news center, and the official designated exclusive cooperation Weibo, etc. .Tencent outsourced 120 large screens inside and outside the conference venue to broadcast Tencent’s reports on the Internet conference and related content from Tencent. Sina and Sohu were dissatisfied with Tencent’s “overbearing” and wanted to withdraw from the forced palace Internet conference.” On August 12 On the day of the conference, the two major news portals Sina and Sohu refused to report. Cao Guowei, Zhang Chaoyang, Ma Yun and Chen Tianqiao were also absent from the conference.

The ancients in China once invented many adjectives to describe the plight of the strong, such as "a tree that is beautiful in the forest, the wind will destroy it" and "the most rigid and easy to break, the best is like water". In the situation of "easy to break", whether to change or not is the most common reincarnation in the world, and it is nothing more than that the parties involved are often ignorant of it.Tencent, which lacks sensitivity to the environmental crisis, is destined to encounter a fatal attack. The only suspense is who will be the initiator of the attack and how and from which angle it will launch the attack.

At this time, it was the turn of Zhou Hongyi, a Hubei native who was one year older than Ma Huateng, to play.From September to November 2010, the Qihoo 9 company he founded and Tencent launched a sensational battle for users, which was called the "11Q War".

Prior to this, Zhou Hongyi and Ma Huateng met for the first time in September 2002 at the third "West Lake Lunjian".Facing Zhou Hongyi's ridicule, Xiao Ma was speechless.After that, Zhou Hongyi seems to have run into "bad luck" - in 9, 2003 company was acquired by Yahoo, 3721 was renamed "Yahoo Assistant", Zhou Hongyi was appointed as the president of Yahoo China, but his own way It is really impossible to adapt to international companies with many constraints.By August 3721, with Baidu's listing on NASDAQ, Yahoo's position in the Chinese search market continued to be weakened. Yang Zhiyuan finally lost his patience, and Yahoo China was "married" to Alibaba as a bargaining chip.Zhou Hongyi is incompatible with Ma Yun, who has the same dramatic personality, and the relationship deteriorates rapidly.A few months later, Zhou Hongyi left Yahoo, first joined IDG as an investment partner, and then quit to become an angel investor, and successively invested in Internet companies such as Huoshi, Xunlei, and Kangsheng.By March 2005, he became the chairman of Qihoo and started his second "entrepreneurship".

Qihoo's early main business was a question-and-answer website. Zhou Hongyi invested heavily but the results were dismal.Since then, he has focused on an inconspicuous small product within Qihoo — 360 Security Guard, and decided to focus on the antivirus field.At that time, China's Internet was almost a world ruled by rogue software, and the plug-in model pioneered by Zhou Hongyi and others was spreading like a raging fire.Without the user's knowledge or even reluctance, a large number of "rogue software" was forcibly installed into the user's computer, and its technical level was so high that even IT experts could not uninstall it.During that period, users had to reinstall the system every 3 months, and the reinstallation process may be the process of new rogue software invasion.It is against this market background that in China's third-party antivirus software market, Zhou Hongyi himself is one of the "godfathers" of rogue software, and the poison maker turns into an antivirus.

Since 2007, Qihoo launched the beta version of 360 anti-virus software; in the second half of 2008, Zhou Hongyi suddenly announced that 360 anti-virus software will be permanently free. At the same time, 360 quietly entered the browser market. [4]
Obviously, the free strategy worked wonders.In 2008, the number of users of the 360 ​​browser was 1800 million. A year later, this number had increased to 1.06 million. Zhou Hongyi insisted on creating a traffic space of a scale of 2010 million in a small market that was not seen by the giants.Around 360, 5300 introduced many third-party partners such as web games, group buying websites, software and applications through an open platform, and achieved unexpected revenue. Its network service revenue reached 850 million US dollars and realized a net profit of 360 million US dollars.The single-point breakthrough in security requirements allows [-] to quickly cover computer clients.

At the beginning of 2010, Zhou Hongyi, who already had hundreds of millions of users but was not noticed in a remote corner, was already thinking about how to attack the "Central Plains". He was a very aggressive person, eager for fame and glory.In the beginning, Zhou Hongyi's first choice to attack was Baidu, which stemmed from the previous humiliation that 3721 and Yahoo China were completely defeated by Baidu in the search market.In his view, this failure was not a crime of war, but was caused by the incompetence in decision-making and execution of a decadent international company.Therefore, Zhou Hongyi never concealed his dissatisfaction with Li Yanhong in public, and often mocked and criticized Li Yanhong by name.And he has indeed found Baidu's weakness: the bottomless bidding ranking, especially in the medical industry, a large number of inferior hospitals established by Putian, Fujian people have harmed the people.Zhou Hongyi wants to "walk the way for heaven" and develop a search ranking tool based on word of mouth.

There is actually a very thrilling business logic behind this "chivalrous behavior": Once 360 ​​becomes the "moral filter" of Baidu's PPC, the latter will undoubtedly become a "sub-platform" of 360.For a period of time after the spring of 2010, Zhou Hongyi has been talking about this idea to visitors.

However, after the Spring Festival in 2010, Tencent's frequent actions in the security software market made Zhou Hongyi suddenly change the point of attack.

Head-on conflict: computer housekeeper and privacy protector

On Tencent's product map, security software is a small role that is not taken seriously.Like in a big organization, you never think of the guard room as a strategic department.

QQ Doctor, which was first born in December 2006, was launched to prevent QQ account theft. It is embedded in the QQ 12 login box to help users quickly scan to ensure that there is no Trojan horse for account theft. This is a "professional killing QQ hacking Trojan horse" tool.In the following years, Doctor QQ went through several iterations, but they were all inconspicuous and nothing surprising.

On November 2009, 11, QQ Doctor released version 11, added a user feedback area, and supported interface skinning. Only 3.1 days later, QQ Doctor 10 was released, and Norton anti-virus software was released for free for half a year.In the eyes of the outside world, the interface and functions of version 3.2 are exactly like 3.2. It seems that Tencent is once again displaying its late-comer strategy.During the Spring Festival in 360, Doctor QQ used the QQ platform to launch a strong promotion, and the market share increased rapidly.

All this made Zhou Hongyi keenly aware of the threat. Some employees who were on vacation were recalled urgently. It was also from this time that Tencent replaced Baidu and became Zhou Hongyi's real worry. The situation of a frontal battlefield became increasingly clear.

In the following months, Tencent's strategy of "running in small steps, trial and error and iteration" made Zhou Hongyi more and more difficult to deal with.

On May 2010, 5, Tencent upgraded QQ Doctor to version 31 and renamed it "QQ Computer Manager". This comprehensively covers all mainstream functions of 4.0 Security Guard, and its user experience is almost the same as that of 360.By the Mid-Autumn Festival on September 360, QQ Computer Manager has been upgraded again, adding functions such as system vulnerability repair, security protection, and system maintenance.By this time, the contradictions between the two sides became increasingly difficult to reconcile.

Tencent's slanting attack in the antivirus market is no stranger to many industry observers. If nothing else, QQ Computer Butler will first complete the replacement of 360 Security Butler within the QQ system - which means that the latter will be Being expelled from the country's largest social user network, the former may infiltrate to the outside world, directly threatening the survival of 360 as an independent security software product.

"Will 360 be the next victim on the QQ killing list?" During the summer and autumn of 2010, this is a question that many people are curious about.In Zhou Hongyi's view, he was in the position of "self-defense and counterattack" at this time.From the perspective of competition, 360 has an inherent weakness: the battle is carried out in the territory of the opponent, and there is almost no possibility of a decisive overtake technically, and it will be an asymmetric war in terms of capital, manpower, and user relations. .

In the future, Zhou Hongyi disclosed a detail: In early September, he proposed a cooperation plan to Ma Huateng by text message, that is, Tencent invested in 9, and 360 would "make a thing that intercepts Baidu, and first publish its medical advertisements." , knocking out 360% of its income".Zhou Hongyi also expressed his willingness to help Tencent invest in Xunlei and other Internet companies, "Other companies are built on your platform, so that there are innovations, and Tencent is still the largest company."Ma Huateng rejected Zhou Hongyi's proposal on the grounds that "these companies have no value".

In the situation where peace cannot be reached, apart from the ferocity of putting him to death, the Hubei native has no weapons to rely on.

What happened next was beyond the expectations of all spectators.

Just after the Mid-Autumn Festival, on September 9, 27 suddenly released the "360 Privacy Protector" directly targeting QQ. Articles and titles all have a strong tone of condemnation, such as "QQ spying on user privacy has been around for a long time", "QQ violates user privacy", "QQ admits spying on user privacy", "QQ spying on private purposes", "Please choose QQ carefully", "Various software Exposing QQ Peeping Privately" and so on.They all condemned QQ in an unquestionable tone for peeping users' personal privacy files and data without the user's permission.At the same time, Qihoo 360 also launched a prize-sharing activity of "Who is peeping at your private files - send a picture and get an iPhone 360".

In an article titled "360 Privacy Protector Releases a New Version, Adding Functions to Monitor MSN, Tencent TM, and Ali Wangwang", the author wrote: "The release of 360 Privacy Protector has finally pierced this layer of window paper. The first version of 360 is monitoring the chat software QQ, which has the most complaints from netizens and the largest number of users, and records QQ's 'peeping' behavior of users' private files in real time." "It is reported that millions of netizens have downloaded and used 100 Privacy Protection The results are shocking. From the screenshots posted by netizens on forums, Weibo, etc., QQ usually accesses more than a thousand files on the user’s hard disk after running for a few minutes, which has nothing to do with chat services There are often more than [-] items, including a large number of users' private pictures, documents, online banking files and other private data."

In another blog post labeled "360 Privacy Protector" software development team, it is described: "360 Security Center has recently received a large number of user complaints, saying that a chat software is peeping at users' personal privacy files without their permission. And data. That’s right, it’s a fact.” “Can Tencent tell the vast number of Internet users, which of the large number of QQ ‘spying’ behaviors that have been exposed so far are done by others? Which ones are done by QQ itself? In fact, These actions are all done by QQ itself.”

After exposing and condemning QQ's "peeping behavior", 360 announced that "360 Privacy Protector" will be able to monitor and expose QQ in real time.After the user installs the "Privacy Protector" software, a prompt can be seen on the right side of the initial interface: "Privacy leakage incidents such as personal phone numbers, ID numbers, Internet access, and chat records are mostly related to certain software peeking at computer information. Netizens are therefore deeply harassed by advertisements and threatened by fraud”, “360 Privacy Protector will truthfully record suspicious behaviors of some software accessing users’ private information, and will mark red reminders for operations that may leak your personal privacy”, and when users use privacy After the protector monitors the QQ software, it will display "a total of N files or directories have been viewed by QQ, among which M items may involve your privacy".

The "privacy protector" launched by Qihoo 360 and the stigmatization attack on Tencent on the Internet are like throwing a super shocking bomb, which immediately caused worry and panic among QQ users.In a civil society, privacy is regarded as the basic item of human rights protection. If Tencent is really like a "big brother" spying on users' privacy every day, then China's Internet is obviously an evil world, and Tencent will naturally There is no forgiveness for sin.

Attack and Defense of Public Opinion: Technical or Moral?
Zhou Hongyi chose to launch the "9 Privacy Protector" on September 27 and launch a stigmatization attack on Tencent after careful consideration. According to him, he also learned this from Tencent. "Every major upgrade of Tencent will be selected before the holidays, which often catch opponents off guard." After the National Day, when Tencent's executives returned from vacation, they found that the entire Internet was full of insults and accusations against Tencent.

In the history of Tencent, although it has encountered various attacks, it has never encountered an opponent like Zhou Hongyi. He has a natural ability to control and spread public opinion, and at the same time, he can implement efficient and active counterattacks at the product level.

First of all, Zhou Hongyi made good use of the Sina Weibo platform, and almost every attack started from his personal Weibo.He used vivid and provocative words to ridicule Tencent to the fullest. These microblogs quickly attracted the attention of netizens with the speed of viral spread, which enabled 360 to grasp the initiative of public opinion by means of socialization. It is very rare in the previous enterprise competition.

Secondly, Zhou Hongyi "defined" the nature of this war from the very beginning, that is, "the rebellion of grassroots entrepreneurs against monopolies." 3 has found a way out under the squeeze of monopoly power, and it is also finding a way out for other Internet start-up companies. That is, fighting against monopoly power must not harm the interests of users, but should The goal is to increase the interests of users." "The Internet in China is chaotic, the law of the jungle, and the law of the jungle. It is because China's largest Internet company is unwilling to take social responsibility, but treats competitors in a rogue manner. If you are a start-up company, Copying other people's products and forcing them to promote their own products can be understood by others, because survival is the first priority. However, your annual income is more than 360 billion yuan, and the market value is more than 360 billion yuan. That point on the fly like group buying Meat is not spared, but also to grab from start-up companies."

Such a description is very in line with the public's previous "perception" of Tencent, and can arouse strong emotional and moral resonance.According to the later memories of the founders of some Internet companies, during this period, they all received calls from Zhou Hongyi, and the opening remarks were: "Dude, do you know who your enemy in the industry is?"

Compared with 360's coach who personally went into battle and played "moral cannonballs", Tencent's actions are much slower and outdated.According to Ma Huateng's character at the time, he was neither possible nor willing to fight a "war of words" with Zhou Hongyi on Sina Weibo, and no one in the entire Tencent decision-making team had such ability and courage.Tencent's public relations department received an instruction: "Don't say anything, but you can't publish negative news."

Faced with Zhou Hongyi's over-the-limit tactics, Tencent mobilized multiple departments to fight back, but their strategies were still conventional.

The counterattack of the technical department is "pop-up response": On October 10, Tencent published the "QQ Product Team Solemn Statement" in the QQ pop-up window with more than 11 million online users, saying: "A new push software accused QQ of violating privacy. One matter is a misunderstanding of QQ security functions, and we hereby emphasize that Tencent QQ software has absolutely never snooped on users’ privacy, nor is it involved in any leakage of user privacy.” In order to show restraint, Ma Huateng did not criticize 1 by name.Zhou Hongyi immediately responded with a pop-up window, not only accusing Tencent of using the pop-up window to retaliate against himself, but also claiming that he has the "latest evidence" that QQ has long used the "super blacklist" method to scan users' hard drives to obtain huge profits.

The counterattack of the legal department is to "prosecute according to the law": On October 10, Tencent officially announced to the court to sue 14 ​​for unfair competition, requiring Qihoo and its affiliates to stop the infringement, publicly apologize and make compensation.In response to Tencent's lawsuit, 360 immediately made a three-point response, saying, "Tencent has always avoided spying on users' privacy raised by all walks of life. In addition to retaliation, it is not ruled out that the purpose of suing 360 is to divert attention and avoid doubts from all walks of life."

The counterattack of the cooperation department is an "alliance echo": On October 10, two major domestic security software companies, Kingsoft and Kaspersky, joined the war, accusing 15 software of major security vulnerabilities. On October 360, Tencent, together with Jinshan, Baidu, Maxthon, and Keniu, issued the "Joint Statement Against 10 Unfair Competition." Under the guise of "safety intimidation" and "safety fraud" on users, it achieves the purpose of inducing users to install their own software and uninstall peer software, so as to seek improper commercial interests." Zhou Hongyi posted on Weibo: "27 free antivirus It overturned the traditional fee-based antivirus, so it was hated by the whole industry." 360 issued a statement, declaring that it "declared war on all gray interests and hidden rules. It is not afraid to offend any manufacturer, even China's largest and second largest Internet giant."What's more dramatic is that 360 also revealed in a pop-up window that "Ma Huateng enjoys the affordable housing subsidy in Shenzhen". In addition, in the name of netizens, he created a saliva song "Being a man can't be too Ma Huateng".However, here, 360 confuses the difference between "affordable housing subsidies" and "housing subsidies for high-level professionals".

"Pop-up response + legal prosecution + alliance response", in Tencent's view, this is already the "highest level" combination counterattack, but what is disappointing is that these actions nothing more than "prove" once again that Tencent is using its own Resources and status "bully the small".The most terrible thing is that from the beginning to the end, Tencent did not explain to users "why there is no act of spying on privacy" from a technical point of view.In the eyes of the people in Tencent's technology department, "it is too difficult to explain privacy protection issues to ordinary computer users in a technical way."They only came up with a metaphor, "For example, when airline passengers pass through the security gate, the airport will scan the luggage of the passengers. The purpose is to find prohibited items, but there is absolutely no purpose and act of prying into privacy."However, such a metaphor is clearly not enough.

With the swords and swords between the two sides, the 3Q dispute has aroused the crazy attention of the public and the media, and Tencent has shown a passive state in the confrontation.What made Ma Huateng even more unexpected was that Zhou Hongyi had a more deadly move next.

Heated: "Button the Bodyguard" and Difficult Decisions

On October 10th, because the atmosphere was so tense, almost everyone forgot that this day was Ma Huateng’s 29th birthday. According to the customs of Chaoshan people, “nine but ten”, as usual, it is necessary to celebrate his birthday seriously of.However, on this day, Zhou Hongyi sent a "big gift" that was caught off guard: 39 announced the launch of a new tool called "Koukou Bodyguard".

"Koukou Bodyguard" claims to be able to "comprehensively protect the security of QQ users, including preventing privacy leaks, preventing Trojan horses from stealing QQ accounts, and speeding up QQ."It can automatically conduct a "physical examination" on QQ, and then display "a total of 40 items have been checked, of which 31 items have problems, and it is recommended to repair them immediately".Zhou Hongyi said: "The launch of 'Koukou Bodyguard' has created value for users. Since QQ is an irreplaceable IM tool, why don't I make a companion product to make QQ users feel better? In this way, users will prefer 360 , Tencent can’t drive me away.”

However, in Tencent's view, Zhou Hongyi's move is undoubtedly a draw from the bottom.

On the evening of the 29th, the large conference room on the 37th floor of the Tencent Building became a temporary "war room", where almost all Tencent's decision-making executives gathered.

Kingsoft and Zhang Zhidong's technical team discovered four "backdoors" at the same time: when the user chooses "repair" under the "prompt", the system will be reinstalled, the QQ security center is replaced by 360 security guards, and the friendship chain of QQ users Backed up by 360, that is, all user relationships will be imported to the 360 ​​operating platform.After Ma Huateng listened to the report of Zhang Zhidong and others, he sat down at the table with a pale face, muttering to himself: "I never thought that he would do such a thing."

The Tencent team defined "Koukou Bodyguard" as "illegal cheating", "this is a rare public hijacking incident of large-scale client software on the global Internet."

On October 10 and 30, Tencent reported the case to the Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau, and at the same time complained to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. At that time, the expectation was to stop 31’s behavior by appealing to the judicial and industry authorities.Guo Kaitian, who was in charge of legal affairs, later recalled: "After receiving the report, the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau took it very seriously and arranged for a deputy director to handle the case, but the public security personnel did not know how to characterize it and how to deal with it. Even the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology , was also confused about our complaint and had no idea what happened."

Time is like quicksand between fingers, and every second is lost in an instant.In just a few days from October 10th to November 29st, background data showed that "Koukou Bodyguard" had intercepted 11 million QQ users!Later, Ma Huateng said to me with lingering fear: "If it continues for another week, QQ users will probably be lost."

On the morning of November 11, Ma Huateng made a decision to stop running the QQ software on the computer installed with the 3 ​​software.

Throughout the day, all executives sat around in the "war room" on the 37th floor, drafting an "incompatibility" announcement.For this group of engineers, this is really a tricky job. According to the memories of Chen Yidan, Wu Xiaoguang and others: Everyone is facing hundreds of words, sentence by sentence. Talk about it, change a few words, then go to the toilet, come back and see, it was changed again, and then there was another argument...

At 11:3 p.m. on November 6, Tencent published this "A Letter to QQ Users" in the form of pop-up news. The full text is as follows:

Dear QQ users:

As you read this letter, we have just made a very difficult decision.Before Qihoo 360 stops infringing on and maliciously slandering QQ, we have decided to stop running QQ software on computers with Qihoo 360 software installed.We are fully aware that this will cause you some inconvenience, and we sincerely apologize to you.At the same time, I also write down the reasons for making this decision below, hoping to get your understanding and support.

[-]. Ensure the security of your QQ account.

Recently, 360 has been forced to promote and coerce users to install the illegal plug-in "Koukou Bodyguard".The software hijacked QQ's security module, causing QQ to lose related functions.Under the operating environment of 360 software, we cannot guarantee the security of your QQ account. 360 controls the entire QQ chat entrance, and all QQ data, including login accounts, passwords, friends, and chat messages, must be searched by 360 before being returned to QQ users. ", every time he entered the door, he was forcibly searched by the "bodyguards" before he could enter his own house.We are forced to do nothing but use this method to protect your QQ account from malicious hijacking.

[-]. Say "no" to behaviors that have no moral bottom line.

Qihoo 360 has repeatedly fabricated rumors that "QQ violates user privacy" and maliciously slandered QQ's security functions.In fact, the QQ security module never scans or monitors any user privacy data, and absolutely does not upload user data.At present, we have submitted the code of the QQ security module to a third-party organization for testing to prove our innocence.

What's more, as an Internet security company, Qihoo 360 launched plug-in software, blatantly standing on the opposite side of "security", hijacking and controlling other companies' software.These are behaviors that have no moral bottom line.

[-]. Resist illegal activities.

Any commercial behavior, no matter what the purpose is, should be carried out under the framework of national laws and regulations.However, Qihoo 360 actually used the illegal method of "plug-in" to disrupt the normal operation of Tencent.

Qihoo 360 has hijacked and destroyed QQ on the user's computer desktop.We could have chosen technology confrontation, but after careful consideration, we decided not to let your computer desktop become a "battlefield", but to give you the right to choose software.

In the past 12 years, QQ has been honored to accompany you to grow; in the future, we look forward to continuing to walk with you!
Tencent
Nov. 2010, 11

At the same time as the announcement was released, Tencent launched an "incompatible page", and all users had to choose between "uninstall QQ" and "uninstall 360" two selection buttons.

Tang Daosheng recalled a detail: In the first plan submitted by the designer, the fonts of the two selection keys were one large and one small, and Ma Huateng proposed revisions: "Both fonts and volumes are the same size, giving users a fair choice. Some executives disagreed, and they pointed out that a year ago, 360 had a similar action in the competition with Kingsoft, and the font of "Uninstall Kingsoft" was much larger than "Uninstall 360".Ma Huateng was very emotional, he patted his chest heavily and said, "It's the same size, come on."

An hour after Tencent popped up the announcement, 360 counterattacked with a pop-up window, saying that Tencent "insisted on forcibly scanning users' hard drives, kidnapping and hijacking users, in order to achieve ulterior motives."Zhou Hongyi announced on Weibo at the same time: "Q360 has a plan for Tencent's crazy behavior, and we have launched a Web QQ client."

Tencent immediately made a technical response. Web.QQ.com stopped its service soon, and directly jumped to the announcement page. Qzone announced that it does not support 360 browser access. At 9:10, Qihoo 360 announced that "Koukou Bodyguard" would be offline, and issued an urgent help letter to netizens, "urging" users to stand firm and "not use QQ for three days."During the three hours on the evening of the 3rd, the two sides exchanged swords and swords for several rounds, and the Chinese Internet was already boiling.

Liu Chang's Tears and "Fifty Steps Back Each"

After 360 released "Koukou Bodyguard", Liu Chang, the general manager of Tencent's public relations department, has been stationed in Beijing, busy communicating with various media: "Those days were devastated, and the technical department exclaimed that users were blocked like a tide, but we still couldn't explain clearly. My own appeal." On the afternoon of November 2010, 11, Liu Chang received a call from Shenzhen, learning of the "incompatible" decision, "I let out a big sigh of relief, and finally want to fight back."

In the middle of the night, some Beijing media reporters surrounded the front desk on the 21st floor of the Yinke Building, the headquarters of Tencent in Beijing.The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also called to ask the two sides to suspend the confrontation.At this time, Liu Chang, his Beijing-based joint CTO Xiong Minghua, general manager of the website department Sun Zhonghuai and others began to contact important media overnight.In the past ten years, Tencent has never held such a press conference. The two sides in Beijing and Shenzhen have repeatedly discussed who will face the difficult situation. At this time, all the founders are far away in the south. Liu Chang said: " Don't worry about it, I'll go."

At 4 am on the 9th, Tencent held a press conference in Beijing. More than 20 media were present. Liu Chang was appointed to represent Tencent's position.

At this time, online public opinion was overwhelmingly condemning Tencent, and some media reporters were also very excited.

"This is the most tragic action since Tencent was established 12 years ago. More than 1 employees of Tencent stayed up all night last night." Liu Chang started with this, and then his voice choked up and kept wiping away tears. This scene surprised the reporters attending the meeting .Liu Chang described Tencent's difficulties: "I want to tell you how helpless and unavoidable it is to make this decision. This is a very helpless decision, but it is also a very firm decision." She then made a request: " Qihoo 360 immediately stopped unfair competition, stopped false propaganda, and stopped slandering Tencent and its products and services, publicly apologized for three consecutive months and jointly compensated Tencent with 3 million yuan."

On this day, almost all the reports were headlined "The General Manager of Tencent's Public Relations Department cried bitterly at the press conference", and Liu Chang became "the most famous Tencent executive" besides Ma Huateng.

As the war intensified, various interest groups were involved one after another. On the morning of November 11, Jinshan, Sogou, Maxthon, Keniu, and Baidu jointly held a press conference, stating that they would not be compatible with the 5 ​​series software, and jointly disclosed the "eight big lies" of 5.Sina chose to support 360, and the two reached a cooperation agreement. At the same time, Sina also announced an in-depth cooperation with MSN. MSN, Sina Weibo, and blogs are interconnected.

On the morning of November 11, Ma Huateng took the initiative to invite 6 media in Shenzhen to do an exclusive interview, which was unprecedented since he started his business.In the next week, he accepted 4 media group interviews, and public opinion began to hear his voice.

The reporter asked: "In your opinion, is this the biggest disaster in Tencent's history?" Ma Huateng replied: "It must be. And it is a man-made disaster, not a natural disaster." In the interview, Ma Huateng described Tencent's "incompatible decision" as "Self-help": "The real installed capacity of 360 is between 1.2 million and 1.5 million, which is about 60% coincident with our computer installed capacity. It is estimated that there are about 1 million QQ users affected." It was released at 11:2000 on Friday. On Monday, there were more than 40 million infections. On Tuesday, we saw that it was inducing users to generate pictures and spread them. Assuming that each QQ user has 2000 friends, then 8 million users can spread to [-] Billion, the situation is already critical, and we have no other option but to confront and get off the net first."

On November 11th, Zhou Hongyi published a blog post titled "It is better to stand up and fight than to live in vain", which can be regarded as a self-summary of the 15Q war. The environment is very harsh. Monopoly forces not only bully others with their own market position, but even force users to uninstall other software at the expense of users’ rights and interests. This kind of unscrupulous domineering practice of monopolies will not change for a day, and Internet innovators will never change. If there is no way out, the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese netizens to enjoy more new and cool services will be harmed.”

On November 11, just after the fighting had basically ended, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Criticizing Beijing Qihoo Technology Co., Ltd. Make a public apology to the society, and properly deal with the aftermath of users; stop attacking each other, ensure the compatibility and normal use of related software, strengthen communication and negotiation, and solve problems encountered in operation in strict accordance with the law; draw lessons from this incident, Seriously study the relevant national laws and regulations, strengthen the construction of professional ethics, strictly regulate their own behavior, and prevent similar behavior from happening again."

An embarrassing ending: "Win the lawsuit but lose public opinion"

Many Western scholars, such as Alcuse and Hannah Arendt, have divided human reality into factual reality and logical reality.

In the Internet world, there seem to be three types of truth: factual truth, logical truth, and emotional truth.In the context of a social network, an incited emotion may spread widely at a viral speed. It will self-generate and replicate, and then independently constitute "facts" and "logic" itself.When this emotion—we may call it "artificial emotion" disappears, the "facts" and "logic" associated with it disappear at the same time.In the 3Q war, we saw this happening. "Emotion" itself became a driving entity, and the "reality" that was coerced and created exploded in the public domain like a nuclear bomb. This is undoubtedly a very strange Internet " Feast of Violence".

The 3Q War is an important battle in the history of China's Internet, and it can also be said to be the bloodiest "last battle" in the PC era.But in the future, after this battle, the legal and moral environment of the Internet has not been improved; on the contrary, the 3Q war proved the victory of the law of the jungle, and in terms of the truth of the incident, it can be called a "Rashomon". One hundred observers, one hundred facts, one hundred opinions.

Let's take a look at the legal verdict first. The two sides went to court many times over the next three years.

On November 2010, 11, which was the day when Zhou Hongyi published his blog post "It is better to fight than to live on", Tencent used "15 privacy protector and 360 website to fabricate the fact that Tencent violated user privacy, and maliciously commercially slander Tencent". Therefore, formally sued 360 for unfair competition in the Chaoyang District Court of Beijing. In April 360, the court made the first-instance judgment, requiring Qihoo 2011 to stop the infringement, and within 4 days to publish a statement on the homepage of the 360 ​​website and the "Legal Daily" to eliminate the impact, and compensate the plaintiff Tencent for economic losses of 30 yuan.Qihoo refused to accept it and appealed to the Beijing No. 360 Intermediate People's Court. On September 40, the Beijing Second People's Court upheld the first-instance verdict.

Subsequently, Tencent filed a larger-scale lawsuit with the Guangdong Higher Court for related infringements related to the "Koukou Bodyguard" released by Qihoo 360.

In April 2013, the Guangdong Higher Court made a first-instance judgment, affirming that Qihoo 4’s multiple acts constituted “acts of unfair competition”: the first one was that “Koukou bodyguards” destroyed the security of QQ software and its services , integrity, intercepting and shielding multiple functions of QQ software, causing Tencent to lose trading opportunities for value-added services and advertising revenue; the second is that 360 fabricated and disseminated QQ software when operating the "Quankou Bodyguard" software and its services There are false facts such as health problems and disclosure of user privacy, and commercial slander against Tencent; the third item is that "Koukou Bodyguard" replaced some functions of the plaintiff's QQ software by tampering with the functional interface of QQ, and then promoted 360's own products.The above-mentioned multiple misconducts not only seriously damaged Tencent's legitimate commercial interests, but also disrupted the normal order of competition in the industry, constituting unfair competition.The court therefore ordered Qihoo 360 to publicly apologize in the media for 360 consecutive days and compensate economic losses of 15 million yuan.

Qihoo then appealed to the Supreme People's Court. On February 2014, 2, the Supreme Court upheld the first-instance judgment.

Although Tencent has achieved a complete victory at the legal level, as Ma Huateng and others predicted at the time, the judgment has no actual impact on the interests of the two companies, and Chinese laws have not been able to play an appropriate role in the vicious Internet competition. It is really a very regrettable thing to have a weapon with actual binding and punitive force.

In comparison, Zhou Hongyi's adventure has achieved unprecedented commercial success. He jumped naked, as long as he is not strangled, he will win a big victory. His extraordinary understanding and control of Internet public opinion is unprecedented.After the war, his popularity skyrocketed and he became a symbol of disruptive innovation. Instead of being weakened, 360 users increased.Zhou Hongyi took advantage of the opportunity to go further and quickly launched the listing plan. On March 2011, 3, Qihoo 30 was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the United States, raising US$360 million. The price-earnings ratio of the day was as high as 2.256 times, and it became the third largest Internet listed company in China. .

For Ma Huateng, the 3Q battle is no different from a cup of bitter wine.

From the perspective of competitive strategy, the "incompatibility" on November 11 is undoubtedly the only correct decision. Ma Huateng took the risk of being criticized by everyone and prevented 3 from drawing its salary from the bottom.Later he said to me: "If you grit your teeth and persist for another week, 360 will be completely out of the game." The hatred is beyond words.

The ambiguous ending of the 3Q war did not bring about the "completely open environment" expected and promised by the rebels. Instead, it prompted the strange revival of the "platform-only theory": on the one hand, the call for openness prompted monopolists to deeply reflect and re-understand The deep structure of the Internet economy; on the other hand, believers in openness no longer superstitiously believe in "openness and omnipotence", because the capitalist characteristics of the Internet are far more complicated than they imagined.Those who resist, by challenging the monopoly, share in the monopoly's benefits.

The public opinion attacks that Tencent encountered in this incident made Ma Huateng even more depressed. During the interview, I could clearly feel his confusion and depression, and even at certain moments, his values ​​were a little shaken.As Hegel said, the desire to be recognized is the most basic desire for human existence. Ma Huateng has always claimed to be a product manager, thinking about user experience and getting their approval day and night. However, it is at this level that he encountered fatal doubt.

Various changes that occurred later will prove that in the history of Tencent, the 3Q war was indeed a milestone event. It even changed Ma Huateng’s character in a certain sense. He began to rethink Tencent’s platform strategy and public attributes. In terms of external communication , He also gradually became soft and open.

(End of this chapter)