Tencent Biography 1998-2016: Evolution of Chinese Internet Companies
Chapter 6 QQ Show: The Reflection of the Real World
Chapter 6 QQ Show: The Reflection of the Real World
We smile at each other as we confuse fiction and reality, and we feel that this illusion has taken hold of us.
——Orhan Pamuk (Turkish writer)
The Internet is also a world, a dream world where we can realize what is impossible in reality, and "Avatar" provides this possibility.
——Tencent’s “Avatar Project” Proposal
Group chats: the first appearance of "community"
In September 2002, Ma Huateng was invited by Alibaba's Jack Ma to attend the third "West Lake Discussion of Swords" conference in Hangzhou. This was his first appearance at a national industry leader forum.
"West Lake Lunjian" was initiated by Ma Yun, who is good at performing, and it was the most famous summit of industry leaders in the Internet industry in the early years. In September 2000, Ma Yun and the famous martial arts novelist Jin Yong jointly issued a "Hero Post", inviting heroes from all over the world to "taste tea and discuss swords" by the West Lake. The heads of the three major portal websites and the e-commerce company 9 were invited. ——Wang Zhidong, Zhang Chaoyang, Ding Lei and Wang Juntao, these were recognized star entrepreneurs in the Internet industry at that time. In September 8848, the second "West Lake Lunjian" was held. There were 2001 invited leaders. In addition to Ma Yun, Zhang Chaoyang and Ding Lei, Sina's Wang Zhidong was expelled by the board of directors due to poor performance. He was replaced by the new chief executive The executive officer Mao Daolin and Wang Juntao are still here, but he has been forced to leave the 9 company in crisis. The new addition is Wang Sing, the CEO of Tom.com under Yingke.
In 2002, because the three major portal websites hadn’t fully recovered from the cold winter, the leaders refused to attend the meeting, so Jack Ma had to settle for the next best thing. All the five guests invited to Hangzhou were new faces: search website 5 Zhou Hongyi of the job site Wuyou, Zhen Ronghui of the job search site Wuyou, Bao Yueqiao of the game platform Lianzhong, Liang Jianzhang of the online travel site Ctrip, and Ma Huateng.They are considered to be the survivors after the bubble burst, and they are also the "second-line figures" in the Internet industry. They were called the "Five Little Dragons" at the time.
In this forum, Ma Huateng was a little absent-minded.Judging from the reports at the time, his appearance did not arouse the enthusiasm of the media. The local "Qianjiang Evening News" reporter described Ma Huateng in a report like this: "Ma Huateng, as the creator of QQ, was dubbed 'QQ The title of "Mr." is very different from the pioneering and avant-garde feeling given by QQ. Ma Huateng is not trendy at all. It has a gentle atmosphere, but no matter how you look at it, it doesn't look like the Internet hero who created that cute little guy. Even if he hangs a red scarf around his neck, he doesn't look like QQ at all."
It was also at this forum that Ma Huateng met for the first time his old enemy Zhou Hongyi, who was one year older than him.Compared with Ma Huateng, who is reserved and reticent, Zhou Hongyi, who is short and capable, is much more lively and outgoing. He can often make witty remarks and win applause.On the conference forum, he joked: "Of the five of us, only Ma Huateng is the most immature." Everyone was surprised, and Zhou Hongyi said slowly: "Because all four of us are married, but he is not."
At this time, Ma Huateng has not yet learned how to show a sense of humor in front of the public.In an interview, in addition to describing Tencent's "great future", he focused on the new version of QQ launched on the 25th of last month.In this upgraded version, the group chat function appeared for the first time.
This feature is inspired by the "Fanyou Group" culture within Tencent.At that time, there were many "dinner groups" in Tencent. Before leaving get off work at noon, everyone discussed and decided how to solve the lunch through emails. Due to delays in emails and confusing replies, it was difficult to reach a consensus quickly, and there were often personnel omissions. question.In response to these problems, someone put forward such an idea: "Can you set up a fixed list of people on QQ, and the people on the list can participate in real-time discussions at the same time?"
Zhang Zhidong and Wu Xiaoguang, who are in charge of technology development, caught this inspiration in time.In the new version in August, QQ users can independently create QQ groups, invite friends to join, chat at any time, share files, pictures and music, and at the same time, the group dynamic function can also help users know the big events and group friends in the group in real time In addition, there are multiple display and interactive functions such as group member business cards, group notes, group dynamics, group message acceptance method setting, group chat essence, etc.Zhang Zhidong wrote in the function definition: "QQ group is an instant communication platform established for small groups of QQ users who have common characteristics. For example, groups such as 'my college classmates' and 'my colleagues' can be created. Members in the group have close The realization of the QQ group function has changed your online life style at once. You no longer stay alone on QQ alone, but in a group with close relationships to experience the excitement brought by the Internet together. "
The development of the group chat function can be regarded as a breakthrough creation of Tencent in the field of instant messaging.
It pioneered the upgrading of the traditional one-to-one single thread relationship chain to a many-to-many cross-user relationship chain, breaking through the limitations of the original communication mode. The invention of the QQ group has completely changed the way netizens maintain relationship chains and interact online, marking the emergence of the concept of social networking in China, which is 18 months earlier than Facebook.Zhang Zhidong said in the future that after launching the group chat function, QQ has actually established a community circle similar to acquaintances. Although it is not a real-name system, the process of invitation and group chat means that the relationship between users is "familiar". .
The emergence of the group chat function made the activity of QQ get a surprising increase at the end of 2002.The next interesting topic is how Tencent can personalize this growing virtual community and thus create a profit model.
Marketing Department's "Avatar Project"
At the same time when the technical department developed the group chat function, in mid-August 2002, Xu Liang, a new report from the Marketing Department, became "the first idler in Tencent's history."
Xu Liang, who graduated from the Department of Economics of Wuhan University in 1999, had previously founded a software company. After two years, it failed miserably.Then he submitted his resume and joined Tencent. The original position given to him was the promotion manager of the national Internet cafes, but because he lost his mobile phone, he was two weeks late for registration, and the position was replaced by another newcomer. Therefore, Zou Xiaomin gave him a "product manager" position. "What does a product manager do?" Xu Liang asked. "It's just researching products and waiting for new assignments." Zou Xiaomin replied.
Xu Liang didn't know what product to study.One day, when my colleagues were chatting, someone mentioned that there is a community website sayclub.com in South Korea, which has developed a function called "Avatar". Users can change the appearance of virtual characters according to their preferences, such as hairstyles, expressions, clothing and scenes. etc., and these "goods" need to be purchased for a fee.After the service was launched, it was very popular among young Koreans.The speaker had no intention, but the listener was interested. When Xu Liang returned to his computer, he searched sayclub.com. He found it quite novel. He couldn't understand Korean, so he paid 400 yuan to ask someone to translate the content of the website.
Intuition told Xu Liang that this might be a good product, so he quickly wrote a requirement document and sent a copy to all the superiors in the company.However, more than a month passed, and no one replied to him.
At this moment, Xu Liang met Wang Yuan who had also arrived on duty not long ago.Wang Yuan is a senior Internet person. He worked as the sales director and business development director of Aspire, a subsidiary of China Mobile, for the past two years, and was recruited by Zeng Liqing as his assistant.Aspire is the business support platform of "Monternet". Wang Yuan has witnessed the miraculous rise of the entire wireless industry in China, and has conducted in-depth research on wireless data services in Japan and South Korea.After Wang Yuan learned about Xu Liang's project, he found it very interesting, and he asked Xu Liang to redo the investigation.
Through in-depth research, Xu Liang got more data. In December 2000, there were 12 paying users who bought virtual items on sayclub.com. A year later, the number increased to 6 million. The average monthly expenditure of each user was equivalent to RMB 150, and the profit was very considerable.Led by the popularity of sayclub.com, the top five chat and social networking sites in South Korea have all been "avatarized", and network avatars are widely used in chat rooms, BBS, mobile phones, E-mail, virtual communities and other networks that highlight online communication service.
What makes Xu Liang even more anxious is that this popular trend has also been introduced into China. In May 2002, Ding Lei's 5.com tentatively launched an online avatar product in Netease Bubble, an instant messaging tool.Another website called "Youlian" (ViaFriend.com) launched an "Avatar" brand in June - ixiu, claiming to be "the first website in China to provide personalized online avatar services."In other words, "Tencent is late again this time."
Xu Liang has produced a more than 80-page, logical presentation (PPT) in recent days, and also designed the most primitive avatar system.In this presentation, Xu Liang put forward several creative points of view. According to his research, "'Avatar' is a visualized variable logo for netizens on the Internet. In addition, 'Avatar' is an online It is the most realistic and feasible charging model for communication network services”.According to data from South Korea, among the Internet users who buy "Avatar", young people aged 18 to 25 are the mainstream group, and half of them are under the age of 20. The ratio of male to female is about 2:1. QQ's Chinese users are very consistent.In China, although both Youlian and Netease have launched products similar to "Avatar", the user base of Youlian is insufficient, the payment method is backward, and Netease has not promoted it as the main product. Moreover, according to Xu Liang's judgment, " Netizens in China and South Korea have different communication habits. Koreans are used to communicating in website-based communities, while Chinese prefer IM. Therefore, NetEase is not a good carrier of 'Avatar'."
Xu Liang then came to the conclusion: "Theoretically, for the 'Avatar' market, Tencent has inherent advantages over any other company! 'Avatar' is like a fast-growing online market specially prepared for Tencent... …Tencent will use the 'Avatar' technology and the 'Avatar' image system to reintegrate the entire Tencent community, and finally make the Tencent community a large-scale online virtual community or virtual game platform that simulates reality. The content of the 'Avatar' service will also follow It is not a once-and-for-all income-generating tool, but a process of continuously increasing investment and enriching content after confirming the direction.”
After receiving Xu Liang's PPT, Zeng Liqing decided to gather the decision-makers and listen to a special report.
"Our marketing department is actually optimistic about 'Avatar', but it is the responsibility of the R&D department to launch new products, so it all depends on Gua Ge's attitude." Zeng Liqing recalled.Unexpectedly, at the report meeting, the first person to express his opinion was "Gua Ge" Zhang Zhidong. Halfway through Xu Liang's demonstration, Zhang Zhidong, who was always cautious, stood up and interrupted him: "I think this is a good product, and it should be released immediately." Do it." Ma Huateng responded accordingly.
On the spot, the "Avatar Team" was established, Xu Liang was appointed to lead, and Zhang Zhidong assigned three programmers and an artist to him.The next day, programmer Xu Lin designed the first prototype.Xu Liang believed that "Tencent is weak in content planning, and content-related services have not been its strong point", so he entrusted a Korean company to design virtual props, and designed more than 800 models in two months. The programmers of the "Avatar Team" developed QQ mall.This virtual image system is called "QQ Show" (QQ show).
On January 2003, 1, the QQ show went online for trial operation. Xu Liang distributed Q coins worth 24 yuan to all QQ members, making them the seed users of the QQ show.
Two months later, Tencent announced the "QQ Show" - the QQ avatar system officially charged, QQ users can use Q coins to buy clothing, accessories and environmental scenes to design their own personalized avatar.In the QQ show mall, there are all kinds of virtual items - fairy clothes, professional clothes, sunglasses, necklaces, and their price ranges from 0.5 yuan to 1 yuan... These virtual items can be replaced at any time according to your needs, or you can Give it to your QQ friends as a gift.In addition to being displayed on the QQ avatar, this personalized virtual image will also appear in services such as QQ chat rooms, Tencent communities, and QQ dating. ways of expressing oneself and emotions.A QQ show image is valid for 6 months, after which users need to continue to pay for the purchase.
The popularity of the QQ show is beyond everyone's expectations. In the first half year of the QQ show's launch, 500 million people bought this service, with an average cost of about 5 yuan, which is far greater than buying a "pretty account" .Moreover, this time, it did not arouse the disgust of users and the attack of public opinion, because this is a completely voluntary behavior of users.
"QQ People" and QQ Realism
When Tencent launched the QQ show, ICQ, its imitation object, has not found a way to make a profit. In North America and Europe, its market share is divided by Microsoft's MSN and Yahoo's Yahoo Messenger.In a sense, QQ Show has recreated the nature, function and profit model of the instant messaging client, which is Tencent's gorgeous farewell to ICQ.
In the history of Tencent, and even the history of China's Internet, QQ Show can be regarded as a revolutionary fee-based product, which can be regarded as an "Oriental application innovation" in the global Internet industry.Tencent is not the initiator of this innovation, but it has achieved real commercial success with this innovation.What is more valuable than commercial interests is that QQ Show has allowed Tencent to establish an emotional belonging relationship with its billion-level users.
Ma Huateng was the first batch of users of QQ Show.He bought the following props in the QQ mall: a long hair, a pair of sunglasses, and a pair of tight jeans, thus dressing up the image of a young cowboy.In real life, he never has long hair, doesn't wear sunglasses, and hardly ever wears jeans.This is a very moral phenomenon: a person's identification of self-identity in the virtual world may be the reflection of real life.
Many Internet researchers in the West find it inconceivable that Chinese netizens are willing to spend money on virtual props to dress themselves up.Here, we can see the huge difference in role cognition of people in Eastern and Western societies.
Chinese society has always been a hierarchical society full of oppression, which is manifested not only within the clan, but also at the level of the public society. People are trembling in real life, and their emotional life is very pale and boring.The emergence of virtual communities is like a new world that suddenly appears, allowing people who have been depressed for a long time to wear masks and realize a carnival without restraint.The Chinese people's implicitness in reality and their wildness in the virtual form a very sharp and ironic contrast.
Most of the early users of QQ are young people aged 15 to 25. This is a group of anxious people who have no identity in real life but long for recognition.They are strictly regulated in the family, neglected and marginalized in social organizations; due to the effects of hormones, they are eager to be recognized, eager to confirm themselves, and eager to find their own ethnic group.These goals that are impossible to achieve in the real world can be easily achieved in the virtual world.
The birth of the QQ show gave this demand an opportunity to demonstrate, just as American public opinion expert Walter Lippmann revealed: "The characteristics of people are always vague and vacillating. If you want to keep in mind They have to rely on a tangible symbol. Images are always the most reliable way to convey ideas.” The process of people purchasing virtual clothing in QQ Mall is essentially a process of self-identity and identity confirmation—when we see When Ma Huateng's image of the young cowboy, it is almost confirmed that there is an "uninhibited cowboy" growing in his heart, and perhaps even he himself realized it for the first time.It's such a wonderful and weird life experience that you can't do it any other way, on any other occasion.
In an interview with reporters, Wu Xiaoguang has realized the existence of such a demand. He said that what Tencent sells is not actually "clothes", but "emotional sustenance", "represents a person's image in the eyes of others, friends When you see my image on QQ, you can know what kind of person I am."
This is one of Tencent's real secrets.
Since the first day of the birth of OICQ—the future QQ—a new group has emerged in Chinese society. Most of them were born after 1985 and can be directly named “QQ people.”There are four common characteristics behind this appellation:
First, they all applied for a QQ number when they were teenagers, that is, before they had ID cards. This became an independent symbol and an entrance for them to have a separate dialogue with the world.
Second, QQ provides a virtual world that is relatively separated from the real world. The Internet allows people to live beyond geographical boundaries. "QQ people" are no longer "native Chinese" in the traditional sense, but have never appeared before. , eliminating the endemic generation. The radius of "QQ people" making friends is completely different from that of the previous generation, and its expansion multiple is directly proportional to the breadth of QQ communication.
Third, QQ has changed the way a generation of people express their attitudes and feelings. QQ and QQ Show are more direct, faster and shorter than letters, phone calls and even e-mails, which has created an era of instant and fast food; people may lose certain abilities in real life.I once went to a "talking class" to do research, and the coach told me that many young people who come here to study are very active on QQ, but they can't communicate with people face to face in real life, "Because there is no 'QQ expression', so won't chat".
Fourth, the world of "QQ people" is fragmented and lacks depth. Everyone is the main body of information dissemination, and the speed and breadth of dissemination mostly depend on the drama of expression.It has nothing to do with "profound knowledge". "QQ people" are more daring to express their attitudes, but they are also more easily attracted by emotions and prejudices.
The QQ show is a remarkable innovation. Since then, QQ is no longer just a simple communication tool without temperature, but has transformed into a virtual world with virtual personality, own values and group norms.
In the next few years, we will soon see that almost all major Internet companies have launched their own instant messaging tools and launched a campaign against QQ, but Tencent won the victory very easily.In addition to the strategy of commercial competition, the biggest reason is that all competitors attack from the technical level, and none of them seduce users emotionally. When people are in a world—whether it is real or virtual After completing the identification of self-identity, "migration" will be a very difficult task.
Focusing on "QQ people" and providing them with various services is the essence of Tencent's business model.
Tencent has been looking for a way to allow "QQ people" to pay for the service. "Beautiful Number" is an attempt, but it is too rough and direct. The QQ show is much more tactful. Everyone can afford those props priced at 0.5 yuan or 1 yuan. They are so cheap that they can be ignored, but the emotional satisfaction they provide is so irreplaceable. Young people with the most sensitive and uncertain knowledge provide a cheap counter for buying desires.
For Tencent, QQ Show is also a "show of transformation". Since then, this instant messaging service provider has become a supplier that explores human nature and sells entertainment experience.Tencent has built a "real version of the virtual world", where all roles, status, order and payment methods are realistic and materialistic, and because it is more convenient and cheaper, it is more realistic. We might as well Call it "QQ realism".Ma Huateng is the creator of this virtual world. When it takes shape, it has an amazing ability to reproduce and transform itself. In the future, Qzone and QQ games that bring huge commercial benefits to Tencent are all based on this logic. extension.
2003: Evolution of three strategic levels
The QQ show allowed Tencent to find a profit model for Internet value-added services in addition to the "Monternet" business. This profit comes entirely from QQ users, so it can be fully dominated by Tencent.Around 2003, the income generated by QQ Show was still not comparable to that of mobile QQ, only about 1/8 of the latter, but the possibilities and imagination it brought were much greater.Since then, QQ, QQ Members, QQ Show, and Q Coins have formed an independent, closed-loop QQ world, and Tencent's organizational system has also induced a series of strategic evolutions.
One of the evolutions: a product manager system that blends with engineer culture.
From the first day of entrepreneurship, Tencent has been ruled by an engineer culture. Ma Huateng and Zhang Zhidong are superstitious about the driving force of technology, and almost all their energy is invested in research and development and iteration. The "Avatar Project" brought about two changes: first, it was the first project proposed by the marketing department—rather than the technology department; second, the definition of user experience was raised from the physical level to the emotional level.In terms of execution, the QQ show is no longer divided into R line and M line, but takes the project as the main body and adopts a new model of product manager system.
Since then, the product manager system has been established. "Whoever proposes it will implement it" and "Once it becomes bigger, it will become an independent army" has become an unwritten rule within Tencent.This new model has created a "horse racing mechanism" invisibly. We will see that the many "accidental" innovations that later brought Tencent, such as Qzone, QQ games and even WeChat, are not the result of top-level planning, but come from the grassroots independent operations of business units.There are natural conflicts between the engineer culture and the product manager system in terms of internal driving force, however, they have achieved seamless integration in Tencent.
The second evolution: the payment system with Q currency as the main body of circulation.
During the period of selling fancy accounts, the value of Q coins was very limited. However, after the birth of QQ show, the rigid demand was stimulated. In February 2003, Zeng Liqing hired Liu Chengmin, the business manager from Huawei's wireless business department, and he took the lead in building the Q coin sales system. In April, Liu Chengmin signed an agreement with Hangzhou Telecom's Shengxun Station to sell Q coins on an agency basis. Telecom opened the 2 Shengxun service. You can buy Q coins by dialing this number. The ratio is divided into.
This model was quickly copied to more than 300 city voice stations across the country.At the same time, Liu Chengmin has also established a Q coin sales channel relationship with more than 1 Internet cafes.Coupled with Tencent's own online payment system, Tencent has three payment channels in more than a year.Later, due to his achievements in market development, Liu Chengmin was promoted to the chief executive of the wireless value-added business department.
For Tencent, establishing a payment system of its own is a strategic success, and it is also a symbolic event that the profit models of community-based websites in China and the United States parted ways.In the future evolution, we will see that almost all American news portals or social networking sites rely on advertisements for their profits, while their Chinese counterparts have much richer choices.
Evolution [-]: Membership service system featuring privilege and hierarchy.
As innovative as the payment system is, QQ Show has carried out unique explorations in charging and service models, and a new membership operation concept has gradually formed.Although at that time, Chinese Internet practitioners did not propose the concept of online community or social network, but in fact, QQ has been a product of community and social networking from the first day of its birth, but it is presented in the form of an instant messaging client of.It is precisely because of this that it has inherent deficiencies in the carrying and display of advertisements, forcing it to find new ways of user interaction and profit outlets.
Gu Sibin was an early member of the QQ Show team, led by Wu Xiaoguang and Xu Liang.He graduated from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and joined Tencent during his internship.He recalled: "Since the QQ show project was established, Tencent has greatly enhanced the richness and flexibility of service content. We found that QQ show and QQ members are products in essence, and need to establish a system and process. The revenue growth of Internet products depends on the mining of users' emotional needs and the control of the entire service process."
Tencent has grasped two main points in the construction of the membership system: one is the design of "privileges", and the other is the difference in levels.Members pay different fees to enjoy different privileged services, and different service contents have different levels.This idea borrowed from traditional hotel management is also effective in Internet value-added services.
At the end of 2003, QQ Show changed its single-item sales model and launched the "Red Diamond Nobleman" - called "Red Diamond Member" at first, but later changed to "Red Diamond Nobleman" because it was easy to confuse with QQ members. He is the initiator of the "Diamond System" that will bring great benefits to Tencent in the future.
"Red Diamond" is a monthly payment model. Users pay 10 yuan per month to enjoy a number of "privileges", including: get a red diamond logo, receive a "red diamond gift bag" every day, Free gift of 5 "flowers", can be set to automatically change clothes every day, give friends QQ show for free, enjoy excessive discounts in QQ mall, etc.The implication of these "privileges" is that the QQ show users who have hung up the "Red Diamond" will be a group of "nobles" who are specially cared for in the virtual world.
In the growth history of QQ Show, the launch of the "Red Diamond" service was a tipping point. Before that, the monthly income from virtual props was between 300 million and 500 million yuan. Revenue quickly exceeded [-] million.
Entering online games: "Triumph" without "Triumph"
In 2003, Ma Huateng ushered in the most fruitful year since he started his business.
Tencent became the largest partner of "Monternet". Mobile QQ brought 1000 million SMS users and unexpected huge profits. The birth of QQ Show enabled Tencent to find another unique profit space.At this time, the energetic Ma Huateng was determined to enter two new fields: online games and news portals.His decision caused a lot of resistance within Tencent, and at the beginning, the expansion of these fields was indeed very difficult.
In the month when the QQ show was officially launched, in March 2003, Wang Yuan and Li Haixiang were sent to Shanghai to set up a game operation department, and the office was located in the Telecom Building in Lujiazui, Pudong.Wang Yuan rented an office with an area of more than 3 square meters and recruited more than 400 employees.
As early as the spring and summer of 2002, Tencent began to discuss whether to enter the field of online games, and the five founders had differences.Contrary to Ma Huateng's opinion, Zhang Zhidong clearly expressed his opposition. In his opinion, the foundation of QQ is not stable, and it is not suitable to open up new fronts. He said to Ma Huateng: "None of us are online game players, and we don't know anything about it." Xu Chenye and Chen Yidan Noncommittal, Zeng Liqing also expressed hesitation.
However, in Ma Huateng's view, online games are an opportunity not to be missed.In 2001, the scale of China's online game market was only 3.1 million yuan, and it expanded to 2002 billion yuan in 10. The number of online game users exceeded 800 million, and the average monthly expenditure of each user on online games was 18.8 yuan. .This set of figures even makes some people make optimistic predictions: online games give China a chance to take the lead in the world's mainstream industries.
In the market, someone has indeed seized the opportunity.In 2001, Shanghai Shanda Company, founded by Chen Tianqiao, obtained the exclusive agency right of South Korea’s Actoz’s online game “Legend” in China for US$30. In just one year, it created an astonishing record of 60 people online at the same time. Shanda The daily income reached 100 million RMB.Almost at the same time, Ding Lei of Netease also devoted himself to online games. He acquired the research and development team of "The World" and launched the self-developed "Westward Journey Online" in December 2001, and then launched the more mature "Westward Journey Online" in June of the following year. Westward Journey 12, which has become another profit pool for Netease besides SMS business.
Ma Huateng, who has always had a close relationship with Ding Lei, admires the intuition of this peer. In his opinion, QQ's young user base has a "natural fit" with online games, and Tencent should not miss this one that is about to explode. new market.
In the early days, Tencent had an unwritten agreement that if one of the five founders objected to any new business, it would not be implemented. In May 5, the annual E2002 video game show was held in Los Angeles. Ma Huateng wanted to take Zhang Zhidong and Zeng Liqing to see it together, taking the opportunity to "open their eyes and brainwash them".Zhang Zhidong refused to go with the excuse that he was very busy, but Zeng Liqing, who was also very busy, couldn't help Ma Huateng, so he agreed to go with him.Zeng Liqing recalled an interesting detail: "When I went to the US consulate to apply for a visa, Ma Huateng was rejected. When it was my turn, I talked to the visa officer about the bright future of Tencent. The visa officer was moved by me. , I asked, who else would go with me. I pointed to Ma Huateng, who had just been rejected by him, and said, "There is also him, he is my boss. The visa officer called Ma Huateng back and stamped him again."
The trip to Los Angeles greatly changed Zeng Liqing's views on online games. After returning to China, he persuaded Zhang Zhidong to recruit Li Haixiang and Wang Yuan from the technical department and the marketing department respectively, and the two partnered to enter the field of online games.
The online game team sent far away to Shanghai became a victim of trial and error.
In order to quickly enter the market, the game department chose the agency model.Wang Yuan, who is known as the "No. 3 Korea Handy", chose "Triumph" developed by Imazic, which was the most advanced 2D role-playing game at that time, which was an upgrade from the 3D "Legend".Later, Li Haixiang recalled: "We felt at the time that if we wanted to introduce the best, the Korean team that developed Triumph was the expert group with the highest technical level in Asia, and the game was developed using the most powerful Unreal II engine among 2005D engines. We When I saw the game for the first time, I was overwhelmed by the gorgeousness of the picture, and it can even be said that until 3, there were few other [-]D games that could surpass its level.”
However, the best is not necessarily the right one.
From the very beginning, "Triumph" was enveloped by an ominous atmosphere.As early as April 2003, Tencent announced that it would conduct an internal test on May 4, and 5 players registered.However, due to the complexity of the localization of the program beyond expectations, by the evening of May 20, the game department was forced to issue a statement of "postponing the internal test", and morale had been cut in half before the start of the battle.At 20:5 pm on August 16st, the public beta version of "Triumph" was released. Unexpectedly, within 8 hours, the fragile server was overwhelmed, and Zhang Zhidong had to urgently send someone to rebuild it.
The 3D technology adopted by "Triumph" had very high requirements on computer configuration and network broadband, which posed a great challenge to China's network environment at that time. Optimization, but still can not guarantee the smoothness of the game, picture jagged and mosaic phenomenon can not be solved, which makes "Triumph" become a tasteless product that is not well received.Shanda's spokesman said to the media in a teasing tone: "We are in awe of Tencent's entry into the field of online games, but Tencent should also be in awe of online games themselves."
The first time Tencent tried online games, it ended with an embarrassing ending. Ma Huateng cleaned up the game department, Wang Yuan and Li Haixiang were both transferred, and the game operation department withdrew to Shenzhen. "I'm going to find another commander. He should at least like playing games very much." Ma Huateng said later.
QQ.com: "News Portal for Youth"
Also in 2003, Ma Huateng set out to create a news portal.According to Zeng Liqing's recollection: "He wanted to be a portal very early on, but was rejected several times, and finally everyone reluctantly agreed to give it a try."
Tencent used to have a community-based website www.tencent.com, which mainly provides help services and publishes exchange information for QQ users. Its daily page views (PV) range from 70 to 100 million, which is already a big portal. .The planned news website is based on it.
At this moment, a domain name "falls" from the sky that makes Ma Huateng think about it day and night: www.QQ.com.
Guo Kaitian, who is in charge of legal affairs, recalled this dramatic process: When the company decided to become a news portal, the legal department searched and found that the domain name www.QQ.com had been used by an American video business many years ago. It was registered, and he offered it a sale price of about 2000 million yuan in the domain name trading market. Of course, Tencent was unwilling to pay that much money.Wang Dawei, who made a contribution to the introduction of MIH and was the vice president of Tencent's overseas business at this time, tentatively sent a letter to the American in his own name, and did not expect to get a reply soon.At this time, the U.S. Internet had not yet recovered from the bubble, and the value of domain names had shrunk significantly. In the end, Wangdawei bought www.QQ.com for US$6—about 50 yuan at the time.
In July 2003, a website department consisting of more than 7 people was established. Sun Zhonghuai, who had served as content director at Netease and TOM Online, was recruited into Tencent. He was appointed as the editor-in-chief and general manager of the website department together with Zhai Hongxin .The editorial center was set up in Beijing, which is "closest to the news source".Just over 40 months later, the website was tested internally, and it was officially launched on December 3st.
In public, Ma Huateng expressed great expectations for the newly born Tencent. He believes that with this news portal, Tencent will have the opportunity to form a "one horizontal and one vertical" business model, that is, in addition to instant messaging tools, Use the portal as another entrance to include all Internet services.
From a later point of view, this QQ.com website in 2003 was a website without much characteristics, and its categories were almost completely copied from other news portals.Walter Lippmann once precisely defined the function of the media. In his opinion, a qualified media should first tell its readers what happened, and at the same time tell them that the news that is happening means What, it's "our job".In other words, there are only two core competencies pursued by the media: one is speed, and the other is attitude.If there is the former, readers and commercial value can be obtained; if there is the latter, it can stand out. Tencent in 2003 was undoubtedly far away from these two.
During the Athens Olympic Games in August 2004, Tencent imported QQ traffic to www.QQ.com for the first time.At a business meeting held in Dameisha, Shenzhen, Wu Xiaoguang proposed a brilliant idea to Sun Zhonghuai: the website department will create a "mini homepage" to push the latest developments of Olympic gold medals to users on the QQ client. You can enter the homepage of Tencent.com.
The idea of "mini home page" seamlessly connects the QQ client with the news portal for the first time. As soon as it was launched, it brought a geometric increase in the number of views of Tencent.com.Some media commented very sensitively that in the "door war", a new strongman has appeared. In terms of major events and breaking news, Tencent uses China's largest instant messaging software owned by Tencent to pop up timely news alerts, which is better than people. Log in to Sina.com to get news more timely and "burst".According to the data released by alexa.com, after the end of the Olympic Games, the daily traffic of Tencent.com has rushed to the fourth place in the comprehensive ranking of domestic portal websites.
In October, Tencent.com launched a new revision, and put forward a new positioning as a "news portal for youth".Ma Huateng announced that he would enter the top three portal websites within three years. A reporter asked him to predict who would stay in the top three. Ma Huateng said: "One is Sina, another is Tencent, and the other is unknown. .”
Although Tencent has achieved victory in traffic with its "unique weapon", the facts in the next few years will prove that traffic is not equal to influence and advertising value.
Most of the hundreds of millions of QQ users owned by Tencent are teenagers under the age of 25, and they are not the mainstream force of public opinion. These users are among the advertisers—the top five industries that placed advertisements on portal websites at that time were automobiles, finance, etc. , real estate, IT digital products and Internet companies - also belong to the "low gold content group" in the eyes.What's more fatal is that Tencent has not found its own "media attitude".
For quite a long time, Tencent's media value has not been able to match its traffic, its public influence cannot be compared with Sina, and its advertising revenue is not as good as Sina, Sohu and NetEase.
(End of this chapter)
We smile at each other as we confuse fiction and reality, and we feel that this illusion has taken hold of us.
——Orhan Pamuk (Turkish writer)
The Internet is also a world, a dream world where we can realize what is impossible in reality, and "Avatar" provides this possibility.
——Tencent’s “Avatar Project” Proposal
Group chats: the first appearance of "community"
In September 2002, Ma Huateng was invited by Alibaba's Jack Ma to attend the third "West Lake Discussion of Swords" conference in Hangzhou. This was his first appearance at a national industry leader forum.
"West Lake Lunjian" was initiated by Ma Yun, who is good at performing, and it was the most famous summit of industry leaders in the Internet industry in the early years. In September 2000, Ma Yun and the famous martial arts novelist Jin Yong jointly issued a "Hero Post", inviting heroes from all over the world to "taste tea and discuss swords" by the West Lake. The heads of the three major portal websites and the e-commerce company 9 were invited. ——Wang Zhidong, Zhang Chaoyang, Ding Lei and Wang Juntao, these were recognized star entrepreneurs in the Internet industry at that time. In September 8848, the second "West Lake Lunjian" was held. There were 2001 invited leaders. In addition to Ma Yun, Zhang Chaoyang and Ding Lei, Sina's Wang Zhidong was expelled by the board of directors due to poor performance. He was replaced by the new chief executive The executive officer Mao Daolin and Wang Juntao are still here, but he has been forced to leave the 9 company in crisis. The new addition is Wang Sing, the CEO of Tom.com under Yingke.
In 2002, because the three major portal websites hadn’t fully recovered from the cold winter, the leaders refused to attend the meeting, so Jack Ma had to settle for the next best thing. All the five guests invited to Hangzhou were new faces: search website 5 Zhou Hongyi of the job site Wuyou, Zhen Ronghui of the job search site Wuyou, Bao Yueqiao of the game platform Lianzhong, Liang Jianzhang of the online travel site Ctrip, and Ma Huateng.They are considered to be the survivors after the bubble burst, and they are also the "second-line figures" in the Internet industry. They were called the "Five Little Dragons" at the time.
In this forum, Ma Huateng was a little absent-minded.Judging from the reports at the time, his appearance did not arouse the enthusiasm of the media. The local "Qianjiang Evening News" reporter described Ma Huateng in a report like this: "Ma Huateng, as the creator of QQ, was dubbed 'QQ The title of "Mr." is very different from the pioneering and avant-garde feeling given by QQ. Ma Huateng is not trendy at all. It has a gentle atmosphere, but no matter how you look at it, it doesn't look like the Internet hero who created that cute little guy. Even if he hangs a red scarf around his neck, he doesn't look like QQ at all."
It was also at this forum that Ma Huateng met for the first time his old enemy Zhou Hongyi, who was one year older than him.Compared with Ma Huateng, who is reserved and reticent, Zhou Hongyi, who is short and capable, is much more lively and outgoing. He can often make witty remarks and win applause.On the conference forum, he joked: "Of the five of us, only Ma Huateng is the most immature." Everyone was surprised, and Zhou Hongyi said slowly: "Because all four of us are married, but he is not."
At this time, Ma Huateng has not yet learned how to show a sense of humor in front of the public.In an interview, in addition to describing Tencent's "great future", he focused on the new version of QQ launched on the 25th of last month.In this upgraded version, the group chat function appeared for the first time.
This feature is inspired by the "Fanyou Group" culture within Tencent.At that time, there were many "dinner groups" in Tencent. Before leaving get off work at noon, everyone discussed and decided how to solve the lunch through emails. Due to delays in emails and confusing replies, it was difficult to reach a consensus quickly, and there were often personnel omissions. question.In response to these problems, someone put forward such an idea: "Can you set up a fixed list of people on QQ, and the people on the list can participate in real-time discussions at the same time?"
Zhang Zhidong and Wu Xiaoguang, who are in charge of technology development, caught this inspiration in time.In the new version in August, QQ users can independently create QQ groups, invite friends to join, chat at any time, share files, pictures and music, and at the same time, the group dynamic function can also help users know the big events and group friends in the group in real time In addition, there are multiple display and interactive functions such as group member business cards, group notes, group dynamics, group message acceptance method setting, group chat essence, etc.Zhang Zhidong wrote in the function definition: "QQ group is an instant communication platform established for small groups of QQ users who have common characteristics. For example, groups such as 'my college classmates' and 'my colleagues' can be created. Members in the group have close The realization of the QQ group function has changed your online life style at once. You no longer stay alone on QQ alone, but in a group with close relationships to experience the excitement brought by the Internet together. "
The development of the group chat function can be regarded as a breakthrough creation of Tencent in the field of instant messaging.
It pioneered the upgrading of the traditional one-to-one single thread relationship chain to a many-to-many cross-user relationship chain, breaking through the limitations of the original communication mode. The invention of the QQ group has completely changed the way netizens maintain relationship chains and interact online, marking the emergence of the concept of social networking in China, which is 18 months earlier than Facebook.Zhang Zhidong said in the future that after launching the group chat function, QQ has actually established a community circle similar to acquaintances. Although it is not a real-name system, the process of invitation and group chat means that the relationship between users is "familiar". .
The emergence of the group chat function made the activity of QQ get a surprising increase at the end of 2002.The next interesting topic is how Tencent can personalize this growing virtual community and thus create a profit model.
Marketing Department's "Avatar Project"
At the same time when the technical department developed the group chat function, in mid-August 2002, Xu Liang, a new report from the Marketing Department, became "the first idler in Tencent's history."
Xu Liang, who graduated from the Department of Economics of Wuhan University in 1999, had previously founded a software company. After two years, it failed miserably.Then he submitted his resume and joined Tencent. The original position given to him was the promotion manager of the national Internet cafes, but because he lost his mobile phone, he was two weeks late for registration, and the position was replaced by another newcomer. Therefore, Zou Xiaomin gave him a "product manager" position. "What does a product manager do?" Xu Liang asked. "It's just researching products and waiting for new assignments." Zou Xiaomin replied.
Xu Liang didn't know what product to study.One day, when my colleagues were chatting, someone mentioned that there is a community website sayclub.com in South Korea, which has developed a function called "Avatar". Users can change the appearance of virtual characters according to their preferences, such as hairstyles, expressions, clothing and scenes. etc., and these "goods" need to be purchased for a fee.After the service was launched, it was very popular among young Koreans.The speaker had no intention, but the listener was interested. When Xu Liang returned to his computer, he searched sayclub.com. He found it quite novel. He couldn't understand Korean, so he paid 400 yuan to ask someone to translate the content of the website.
Intuition told Xu Liang that this might be a good product, so he quickly wrote a requirement document and sent a copy to all the superiors in the company.However, more than a month passed, and no one replied to him.
At this moment, Xu Liang met Wang Yuan who had also arrived on duty not long ago.Wang Yuan is a senior Internet person. He worked as the sales director and business development director of Aspire, a subsidiary of China Mobile, for the past two years, and was recruited by Zeng Liqing as his assistant.Aspire is the business support platform of "Monternet". Wang Yuan has witnessed the miraculous rise of the entire wireless industry in China, and has conducted in-depth research on wireless data services in Japan and South Korea.After Wang Yuan learned about Xu Liang's project, he found it very interesting, and he asked Xu Liang to redo the investigation.
Through in-depth research, Xu Liang got more data. In December 2000, there were 12 paying users who bought virtual items on sayclub.com. A year later, the number increased to 6 million. The average monthly expenditure of each user was equivalent to RMB 150, and the profit was very considerable.Led by the popularity of sayclub.com, the top five chat and social networking sites in South Korea have all been "avatarized", and network avatars are widely used in chat rooms, BBS, mobile phones, E-mail, virtual communities and other networks that highlight online communication service.
What makes Xu Liang even more anxious is that this popular trend has also been introduced into China. In May 2002, Ding Lei's 5.com tentatively launched an online avatar product in Netease Bubble, an instant messaging tool.Another website called "Youlian" (ViaFriend.com) launched an "Avatar" brand in June - ixiu, claiming to be "the first website in China to provide personalized online avatar services."In other words, "Tencent is late again this time."
Xu Liang has produced a more than 80-page, logical presentation (PPT) in recent days, and also designed the most primitive avatar system.In this presentation, Xu Liang put forward several creative points of view. According to his research, "'Avatar' is a visualized variable logo for netizens on the Internet. In addition, 'Avatar' is an online It is the most realistic and feasible charging model for communication network services”.According to data from South Korea, among the Internet users who buy "Avatar", young people aged 18 to 25 are the mainstream group, and half of them are under the age of 20. The ratio of male to female is about 2:1. QQ's Chinese users are very consistent.In China, although both Youlian and Netease have launched products similar to "Avatar", the user base of Youlian is insufficient, the payment method is backward, and Netease has not promoted it as the main product. Moreover, according to Xu Liang's judgment, " Netizens in China and South Korea have different communication habits. Koreans are used to communicating in website-based communities, while Chinese prefer IM. Therefore, NetEase is not a good carrier of 'Avatar'."
Xu Liang then came to the conclusion: "Theoretically, for the 'Avatar' market, Tencent has inherent advantages over any other company! 'Avatar' is like a fast-growing online market specially prepared for Tencent... …Tencent will use the 'Avatar' technology and the 'Avatar' image system to reintegrate the entire Tencent community, and finally make the Tencent community a large-scale online virtual community or virtual game platform that simulates reality. The content of the 'Avatar' service will also follow It is not a once-and-for-all income-generating tool, but a process of continuously increasing investment and enriching content after confirming the direction.”
After receiving Xu Liang's PPT, Zeng Liqing decided to gather the decision-makers and listen to a special report.
"Our marketing department is actually optimistic about 'Avatar', but it is the responsibility of the R&D department to launch new products, so it all depends on Gua Ge's attitude." Zeng Liqing recalled.Unexpectedly, at the report meeting, the first person to express his opinion was "Gua Ge" Zhang Zhidong. Halfway through Xu Liang's demonstration, Zhang Zhidong, who was always cautious, stood up and interrupted him: "I think this is a good product, and it should be released immediately." Do it." Ma Huateng responded accordingly.
On the spot, the "Avatar Team" was established, Xu Liang was appointed to lead, and Zhang Zhidong assigned three programmers and an artist to him.The next day, programmer Xu Lin designed the first prototype.Xu Liang believed that "Tencent is weak in content planning, and content-related services have not been its strong point", so he entrusted a Korean company to design virtual props, and designed more than 800 models in two months. The programmers of the "Avatar Team" developed QQ mall.This virtual image system is called "QQ Show" (QQ show).
On January 2003, 1, the QQ show went online for trial operation. Xu Liang distributed Q coins worth 24 yuan to all QQ members, making them the seed users of the QQ show.
Two months later, Tencent announced the "QQ Show" - the QQ avatar system officially charged, QQ users can use Q coins to buy clothing, accessories and environmental scenes to design their own personalized avatar.In the QQ show mall, there are all kinds of virtual items - fairy clothes, professional clothes, sunglasses, necklaces, and their price ranges from 0.5 yuan to 1 yuan... These virtual items can be replaced at any time according to your needs, or you can Give it to your QQ friends as a gift.In addition to being displayed on the QQ avatar, this personalized virtual image will also appear in services such as QQ chat rooms, Tencent communities, and QQ dating. ways of expressing oneself and emotions.A QQ show image is valid for 6 months, after which users need to continue to pay for the purchase.
The popularity of the QQ show is beyond everyone's expectations. In the first half year of the QQ show's launch, 500 million people bought this service, with an average cost of about 5 yuan, which is far greater than buying a "pretty account" .Moreover, this time, it did not arouse the disgust of users and the attack of public opinion, because this is a completely voluntary behavior of users.
"QQ People" and QQ Realism
When Tencent launched the QQ show, ICQ, its imitation object, has not found a way to make a profit. In North America and Europe, its market share is divided by Microsoft's MSN and Yahoo's Yahoo Messenger.In a sense, QQ Show has recreated the nature, function and profit model of the instant messaging client, which is Tencent's gorgeous farewell to ICQ.
In the history of Tencent, and even the history of China's Internet, QQ Show can be regarded as a revolutionary fee-based product, which can be regarded as an "Oriental application innovation" in the global Internet industry.Tencent is not the initiator of this innovation, but it has achieved real commercial success with this innovation.What is more valuable than commercial interests is that QQ Show has allowed Tencent to establish an emotional belonging relationship with its billion-level users.
Ma Huateng was the first batch of users of QQ Show.He bought the following props in the QQ mall: a long hair, a pair of sunglasses, and a pair of tight jeans, thus dressing up the image of a young cowboy.In real life, he never has long hair, doesn't wear sunglasses, and hardly ever wears jeans.This is a very moral phenomenon: a person's identification of self-identity in the virtual world may be the reflection of real life.
Many Internet researchers in the West find it inconceivable that Chinese netizens are willing to spend money on virtual props to dress themselves up.Here, we can see the huge difference in role cognition of people in Eastern and Western societies.
Chinese society has always been a hierarchical society full of oppression, which is manifested not only within the clan, but also at the level of the public society. People are trembling in real life, and their emotional life is very pale and boring.The emergence of virtual communities is like a new world that suddenly appears, allowing people who have been depressed for a long time to wear masks and realize a carnival without restraint.The Chinese people's implicitness in reality and their wildness in the virtual form a very sharp and ironic contrast.
Most of the early users of QQ are young people aged 15 to 25. This is a group of anxious people who have no identity in real life but long for recognition.They are strictly regulated in the family, neglected and marginalized in social organizations; due to the effects of hormones, they are eager to be recognized, eager to confirm themselves, and eager to find their own ethnic group.These goals that are impossible to achieve in the real world can be easily achieved in the virtual world.
The birth of the QQ show gave this demand an opportunity to demonstrate, just as American public opinion expert Walter Lippmann revealed: "The characteristics of people are always vague and vacillating. If you want to keep in mind They have to rely on a tangible symbol. Images are always the most reliable way to convey ideas.” The process of people purchasing virtual clothing in QQ Mall is essentially a process of self-identity and identity confirmation—when we see When Ma Huateng's image of the young cowboy, it is almost confirmed that there is an "uninhibited cowboy" growing in his heart, and perhaps even he himself realized it for the first time.It's such a wonderful and weird life experience that you can't do it any other way, on any other occasion.
In an interview with reporters, Wu Xiaoguang has realized the existence of such a demand. He said that what Tencent sells is not actually "clothes", but "emotional sustenance", "represents a person's image in the eyes of others, friends When you see my image on QQ, you can know what kind of person I am."
This is one of Tencent's real secrets.
Since the first day of the birth of OICQ—the future QQ—a new group has emerged in Chinese society. Most of them were born after 1985 and can be directly named “QQ people.”There are four common characteristics behind this appellation:
First, they all applied for a QQ number when they were teenagers, that is, before they had ID cards. This became an independent symbol and an entrance for them to have a separate dialogue with the world.
Second, QQ provides a virtual world that is relatively separated from the real world. The Internet allows people to live beyond geographical boundaries. "QQ people" are no longer "native Chinese" in the traditional sense, but have never appeared before. , eliminating the endemic generation. The radius of "QQ people" making friends is completely different from that of the previous generation, and its expansion multiple is directly proportional to the breadth of QQ communication.
Third, QQ has changed the way a generation of people express their attitudes and feelings. QQ and QQ Show are more direct, faster and shorter than letters, phone calls and even e-mails, which has created an era of instant and fast food; people may lose certain abilities in real life.I once went to a "talking class" to do research, and the coach told me that many young people who come here to study are very active on QQ, but they can't communicate with people face to face in real life, "Because there is no 'QQ expression', so won't chat".
Fourth, the world of "QQ people" is fragmented and lacks depth. Everyone is the main body of information dissemination, and the speed and breadth of dissemination mostly depend on the drama of expression.It has nothing to do with "profound knowledge". "QQ people" are more daring to express their attitudes, but they are also more easily attracted by emotions and prejudices.
The QQ show is a remarkable innovation. Since then, QQ is no longer just a simple communication tool without temperature, but has transformed into a virtual world with virtual personality, own values and group norms.
In the next few years, we will soon see that almost all major Internet companies have launched their own instant messaging tools and launched a campaign against QQ, but Tencent won the victory very easily.In addition to the strategy of commercial competition, the biggest reason is that all competitors attack from the technical level, and none of them seduce users emotionally. When people are in a world—whether it is real or virtual After completing the identification of self-identity, "migration" will be a very difficult task.
Focusing on "QQ people" and providing them with various services is the essence of Tencent's business model.
Tencent has been looking for a way to allow "QQ people" to pay for the service. "Beautiful Number" is an attempt, but it is too rough and direct. The QQ show is much more tactful. Everyone can afford those props priced at 0.5 yuan or 1 yuan. They are so cheap that they can be ignored, but the emotional satisfaction they provide is so irreplaceable. Young people with the most sensitive and uncertain knowledge provide a cheap counter for buying desires.
For Tencent, QQ Show is also a "show of transformation". Since then, this instant messaging service provider has become a supplier that explores human nature and sells entertainment experience.Tencent has built a "real version of the virtual world", where all roles, status, order and payment methods are realistic and materialistic, and because it is more convenient and cheaper, it is more realistic. We might as well Call it "QQ realism".Ma Huateng is the creator of this virtual world. When it takes shape, it has an amazing ability to reproduce and transform itself. In the future, Qzone and QQ games that bring huge commercial benefits to Tencent are all based on this logic. extension.
2003: Evolution of three strategic levels
The QQ show allowed Tencent to find a profit model for Internet value-added services in addition to the "Monternet" business. This profit comes entirely from QQ users, so it can be fully dominated by Tencent.Around 2003, the income generated by QQ Show was still not comparable to that of mobile QQ, only about 1/8 of the latter, but the possibilities and imagination it brought were much greater.Since then, QQ, QQ Members, QQ Show, and Q Coins have formed an independent, closed-loop QQ world, and Tencent's organizational system has also induced a series of strategic evolutions.
One of the evolutions: a product manager system that blends with engineer culture.
From the first day of entrepreneurship, Tencent has been ruled by an engineer culture. Ma Huateng and Zhang Zhidong are superstitious about the driving force of technology, and almost all their energy is invested in research and development and iteration. The "Avatar Project" brought about two changes: first, it was the first project proposed by the marketing department—rather than the technology department; second, the definition of user experience was raised from the physical level to the emotional level.In terms of execution, the QQ show is no longer divided into R line and M line, but takes the project as the main body and adopts a new model of product manager system.
Since then, the product manager system has been established. "Whoever proposes it will implement it" and "Once it becomes bigger, it will become an independent army" has become an unwritten rule within Tencent.This new model has created a "horse racing mechanism" invisibly. We will see that the many "accidental" innovations that later brought Tencent, such as Qzone, QQ games and even WeChat, are not the result of top-level planning, but come from the grassroots independent operations of business units.There are natural conflicts between the engineer culture and the product manager system in terms of internal driving force, however, they have achieved seamless integration in Tencent.
The second evolution: the payment system with Q currency as the main body of circulation.
During the period of selling fancy accounts, the value of Q coins was very limited. However, after the birth of QQ show, the rigid demand was stimulated. In February 2003, Zeng Liqing hired Liu Chengmin, the business manager from Huawei's wireless business department, and he took the lead in building the Q coin sales system. In April, Liu Chengmin signed an agreement with Hangzhou Telecom's Shengxun Station to sell Q coins on an agency basis. Telecom opened the 2 Shengxun service. You can buy Q coins by dialing this number. The ratio is divided into.
This model was quickly copied to more than 300 city voice stations across the country.At the same time, Liu Chengmin has also established a Q coin sales channel relationship with more than 1 Internet cafes.Coupled with Tencent's own online payment system, Tencent has three payment channels in more than a year.Later, due to his achievements in market development, Liu Chengmin was promoted to the chief executive of the wireless value-added business department.
For Tencent, establishing a payment system of its own is a strategic success, and it is also a symbolic event that the profit models of community-based websites in China and the United States parted ways.In the future evolution, we will see that almost all American news portals or social networking sites rely on advertisements for their profits, while their Chinese counterparts have much richer choices.
Evolution [-]: Membership service system featuring privilege and hierarchy.
As innovative as the payment system is, QQ Show has carried out unique explorations in charging and service models, and a new membership operation concept has gradually formed.Although at that time, Chinese Internet practitioners did not propose the concept of online community or social network, but in fact, QQ has been a product of community and social networking from the first day of its birth, but it is presented in the form of an instant messaging client of.It is precisely because of this that it has inherent deficiencies in the carrying and display of advertisements, forcing it to find new ways of user interaction and profit outlets.
Gu Sibin was an early member of the QQ Show team, led by Wu Xiaoguang and Xu Liang.He graduated from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and joined Tencent during his internship.He recalled: "Since the QQ show project was established, Tencent has greatly enhanced the richness and flexibility of service content. We found that QQ show and QQ members are products in essence, and need to establish a system and process. The revenue growth of Internet products depends on the mining of users' emotional needs and the control of the entire service process."
Tencent has grasped two main points in the construction of the membership system: one is the design of "privileges", and the other is the difference in levels.Members pay different fees to enjoy different privileged services, and different service contents have different levels.This idea borrowed from traditional hotel management is also effective in Internet value-added services.
At the end of 2003, QQ Show changed its single-item sales model and launched the "Red Diamond Nobleman" - called "Red Diamond Member" at first, but later changed to "Red Diamond Nobleman" because it was easy to confuse with QQ members. He is the initiator of the "Diamond System" that will bring great benefits to Tencent in the future.
"Red Diamond" is a monthly payment model. Users pay 10 yuan per month to enjoy a number of "privileges", including: get a red diamond logo, receive a "red diamond gift bag" every day, Free gift of 5 "flowers", can be set to automatically change clothes every day, give friends QQ show for free, enjoy excessive discounts in QQ mall, etc.The implication of these "privileges" is that the QQ show users who have hung up the "Red Diamond" will be a group of "nobles" who are specially cared for in the virtual world.
In the growth history of QQ Show, the launch of the "Red Diamond" service was a tipping point. Before that, the monthly income from virtual props was between 300 million and 500 million yuan. Revenue quickly exceeded [-] million.
Entering online games: "Triumph" without "Triumph"
In 2003, Ma Huateng ushered in the most fruitful year since he started his business.
Tencent became the largest partner of "Monternet". Mobile QQ brought 1000 million SMS users and unexpected huge profits. The birth of QQ Show enabled Tencent to find another unique profit space.At this time, the energetic Ma Huateng was determined to enter two new fields: online games and news portals.His decision caused a lot of resistance within Tencent, and at the beginning, the expansion of these fields was indeed very difficult.
In the month when the QQ show was officially launched, in March 2003, Wang Yuan and Li Haixiang were sent to Shanghai to set up a game operation department, and the office was located in the Telecom Building in Lujiazui, Pudong.Wang Yuan rented an office with an area of more than 3 square meters and recruited more than 400 employees.
As early as the spring and summer of 2002, Tencent began to discuss whether to enter the field of online games, and the five founders had differences.Contrary to Ma Huateng's opinion, Zhang Zhidong clearly expressed his opposition. In his opinion, the foundation of QQ is not stable, and it is not suitable to open up new fronts. He said to Ma Huateng: "None of us are online game players, and we don't know anything about it." Xu Chenye and Chen Yidan Noncommittal, Zeng Liqing also expressed hesitation.
However, in Ma Huateng's view, online games are an opportunity not to be missed.In 2001, the scale of China's online game market was only 3.1 million yuan, and it expanded to 2002 billion yuan in 10. The number of online game users exceeded 800 million, and the average monthly expenditure of each user on online games was 18.8 yuan. .This set of figures even makes some people make optimistic predictions: online games give China a chance to take the lead in the world's mainstream industries.
In the market, someone has indeed seized the opportunity.In 2001, Shanghai Shanda Company, founded by Chen Tianqiao, obtained the exclusive agency right of South Korea’s Actoz’s online game “Legend” in China for US$30. In just one year, it created an astonishing record of 60 people online at the same time. Shanda The daily income reached 100 million RMB.Almost at the same time, Ding Lei of Netease also devoted himself to online games. He acquired the research and development team of "The World" and launched the self-developed "Westward Journey Online" in December 2001, and then launched the more mature "Westward Journey Online" in June of the following year. Westward Journey 12, which has become another profit pool for Netease besides SMS business.
Ma Huateng, who has always had a close relationship with Ding Lei, admires the intuition of this peer. In his opinion, QQ's young user base has a "natural fit" with online games, and Tencent should not miss this one that is about to explode. new market.
In the early days, Tencent had an unwritten agreement that if one of the five founders objected to any new business, it would not be implemented. In May 5, the annual E2002 video game show was held in Los Angeles. Ma Huateng wanted to take Zhang Zhidong and Zeng Liqing to see it together, taking the opportunity to "open their eyes and brainwash them".Zhang Zhidong refused to go with the excuse that he was very busy, but Zeng Liqing, who was also very busy, couldn't help Ma Huateng, so he agreed to go with him.Zeng Liqing recalled an interesting detail: "When I went to the US consulate to apply for a visa, Ma Huateng was rejected. When it was my turn, I talked to the visa officer about the bright future of Tencent. The visa officer was moved by me. , I asked, who else would go with me. I pointed to Ma Huateng, who had just been rejected by him, and said, "There is also him, he is my boss. The visa officer called Ma Huateng back and stamped him again."
The trip to Los Angeles greatly changed Zeng Liqing's views on online games. After returning to China, he persuaded Zhang Zhidong to recruit Li Haixiang and Wang Yuan from the technical department and the marketing department respectively, and the two partnered to enter the field of online games.
The online game team sent far away to Shanghai became a victim of trial and error.
In order to quickly enter the market, the game department chose the agency model.Wang Yuan, who is known as the "No. 3 Korea Handy", chose "Triumph" developed by Imazic, which was the most advanced 2D role-playing game at that time, which was an upgrade from the 3D "Legend".Later, Li Haixiang recalled: "We felt at the time that if we wanted to introduce the best, the Korean team that developed Triumph was the expert group with the highest technical level in Asia, and the game was developed using the most powerful Unreal II engine among 2005D engines. We When I saw the game for the first time, I was overwhelmed by the gorgeousness of the picture, and it can even be said that until 3, there were few other [-]D games that could surpass its level.”
However, the best is not necessarily the right one.
From the very beginning, "Triumph" was enveloped by an ominous atmosphere.As early as April 2003, Tencent announced that it would conduct an internal test on May 4, and 5 players registered.However, due to the complexity of the localization of the program beyond expectations, by the evening of May 20, the game department was forced to issue a statement of "postponing the internal test", and morale had been cut in half before the start of the battle.At 20:5 pm on August 16st, the public beta version of "Triumph" was released. Unexpectedly, within 8 hours, the fragile server was overwhelmed, and Zhang Zhidong had to urgently send someone to rebuild it.
The 3D technology adopted by "Triumph" had very high requirements on computer configuration and network broadband, which posed a great challenge to China's network environment at that time. Optimization, but still can not guarantee the smoothness of the game, picture jagged and mosaic phenomenon can not be solved, which makes "Triumph" become a tasteless product that is not well received.Shanda's spokesman said to the media in a teasing tone: "We are in awe of Tencent's entry into the field of online games, but Tencent should also be in awe of online games themselves."
The first time Tencent tried online games, it ended with an embarrassing ending. Ma Huateng cleaned up the game department, Wang Yuan and Li Haixiang were both transferred, and the game operation department withdrew to Shenzhen. "I'm going to find another commander. He should at least like playing games very much." Ma Huateng said later.
QQ.com: "News Portal for Youth"
Also in 2003, Ma Huateng set out to create a news portal.According to Zeng Liqing's recollection: "He wanted to be a portal very early on, but was rejected several times, and finally everyone reluctantly agreed to give it a try."
Tencent used to have a community-based website www.tencent.com, which mainly provides help services and publishes exchange information for QQ users. Its daily page views (PV) range from 70 to 100 million, which is already a big portal. .The planned news website is based on it.
At this moment, a domain name "falls" from the sky that makes Ma Huateng think about it day and night: www.QQ.com.
Guo Kaitian, who is in charge of legal affairs, recalled this dramatic process: When the company decided to become a news portal, the legal department searched and found that the domain name www.QQ.com had been used by an American video business many years ago. It was registered, and he offered it a sale price of about 2000 million yuan in the domain name trading market. Of course, Tencent was unwilling to pay that much money.Wang Dawei, who made a contribution to the introduction of MIH and was the vice president of Tencent's overseas business at this time, tentatively sent a letter to the American in his own name, and did not expect to get a reply soon.At this time, the U.S. Internet had not yet recovered from the bubble, and the value of domain names had shrunk significantly. In the end, Wangdawei bought www.QQ.com for US$6—about 50 yuan at the time.
In July 2003, a website department consisting of more than 7 people was established. Sun Zhonghuai, who had served as content director at Netease and TOM Online, was recruited into Tencent. He was appointed as the editor-in-chief and general manager of the website department together with Zhai Hongxin .The editorial center was set up in Beijing, which is "closest to the news source".Just over 40 months later, the website was tested internally, and it was officially launched on December 3st.
In public, Ma Huateng expressed great expectations for the newly born Tencent. He believes that with this news portal, Tencent will have the opportunity to form a "one horizontal and one vertical" business model, that is, in addition to instant messaging tools, Use the portal as another entrance to include all Internet services.
From a later point of view, this QQ.com website in 2003 was a website without much characteristics, and its categories were almost completely copied from other news portals.Walter Lippmann once precisely defined the function of the media. In his opinion, a qualified media should first tell its readers what happened, and at the same time tell them that the news that is happening means What, it's "our job".In other words, there are only two core competencies pursued by the media: one is speed, and the other is attitude.If there is the former, readers and commercial value can be obtained; if there is the latter, it can stand out. Tencent in 2003 was undoubtedly far away from these two.
During the Athens Olympic Games in August 2004, Tencent imported QQ traffic to www.QQ.com for the first time.At a business meeting held in Dameisha, Shenzhen, Wu Xiaoguang proposed a brilliant idea to Sun Zhonghuai: the website department will create a "mini homepage" to push the latest developments of Olympic gold medals to users on the QQ client. You can enter the homepage of Tencent.com.
The idea of "mini home page" seamlessly connects the QQ client with the news portal for the first time. As soon as it was launched, it brought a geometric increase in the number of views of Tencent.com.Some media commented very sensitively that in the "door war", a new strongman has appeared. In terms of major events and breaking news, Tencent uses China's largest instant messaging software owned by Tencent to pop up timely news alerts, which is better than people. Log in to Sina.com to get news more timely and "burst".According to the data released by alexa.com, after the end of the Olympic Games, the daily traffic of Tencent.com has rushed to the fourth place in the comprehensive ranking of domestic portal websites.
In October, Tencent.com launched a new revision, and put forward a new positioning as a "news portal for youth".Ma Huateng announced that he would enter the top three portal websites within three years. A reporter asked him to predict who would stay in the top three. Ma Huateng said: "One is Sina, another is Tencent, and the other is unknown. .”
Although Tencent has achieved victory in traffic with its "unique weapon", the facts in the next few years will prove that traffic is not equal to influence and advertising value.
Most of the hundreds of millions of QQ users owned by Tencent are teenagers under the age of 25, and they are not the mainstream force of public opinion. These users are among the advertisers—the top five industries that placed advertisements on portal websites at that time were automobiles, finance, etc. , real estate, IT digital products and Internet companies - also belong to the "low gold content group" in the eyes.What's more fatal is that Tencent has not found its own "media attitude".
For quite a long time, Tencent's media value has not been able to match its traffic, its public influence cannot be compared with Sina, and its advertising revenue is not as good as Sina, Sohu and NetEase.
(End of this chapter)
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