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Shi Yuzhu is very optimistic about the direction of investing in 51. The communityization of online games seems to be a good direction.

51 has 32 million monthly active users, of which 14 million are beauties who have passed face verification. In Internet cafes in third- and fourth-tier cities across the country, what men and women use is not Qzone, let alone Friends.com, but 51 Space.

Why?

Because real beauties with photos.

On the Internet, people often upload fake photos to chat with people, which is disgusting. Some pictures of beauties are very beautiful, but the other end may be a big guy who picks his feet.

This creates barriers to a lot of network communication.

51 solved this rigid problem and pioneered "face recognition" in the industry.

That is, when the user uploads the user's photo in 51, there is an authentication function. The user needs to turn on the camera of the computer, aim at his face, and then compare the camera with the photo.

If they match, the authentication is successful.

With the certification of real beauties and handsome guys, the attractiveness is greatly increased.

Although the technology is rough and there are many loopholes, this model is at the forefront of the country. Many young people go to Internet cafes to surf the Internet, and there is a phenomenon - there are a bunch of non-mainstream photos on the Internet, all of which are photos of Internet cafes taken by young people through Internet cafe cameras, very killer, very old-fashioned .

This is one of the important magic weapons for the rapid rise of 51.

This illustrates a truth.

Most of the users of 51 are young people, and they are young people who often surf the Internet in Internet cafes!

According to statistics, 65% of young people go to Internet cafes to play games.

The user groups of the 51 community and online games are highly overlapping!

As long as the giant can convert 10% of 51 users into its own game players, then the giant can become the largest game giant in China with dignity.

From the perspective of business strategy, the combination of Giant and 51 can be regarded as wishful thinking.

Still, it's a $50 million investment.

Shi Yuzhu was very cautious.

I want to ask Zhou Buqi's opinion.

Boss Zhou's strategic vision is the best in the country, and even the country has given up on him to conquer overseas markets. Xiaonei.com and Youyou.com were founded half a year earlier than 51, but now the two companies are not at the same level at all.

Zhou Buqi's answer was concise and decisive, "Nothing!"

"Ah?" Shi Yuzhu was surprised, "Why?"

Zhou Buqi said coldly: "What kind of company is 51? Do I need to tell me? When I was in Pengcheng, President Ma of Penguin called me and wanted to join hands with me to kill 51. Rainbow QQ It's so unreasonable."

Shi Yuzhu nodded, "Yes, if it weren't for this reason, 51's current size would be worth a billion dollars. Do you think 51 won't be able to survive under the pressure of Penguin?"

"External factors are always secondary, and internal factors are the key. Don't rely on penguins for everything."

Zhou Buqi shook his head, but he couldn't say much about some things.

In the past few years, 51 has developed very well, and its development speed is faster than Friends.com and Qzone.

It is faster than Friends.com because it is aimed at college students and white-collar workers in the early stage, and its user base is small. It develops faster than Qzone, because the people from 51 are willing to spend money.

The founders of 51 have started their own businesses many times, and they have built many personal websites that are on the sidelines, earning tens of millions. It later raised another $15 million.

Very rich!

If you have money, you can do things.

This kind of community website burns a lot of money, mainly because of infrastructure investment. For example, on 51, users upload 10 million photos every day. Such a large storage capacity and bandwidth requirements require a substantial infrastructure.

51 could not afford IBM servers, but purchased a large number of HP and domestic servers, changing from 1,000 to 3,000 to 5,000.

The Qzone in the same period was just a value-added service under QQ, a small project with no money or resources.

When the user opens the Qzone, the page needs to respond for 10 seconds.

It wasn't until 51 became popular and Friends.com became bigger that Penguin began to pay attention to Qzone. It used its own platform resources to support development, invested several hundred million, and completed the overtake.

51 is imitating Penguin in every aspect, and even wants to learn the route of Penguin, embarking on the strategic route of "social traffic + game monetization".

But 51 has a biggest shortcoming, they don't have QQ.

Rainbow QQ looks fierce, but it is actually a leech sucking blood on QQ. As long as QQ makes up its mind, it can be easily resolved.

This is not a problem of Penguin suppressing 51 at all, but that 51 cannot keep up with Penguin.

And more importantly, the era of mobile Internet is coming!

This is the core point.

51 can't bear this kind of change in the great era, and will quickly fall behind.

Shi Yuzhu asked: "What do you mean? Tell me in detail!"

Zhou Buqi glanced at him, and said calmly: "Old Shi, the Internet is not a speculator who buys low and sells high. It is an industry that serves users through technology. MySpace failed to acquire 51 at such a high price because the management of 51 You don’t even know English, how ridiculous do you say that? You don’t even know English, what are you doing on the Internet?”

Shi Yuzhu coughed lightly, "My English is not very good either, this should not be a necessary condition."

"Wrong, this is not only a necessary condition, but a prerequisite. Not only the Internet industry, but all the technology industries. Tsinghua University has 1,600 courses, of which 700 are taught in English. What does this mean? Can't understand English , don’t even think about playing with technology.”

After a pause, Zhou Buqi added: "If you know English, you can not only read first-hand foreign technical materials, but also grasp the latest industry direction. Even if 51 has no technical content, if they don't understand English, they will have no Fa is the first to notice the changes in the Internet industry. When the feeling comes out, it will be too late.”

Shi Yuzhu had a headache, "I didn't discuss English education with you, and I didn't have the same ambitions as you. What I'm talking about is a small business, 50 million US dollars invested51, not so macro."

Zhou Buqi felt that he was still very sincere, and he was speaking the truth, so he firmly said: "My suggestion, don't vote, there is no future!"

Shi Yuzhu was not reconciled, and frowned, "51 and Giant are complementary in business."

Zhou Buqi said indifferently: "Theoretically they are complementary. However, the team at 51 does not understand English, so they are not complementary."

"Damn!" Shi Yuzhu wanted to scold his mother, what kind of weird logic is this, he was angry and funny, "Okay, tell me, why is it related to English?"

Zhou Buqi said: "If you don't know English, your skills are not enough."

Shi Yuzhu took a step back, "Okay, the technology is not enough. There is no technical content in making games and communities."

Zhou Buqi said: "51's user group is mainly aimed at a group of third- and fourth-tier non-mainstream young people. What kind of aesthetics do they have? Including Qzone, they are all kinds of skins, full of cheap embellishments. A little younger Those who are older or more knowledgeable will prefer a simple and clean page design.”

Shi Yuzhu nodded, "Well, so the user base of Friends.com has nothing to do with 51."

Zhou Buqi further said: "You can have a lot of advertisements on Friends Online, but there are almost no advertisements on Qzone and 51. From a technical point of view, why is this?"

Shi Yuzhu gradually understood his thinking, "Fancy page design means too much content, and the page load time is too long. If you add advertisements, a page may not be opened for more than ten seconds."

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "Youyou.com's technology is good. Even if you add advertisements, the average response speed is only two to three seconds. Although I don't have 51 data, I estimate that the response time will not be lower than 5 seconds. In the past few days The traffic of 51 years is bigger than that of Qzone. The main reason is that the infrastructure of Qzone has not been improved, and the page loading is too slow. In recent years, funds have been invested in improving it, and Qzone has quickly surpassed 51 spaces. It can be seen that even the three low For non-mainstream groups, user experience is also very important.”

Shi Yuzhu was silent.

Gradually understand the other party's logic, technology is really a very important reason.

Penguin's "social traffic + game monetization" strategy relies not on Qzone, but on QQ. QQ is a software, which pre-installs the game promotion into QQ. It is a local client and does not affect the user experience.

51 does not have QQ, so it can only rely on 51 space to attract traffic.

How to drain?

It can only be recommended through advertisements or similar advertisements.

The page response speed of 51 is not fast. Once a few advertisements are added for monetization, it will greatly affect the user experience. At that time, 51 Space and QQ Space will ebb and flow. More and more 51 users will lose to Qzone.

Zhou Buqi said: "In the United States, Facebook has surpassed MySpace. Why? One of the most important reasons is that after MySpace was acquired by News Corporation, the pressure to monetize has increased, and a large number of advertisements have affected user experience. This is similar to the giant The combination with 51 is similar."

Zhou Buqi also said: "The advertising conversion rate of Youyou.com is very high, and technical guarantee is a very important prerequisite. Users open the webpage quickly, and even if they click on the advertisement, they can enter and exit quickly without affecting anything. But 51 It’s different, if you can’t fast in and fast out, users must avoid advertising promotions. It’s hard to be effective in draining giant games.”

Shi Yuzhu took a deep breath, "This is really a big problem."

...

Wang Yaojin and Feng Muer sat not far away, whispering something.

"What's wrong with the boss today?" Feng Mu'er was very surprised, "Why are you talking so much about an irrelevant matter? Master, he is not a consultant of the giant group."

Wang Yaojin looked blank, "I don't know either, logically speaking... well, did you hear the phone call last night? President Shi seems to be setting up a trap for our boss."

"Huh? Isn't it?"

Feng Muer covered her mouth and whispered, unbelievable.

Wang Yaojin said softly: "It shouldn't be very serious, it's just a trick, the boss must have seen through it. I guess...he may use the same method to fight back against him."

"Huh?" Feng Muer raised her eyebrows and lowered her voice, "You mean the boss is fooling President Shi?"

Wang Yaojin suppressed a smile, "I think so."

Feng Muer said: "But I think what the boss said is the truth, it makes sense."

Wang Yaojin rolled her eyes at her, and snorted coquettishly, "You don't understand that, do you? If you use lies to fool people, that's called a liar. If you use the truth to fool people, that's called an entrepreneur."

Feng Muer seemed to understand, "Is that so?"

Wang Yaojin was a few years older, and felt that she had more knowledge than Feng Muer, so she was very confident, "Look at it, I bet it must be like this! Our boss will not suffer."