Internet Business Thinking

Chapter 12 Internet mobile battle - shopping is within a square inch (3)
The closed model of the app store is now having problems.Song Lin said: "Why don't most app developers make money? Because there is no way to make money. Users just download those few apps. Typically, there are many monks and few meat. A user's mobile phone has dozens of apps, which is already a lot. However, if It is on the website, because links can jump around, it is normal for a user to visit hundreds of webpages a day.” Whether it is the Internet or the mobile Internet, without users, there is no income.

This is what Robin Li said "the app store has fundamental flaws."The way to display apps in the app store is to first show users what is the most mainstream app, what is the most downloaded app, and make a ranking for each category. Therefore, if it is not the "TOP10" of a certain category, It will be difficult to gain users' attention.

This is very similar to how hao123 was used as the portal for PC users to access the Internet more than a decade ago. The most commonly used websites were placed on the hao123 interface. Today's app stores are also like this. The most commonly used applications of most users are placed in obvious positions.A lot of people think that's great, but the problem is that if you're unlucky enough to be one of those 99.9% of apps you don't use often, you're going to die.For most developers who belong to 99.9%, there is no good way for him to reach his target consumers.

Of course, Li Mingyuan also admitted: "A defective thing does not mean that it is worthless. The app store model similar to hao123 is very effective for the distribution of mainstream and high-frequency applications." But the problem is that since traditional Internet browser pages have hao123 , Then, the browser homepage of the mobile Internet can also become "hao123" in the future. At that time, what is the significance of the existence of the application store?
Big ambitions: super apps
When discussing the issue of future mobile Internet access, the ideas of many giants also have to be considered. Companies such as Baidu, Google, Tencent, and Alibaba are the ones who really guide the market.So for these giants, which one is more in line with their interests, the app store or the browser?
Among several Internet giants in China, Tencent owns the two super apps of WeChat and mobile QQ, and disdains the app store and browser market at all. The so-called QQ browser is simply soy sauce; On the Internet financial platform, I also want to follow the way of Tencent Super App.

After Baidu acquired 91 Wireless, it immediately launched light applications and deployed LBS. Obviously, it has not yet figured out the problem of access to the mobile Internet in the future.

360 originally had the same idea as Baidu.But unfortunately, it was rumored that the browser team of 360 was suddenly poached by the old enemy Baidu, so Zhou Hongyi had to say, "We don't think the browser is an entrance", and then he concentrated on running his own 360 mobile assistant.

But in any case, "the app store is not in the interests of Google, Baidu, or the giants," Song Lin said the key point, "because if you use the app store, you still have to use it." Why do you want Google, and why do you need Baidu? Google has directly changed to Microsoft and an operating system provider. Who still uses search? Therefore, the application store is not something that reflects the essence of the Internet.” This is why Google supports Web App, Ali Reasons to invest in UC.We have said that even if Baidu acquires 91 Wireless, it is not only the app store that is fancy, but the operational capabilities of the developers behind it.

Yan Xiaojia, a senior analyst at Analysys, divides future mobile Internet applications into light applications and heavy applications: the so-called light applications refer to software with small size, content type, little irreplaceability, and more emphasis on content quality and In-depth applications; the so-called heavy applications have relatively high user stickiness, and require a large amount of data and attachments to support them, and they are mostly in market segments. For example, navigation, social networking, and large-scale games are all heavy applications.He believes: "In the future, mobile Internet browsers will mainly serve as portals for light applications such as news, video, reading, music, search, and games."

Whether it is the search engines of Baidu and Google, the Internet financial platform of Ali, or social platforms such as WeChat and Facebook, they can all be classified as heavy applications, but the product forms are different.The truth is that for the giants, neither the app store nor the browser can satisfy their appetites. They hope that the entrance to the mobile Internet is a super app, an open platform in a vertical field.

The so-called super apps refer to those basic applications that have a huge number of users and become the must-have applications installed on users' mobile phones, or they are no longer an app, but an open platform.The emergence and future rise of this super app is also in line with market laws.Metcalf's law states that the value growth of the network will be proportional to the square of the number of network users, thus creating a winner-take-all market. The gap between the first and second in the market is very large and will continue to expand.

美国互联网流量监测机构Compete的数据也印证了这一观点，全美排名前十的网站在2001年占据了美国31%的网页浏览量，2006年占40%，而到了2010年已占到约75%。

If the mobile Internet market is explained by the long-tail theory, it is not difficult to draw a conclusion: the mainstream market in the future will be occupied by super apps in vertical fields like WeChat and Facebook, while the long-tail market will be divided by Web Apps suitable for running on browsers .

Therefore, the future mobile Internet portal will be a pattern where super apps and browsers coexist.For app stores, when HTML5 really rises and makes the user experience and graphic display of Web App no ​​different from Native App, it is the time when app stores exit the stage of history.

(Section [-]) The mobile war is happening in the palm of your hand

In the future, the competition in the mobile Internet industry will inevitably be a red ocean, and in the entire industry, Baidu will face competition from the three giants of 360, Tencent and Alibaba.Baidu's most dangerous competitor in the real sense is 360, while Tencent's social networking and games and Alibaba's e-commerce are not Baidu's specialty and investment focus.

Recently, the mobile Internet world has been in a state of ups and downs. Just when people think that Baidu, Tencent, and Alibaba have gradually occupied the commanding heights of the industry, the giants have conveyed their caution and low-key about the mobile Internet.Tencent owns the "big killer" of WeChat, but still weakly stated that it has got half of the ticket for the mobile Internet, while Baidu and Alibaba are even more cautious about the mobile Internet.

The caution of the Big Three is understandable. In the field of mobile Internet, 360 has become a competitor that the giants fear, and rivals such as Xiaomi are ready to go in the subdivision field. The Big Three cannot easily deal with it.The mobile Internet is currently in a state of fragmentation, and consumers are still in the "educated" stage, and there are great variables in the future.Behind the new hot words such as O2O and big data, the trend reflected is the closer integration of the physical industry and the mobile Internet. Against this background, traditional physical business giants may also stir up the mobile Internet.This is the environment that traditional Internet giants face in the context of the mobile Internet.

Due to the fact that the mobile Internet has been matured by capital, some companies have obtained a large amount of investment without a mature business model.However, due to the tightening of the economic environment in 2013, a new phenomenon appeared in the mobile Internet, that is, some Internet companies that had already operated well were acquired by the three major Internet companies.And the appetite of the three giants for mergers and acquisitions is also growing, constantly breaking the record of domestic Internet mergers and acquisitions. Since 2013, Baidu’s investment in PPS, Tencent’s investment in Sogou, Alibaba’s investment in AutoNavi and Sina Weibo, all reflect the anxiety and appetite of giants.

So in the mobile Internet industry, how will Baidu respond to future challenges?This article will analyze several other Internet giants Alibaba, Tencent and 360, and compare them with Baidu's strategy, in order to discover some mysteries.

Alibaba with a single operating source

Alibaba and Baidu have a common crisis, that is, the source of business is relatively single, and there is only one trick.It is well known that Alibaba's e-commerce is unique in the world, but the main business highlight of Alibaba is to collect rent on Taobao, that is, to charge store operation fees, just like commercial real estate developers on the Internet.

Alibaba's other business priorities, such as the financial and data sectors, are not yet ready for harvest.Of course, there is nothing wrong with being a commercial real estate developer on the Internet, but as Alibaba's system grows bigger and bigger, Alibaba's traffic guidance system has become less and less suitable for its huge merchant structure, which makes it difficult to find New traffic sources, such as investing in Sina Weibo and Meilishuo, are all aimed at this goal.If there is a lack of traffic, Alibaba will not be able to maintain the existing scale of merchants. If these merchants lose to competitors, the result will be very dire.

Therefore, the key to Alibaba's success in the mobile Internet is how to reasonably distribute traffic and find traffic on the mobile terminal.At the same time, enter a wider field through the mobile terminal.The problem for Baidu is that most of its revenue comes from search advertising bidding rankings. Whether this business model can work on the mobile terminal still needs to be explored.

Alibaba has been relatively slow to enter the mobile Internet, but since 2013, Alibaba has suddenly accelerated its deployment in the mobile Internet, successively investing in Internet companies such as Xiami.com, Zaidu Community, Momo, and AutoNavi.It can be seen that Alibaba's layout focuses on what kind of services users can get in the Alibaba system, including music services on Xiami.com and travel services on the road community, thereby expanding Alibaba's source of income.In the context of Alibaba's big business philosophy and the fact that China's future economic development is increasingly focused on the service industry, such a choice is not surprising.

On the other hand, Alibaba focuses on whether users can get a better experience when enjoying the services it provides.Alibaba solves this problem with its map application and social networking.Through these social applications such as Weibo and Momo, customers can share experiences and communicate naturally, and better find merchants that meet their needs through maps.For these services that lack corresponding genes, Alibaba generously chose the method of acquisition. On the one hand, it can tell a good story to the capital market under the background of the overall listing, and on the other hand, it can also inject some innovative vitality into itself.

After this step is completed, Alibaba's dependence on Baidu will be even lower, because the characteristics of mobile terminals determine that the entrances to the mobile Internet will be diversified, and maps and Weibo can become user entrances.Against the backdrop of increasingly powerful e-commerce competitors, Alibaba established a mobile-end traffic system to reduce the influence of competitors, and expanded its mobile-end product system to establish a better business monetization mechanism.

powerful Tencent

Tencent is a more formidable opponent of Baidu. After acquiring Sogou, Tencent's market value reached as much as 1000 billion.Tencent's income sources are very diverse. Advertising, games and mobile value-added services are all Tencent's sources of income.In contrast, Baidu's income structure is not balanced.

Unbalanced income structure is not the most important problem for Baidu.The problem facing Baidu is: as Internet traffic tends to be more and more mobile, Baidu's PC-side search is facing great challenges.In this case, Baidu is like a master who is good at one kind of martial arts. When faced with a group of competitors who do not follow the routine, no matter how brilliant the kung fu is, they will be confused.

Tencent's "big killer" in the mobile Internet is WeChat. Tencent's investment department has also gained a lot in the field of mobile Internet, and has inherited Tencent's style of diversifying its income sources, and its investment scope is very broad.It is foreseeable that in the future Tencent will focus on games and continue to expand the scope of investment.

Tencent has a very early layout on the mobile terminal and has social genes, so Tencent and the mobile Internet are very compatible.Long before smartphones became mainstream, Tencent's mobile QQ was continuously upgraded, which made consumers' acceptance of Tencent's applications extremely high.Tencent has made a lot of money through QQ SMS and value-added services.But this is only the initial stage. With the continuous upgrading of smartphones, Tencent is accumulating many applications on QQ.With the emergence of WeChat, Tencent's focus on the mobile Internet has shifted to WeChat.

It can be predicted that in the future, WeChat will still be the focus of Tencent, but it will not be the only focus. With the launch of the payment function of WeChat and the low-key handling of public accounts, Tencent hopes that WeChat will not become a speech platform like Weibo. Rather than being a purely social tool, it becomes a window through which social networking can be used to complete e-commerce plans.At present, since China's service industry is becoming Internet-based, and third- and fourth-tier cities still have a vast space for the Internet market, Tencent may focus the development of WeChat on e-commerce.In short, Tencent must hope that WeChat will not carry too many functions.In addition, Tencent has also invested heavily in media, e-reading, games, etc.It is foreseeable that Tencent will continue to launch its own innovative products in these areas, but they will not necessarily put them on WeChat or mobile QQ platforms.

In these respects, Baidu and Tencent will not have too many conflicts.However, does this also mean that Baidu has lost a large potential market for the mobile Internet?
Weirdest competitor 360
Qihoo 360 is the weirdest competitor in the Internet arena.The strength of Zhou Hongyi, the leader in red, made every competitor have complicated emotions towards him.The competitive strategy that 360 is best at, that is, Zhou Hongyi’s judo strategy, is actually to lose 360 of itself and [-] of the enemy through free means, and then gather small income into big income through places that consumers do not pay attention to.Therefore, although [-] does not have high-profile businesses such as search and e-commerce, it is also living very well through the security platform.

The situation is different now. 360 has entered the search field that Baidu is afraid of, and is trying to occupy the Internet entrance through routers and other means, allowing consumers to directly enter 360 search.This makes Baidu have to immediately launch a series of hardware products to respond.From this, it can be seen that 360 is powerful.

The disadvantage of 360 is also very obvious, that is, the cash flow is limited, so it has never made a large investment. Not long ago, it planned to invest in Sogou, but was "disturbed" by Tencent.

The advantage of Qihoo 360 is that although its scale is small, its management is well versed in the way of business competition in China.Although the major Internet giants are afraid of 360 and have repeatedly proposed to encircle 360, but in business, every company has its own ideas, and it is inevitable that the "heart" cannot be used in one place, so that 360 can make full use of its own The power is criss-crossing among several giants.However, 360's financial situation has made it mainly design a series of applications around the mobile Internet, and has the right to speak on the mobile terminal through the mobile assistant.At the moment when apps are the main form of mobile Internet usage, 360 can charge advertising fees from apps through mobile assistants, which is actually a PC-side job.

Although 360 makes enemies on all sides, it is definitely not stupid.In the past, Qihoo 360 focused on key areas that were not the key areas of several major Internet giants. For example, Internet security, several giants were not willing to do such hard work, but Internet security is still an important business in the mobile Internet era, and can directly Charge to customers.But now in the era of mobile Internet, 360 has become Baidu's real competitor.Baidu's acquisition of 91 Mobile Assistant is quite a confrontation with 360.

The future mobile Internet will inevitably be a pattern of more diversified competitors, and the three Internet giants will not carve up all the market space.Because there are still many potential competitors in the mobile Internet that have not entered the market, some inconspicuous applications now may grow into large service providers in the near future.However, not every start-up company is willing to be included in the accounts of the three giants, which adds a lot of variables to the future.As far as Baidu is concerned, the most dangerous competitor in the real sense is 360. Tencent's social networking and games and Alibaba's e-commerce are not Baidu's specialty and investment focus.This makes the future mobile Internet competition cross, but there will not be a fierce merger between the three companies.

(End of this chapter)