Tencent Copy Everything YY Copy Tencent

Being considered as an enemy by Tencent, it is sometimes a kind of strength certification, such as Zhou Hong's Qihoo 360, but more time means numerous deaths and injuries.

Li Xueling’s joyous era of creation was most like that of Tencent among survivors. YY corresponds to QQ.

On October 15, the Age of Gathering (YY) formally submitted a prospectus to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for preparation for a recent listing on the Nasdaq. This raccoon (YY's mascot) has always been secretive, and it has exhibited muscles to opponents including penguins.

Analysis of YY's prospectus, it is easy to see its revenue structure is very similar to Tencent: YY revenue 46% in the first half of 2012 from online games, 29% from YY music, 15% from online advertising, 10% for other income Tencent’s revenue for the same period was 54% from online games, 30% from community and telecom value-added services, 7% from online advertising, and 9% from other income including e-commerce. Get rid of Internet companies rely mainly on the profit model of advertising, earning revenue through Internet value-added services including games, and scale; relying on instant messaging tools rather than websites to develop more expansion path to quickly win the user's product line - These two points are where YY can really compare with Tencent.

At present, YY consists of three parts: playing games, online information, and YY voice. The company has successfully expanded from the initial game information site to the online game agency, game voice and other fields, and successfully promoted the game voice to YY music and YY education. Each transformation has laid a world, will have to do Scale, and has now achieved profitability. YY is also the Chinese concept stock that submitted the first profit in the prospectus to Nasdaq in recent years.

Currently, YY's monthly active users are 70.5 million, which is 1/10 of QQ; YY's revenue in the first half of the year is only 1/60 of that of QQ.

After the listing and financing of YY, can you replicate the success of QQ and eventually become an opponent of similar magnitude? "It is possible." Multi-player network co-founder and former general manager Zhang Yunfan predicted "Global Entrepreneur", "If Ma Huateng continues to relax his vigilance."

Songs and Gathering

The predecessor of the Gathering Age was the multiplayer network, which evolved from the game information media. In 2005, Li Xueling led a joint venture in the NetEase's eighty-nine hands and rented a three-bedroom, two-room 150-square-meter house in Guangzhou's Junjing Garden. On May 24th of that year, “World of Warcraft” went online and the multi-play team quickly judged that this product would be very hot, so it made the first “World of Warcraft” area, which won the reputation of gamers. By 2008, DuoWan.com has achieved two or three million yuan in revenue through online advertising, and it has become a leading company in the game information field with 17173.com. But obviously this is not a big market.

In 2008, it was also a turning point in revising its own development strategy from Sina's portal model to Tencent's client model.

In the previous year, there had been strategic differences within YY. At that time, the company was divided into two groups: one group believed that it should develop games on its own, and the other group believed that it should develop voice products. No one can convince anyone of the two factions, so he began to work in two directions to make his own product.

In 2007, it was a big investment in web games, and it was unsuccessful to play "boiled country" independently. Zhang Yunfan recalled: “No one understands the game and cannot do it.” So YY decided to give up its own game development. Until now, the era of Gathering is still only acting as a game agent. It does not conduct independent research and development. At present, the income from game agents has accounted for 46% of total revenue. Later, Zhang Yunfan, who founded 178 Game Network, also added that he only played early employees, and that YY's subsequent transformation and current success did not have much to do with him.

The road to speech is not always plain sailing. The idea of ​​playing more than the earliest words was when the company was just created in the second half of 2005. At that time, Germany had a good voice communication tool TS, but the server was abroad, and the Chinese users chatted very poorly. So the founding team of multiple players began to build their own servers and launched more DTS. They privately found a senior employee of Kingsoft Internet Security, Chen Rui, to help crack the German code and develop their own products. However, because TS's code is semi-open source, it has not been successful. This can be considered as the predecessor of YY voice.

In 2007, when the multi-play network was planning to develop voice group chat products, there were already Sina UC and Netease Bubbles on the market, but there was no one product that could really meet the needs of game users. At that time, both UC and NetEase Bubbles were serious. Dropped, the German TS charges. When playing YY voice, Li Xueling is also difficult to solve the same problem as UC: "Card, delay, card, and delay."

The turnaround took place in the first half of 2008. Without these two individuals, YY voice may be closed in 2008.

One of them is Gensheng, responsible for technology. He read the previously developed code all over again, rewritten the code, fundamentally solved the stability problem of the server, by virtue of "no card can not afford not to delay", more and more game users began to use YY. Today, he joined Kunlun as vice president and established Voice RC in Guangzhou. He has the largest market share in Taiwan, with 20,000 to 30,000 people online at the same time, becoming an important asset of Kunlun.

The other person is Xie Xiaodong. Now he is the person in charge of Tencent's QTalk-Tencent version of "YY." Xie Xiaodong's advantage lies in the operation of YY voice, he initiated some activities, such as server answers, battlefields, and convening more fans of karaoke.

Xie Xiaodong originally made his own online game trading business. After he had played many games, his income dropped tenfold, and even if the funds were not enough, he had to pay for himself and did not have reimbursement. At that time, he mostly played for learning and doing things.

At that time, Xie Xiaodong thought every day why those people wanted to play games. Why did one otaku listen to another otaku? Xie is the kind of person who understands the needs of ordinary people. He often discusses user needs in the office.

"If it were me, I would like to hear a beautiful woman singing."

"This logic is not established."

"I'm too lazy to listen to songs!"

"It doesn't matter if you sing badly. There are still a few singers. You are willing to listen to girls singing."

Xie Xiaodong insisted and found several girls she knew to sing together. Sure enough, many people came to listen, and some listened regularly.

Xie Xiaodong began to spend energy on YY voice operations and began to get one or two channels. Every day, tens of thousands of people listen to the girls singing. Although so many people can't necessarily earn money by listening to their own songs, these girls feel a sense of accomplishment. Later, he found that the game typing is very troublesome, and some people organized the battlefield is a good thing, so Xie Xiaodong found a lot of battlefield leaders to use voice, to obtain the success of the game voice.

"He kept thinking about who needs voice for the whole process, and how to cooperate with them and slowly do this product. What do you do from zero to one? Zero to one has one user who is myself. Two are colleagues, 0 to 500 are our colleagues and friends, 500 to 5,000 are to find some girls to sing; 5,000 to 50,000 while looking for girls to sing, also established a singing mechanism, but also to find a game The organisers organized the battlefield; from 50,000 to 200,000, a more sophisticated mechanism was established, singing was particularly good, giving prizes, bonuses; to a million to form a positive cycle system, to 10 million is the accumulation of technology, non-stop Doing promotion marketing. The most difficult Internet model is 0 to 100, 0 to 1000, 0 to 5000, and he basically left more than two hundred thousand people online.” Zhang Yunfan explained the logic of Internet products.

In July 2008, YY was injected into the second round of investment by Disney's VC Steamboat, which invested 4 million U.S. dollars, and Morningstar Ventures invested 1 million U.S. dollars. Since then, several financings have been spent on voice, and these financings are also decisive for the development of multi-play. Later, after four years of firm play in this direction, all the money was spent on the voice. All technical operations were invested in voice. Users continued to grow. They used Tencent's follow-up time difference and gained revenue through value-added services.

Earn money from grassroots

There are always some things in the Internet world that seem to be contrary to business sense but are reasonable. For example, white-collar users and grassroots users who have a monthly income of more than 10,000 yuan in first-tier cities are more willing to buy your goods? In the Tencent model, grassroots users are often more willing to pay.

YY also realized the essence of this model. The users of YY music are mainly Internet users from third-tier cities. Most of them are students, migrant workers and self-employed individuals. This group of people has a low level of education and is more willing to acquire satisfaction and vanity in the virtual world of the Internet.

Relying on the anchor of the beauty host, YY is tapping this user demand to the extreme. YY currently pays singers virtual gifts; paid privilege services (such as drivers, medals, nobles, guardians, etc.), of which a Bugatti Weihang car, the right to use a year reached 43000Y currency (1Y currency = 1 RMB, which is almost an unimaginable number, and on YY music, in order to win the attention of girls, there are indeed people who are willing to pay for it.

YY Music began its revenue last year. In the first half of this year, its revenue reached 92.72 million yuan, accounting for 30% of total revenue, far exceeding online advertising.

One user stated that one of YY Music's contracting singers was pursuing the crowd. To win the girl's favor, many boys kept giving her presents. He spent more than 2,000 yuan each month to buy gifts, in order to help her upgrade. She had to spend more than 2000 dollars to buy a monthly ticket for her. In YY, the singer's upgrade can bring more privilege, for example, can pass more photos, receive gifts and YY to be divided into genuine renminbi. If the monthly ticket obtained this month can enter the top 150, there will be 2,000 yuan per month for rewards, and get the appearance fee for YY business activities. The user said that many people are willing to spend money for female singers, and spending 20,000 or 30,000 per month on singers is not difficult.

It sounds unbelievable, but it is the power of grassroots.

According to Zhang Yunfan, “People have different needs at different levels, and people will only pay for the current maximum satisfaction. When you cannot afford luxury goods, you have a good image on the Internet and you are satisfied. And when you have already bought When you can afford luxury goods, you will have to wear a name tag to satisfy them.All people who use the Internet, the lowest income people have a particularly strong desire to seek satisfaction in the virtual world of the Internet, so he is willing to pay. I only need to spend ten dollars. I'm more popular than you.When you're already spending money on luxury goods, buying a QQ show is a very stupid thing, isn't it reluctant to give money, is it necessary for me?Sisters usually use Chanel, You don't have to spend two dollars to buy the flowers. Sing to the cashbox and go online is silly."

"In addition, the Chinese are good-looking countries. Everyone likes to pretend. Maybe you also think that online karaoke is very fun, but I am a hierarchical person. How can I participate in such vulgar activities? China's social environment will always be Grassroots people pay a large amount of money on the Internet, and they also pay for high incomes, but they don’t pay on the Internet. I’ve investigated in the company that Beijing’s middle tier spends the most on food and clothing, and less money is spent on the Internet.” said Zhang Yunfan. .

However, this business model of YY is also being questioned by people.

A netizen named “Bibo” of “i US Stocks” commented that it is unhealthy to play the current business structure. Although the main YY music brings huge revenue, it is not only from the social responsibility but also the future development of the business. From this perspective, business models such as YY Music are too unhealthy.

From the earliest QQ to unfamiliar and then to WeChat, the development of the Internet promoted by the opposite sex and friends drive is just different technologies at different times, different groups and different ways. From simply selling ads and selling users to earning income, to earning income by tapping user needs, this is YY's most like Tencent, and it is also a place to compare with Tencent. Some people think that QTalk is based on the brand effect of Tencent, not as good as YY music, from this point, it may be difficult to compete with YY music.

Online classroom

Compared to the operation of YY Music, the educational platform is a natural market for YY users.

Three months ago, Zhang Junliang, the founder of Ruima Communication, began teaching on YY to teach social marketing. There are many people who are willing to attend classes, but everyone does not know the YY platform. Most of the users of YY education come from games. Zhang Junliang had to rely on his QQ group and WeChat group to promote before the lecture. Overall, the results were good, with an average of 40 to 50 people per class. But when he tried to charge for the course, most people left.

The reason why YY lectures was because Zhang Junliang listened to friends and told the success story of Xing Shuai Network College. The network college founder, Xing Shuai, was very fond of Photoshop when he was at the university. In 2008, he began teaching on YY. By 2011, the number of students has exceeded 10,000. Xing Shuai Academy of Cyber ​​Education is considered to have made a fortune from YY education. Many lecturers came from the students. After learning “PS” on YY and teaching it to others, they used the fee-based curriculum to earn income, and expanded from the line to the offline.

From this perspective, YY can change the form of online education and create an atmosphere of "people-oriented teachers." In Zhang Junliang's words, “Everyone uses their expertise and cognitive surplus to make money. This is a good commercial idea.”

In Zhang Junliang's opinion, on the YY education platform, the user group is still the person who plays the game. He and his friends do not disable QQ, Weibo, and WeChat promotion. The people who can listen are their own channels, not the users on the YY platform.

He believes that the most daunting aspect of YY education is the closed platform. It does not open up with social networks such as Weibo and QQ, and cannot share information and become an island of information. The reporter saw on the platform of YY education that the share button has been added to the lower right corner of each class directory, and it can be shared with 122 mainstream platforms at home and abroad, but the frequency of sharing is small and few people click.

The user-generated YY education platform proves that the user's needs exist and has broad prospects. However, from the multi-play submission financial report, YY education did not make much money. Zhang Junliang said that even if paid courses are created on YY, they are free of charge and do not need to pay fees to the platform.

This is also the earnings bottleneck faced by YY Education. Xie Xiaodong once saw the direction of spoken English. He did not think about education, because education is very troublesome. For example, a girl sings, you send a flower called I like it, and it's hard for me to buy it. A teacher is in class, and the teacher is unacceptable in the way you give flowers. A university professor has a very clear price, and what level of teacher is how much money. At that time, the YY team felt that the operation was too difficult to promote. Perhaps YY has opened up a window for Internet education, but the platform itself has not received too much revenue from it.

The reporter randomly surveyed some users on the YY education platform, not counting "white-collar users." Most of the users were still from grassroots, such as those who were old, or students and migrant workers from Sanliu University. They were willing to learn a skill. Or you can earn money through YY lectures after learning.

In the opinion of the industry, the root cause of YY's failure to devote major energy to education is also the policy issue. The qualification of policy supervision is too complicated and it belongs to a type that cannot completely control the risk. If someone earns more money on the YY platform, he will give YY points, but YY is not focusing on education.

Wechat's opponent

Tencent has indeed taken YY as an enemy.

On the afternoon of June 15 last year, Li Xueling made such a Weibo cause a lot of attention: "Tencent has ordered from the president to terminate all cooperation with YY, including the cooperation of the contract has been stopped."

In fact, this is not the first time YY has caused Tencent's attention.

As early as March 2010, Li Xueling faced a difficult decision. Ma Huateng bid $150 million to acquire YY and return 40% of his shares to the founder. This means that Li Xueling’s shares are a little more, and he’s made more than $60 million. But in this program. YY early investors Lei Jun could not obtain return on investment. After 12 days of thinking, Li Xueling decided to let everyone vote in a group - as a result, not to sell!

As early as 2008, YY layout voice, Tencent ignored this market, after the acquisition failed, in 2011 to terminate cooperation with YY, launched QTalk products, and dig for Xie Xiaodong operations.

Of course, all entrepreneurs want to compare with Tencent in order to improve their own status, and Tencent faces too many competitors in various fields, whether it is really on the heart of the unknown. YY clearly stated that it would exceed Tencent, but now it has encountered growth bottlenecks.

Today, YY online users stay at around 10 million while Tencent's online users stay at around 110 million. In general, Internet products, one million have a ceiling, 10 million have a ceiling, and 100 million have a ceiling. The so-called ceiling is the exhaustion of the internal distribution of user groups, such as the urban user base, it is basically impossible to spread this product to the countryside.

In the era of mobile Internet, WeChat's position on mobile phones is as close to monopoly as QQ in the past. Does this still have a chance for YY?

“In the case of WeChat so monopolized, new mobile internet products are generated every day. For YY, the biggest challenge is how to maintain innovation on the mobile Internet. I'm surprised that singing a product is not what YY did. When I was using the iPhone 3G, I thought I would like to sing such products, but YY has not done so yet, I do not know what they are thinking.” Zhang Yunfan commented.

How does YY catch up with Tencent? Internet products are nothing more than horizontal and vertical expansion.

It is understood that YY has recently acquired Kingsoft. Jinshan Express is a company that specializes in game downloading. It can do distributed downloads and play under the border. This is the way Li Xueling uses horizontal development to squeeze the space of the opponent's Thunder.

In the vertical expansion, YY Voice used a non-investment acquisition method to acquire a Nokia team to develop mobile voice.

QTalk, which is regarded as YY's largest potential competitor, although Tencent has used bundled sales and activation packages to expand, QTalk's monthly subscriber coverage is still much lower than YY Voice.

Will QTalk threaten YY in the future? "If this is possible, if Tencent, I would definitely put five times the cost of developing QT, YY is very troublesome. Only Tencent think this thing is not important, or Tencent opponents too much, the focus is not on QT." Zhang Yunfan commented.

Can YY exceed Tencent? “Why not possible? When every market rises, it comes from structural changes. For example, Tencent is a product of typing and communication, and YY is a product of talking. Like the WeChat, the first version has no voice. Only typing, compared to text messages for free to save money, with voice, completely changed the usage of the mobile phone.The phone was originally used for typing, with WeChat, people speak to convey information, this is called different things, so WeChat and SMS does not belong to the competition in one dimension. YY is targeting the next generation of QQ products. If you do well, you certainly have the opportunity.” Zhang Yunfan thinks this is where YY's imagination lies.

Another problem facing YY is that from the start of multiplayer games to being ready for listing after 7 years, the core of the company’s business is game media information and voice. These two core products were established by early founding teams, and this founding team today. More than 80% of people have left. Although there are more high-priced talents that can be dug up after funding, the innovation of Internet companies often comes from the passion and innovation of the early founding team. The later talents are often good at maintenance and improvement.

If Li Xueling’s goal is a one-billion-dollar company, YY may be able to achieve it after successfully landing NASDAQ; if his goal is Tencent’s 50 billion-dollar company, he needs to think about how to build a company with The core team of entrepreneurship and innovation.