Top of the big era

Google is about to withdraw from the domestic market, and Baidu's close enemy is gone. Now it can turn back to deal with Ziweixing. It really doesn't spare any mercy.

In the past few years, Baidu has not stopped at all. First, it launched the e-commerce platform Baidu Youah, which wanted to compete with Taobao, but it had never done so; then it launched Baidu Hi, which wanted to compete with QQ, but it had never done so.

This time, they are going back to their old roots.

Baidu's search market share is now only about 50%-55%, which is 10 percentage points higher than Weidian. Although it is number one in the industry, this position is not stable.

After driving away Google, it’s time to go back and have a decisive battle with Weidian.

There is really no breakthrough in direct competition from the search field.

In terms of search technology, the two companies are almost the same. From the perspective of content ecology, micro points are stronger, so there is no need to consider this direction.

Then we can only treat others in their own way.

WeiDian's search business is built with the help of "multi-stage rockets". From WeiDian Antivirus, WeiDian Security Guard, to WeiDian Input Method and WeiDian Browser, we build our brand step by step. From the completion of software products to the drainage of search ecosystem.

Baidu will do the same now.

Zhou Buqi immediately saw the other party's nature. When the elevator arrived, he and Fu Sheng quickly analyzed the internal factors of this matter at the elevator door. "Baidu does not make software to lay out the software ecosystem. It’s to compete with Weidian in the search market.”

"Indeed, there is really no good entry point to compete directly from the perspective of search. Entering the market from the perspective of brand software is a breakthrough, but..." Fu Sheng shrugged his shoulders and said confidently, "They are not opponent."

After saying a few words briefly, Zhou Buqi got in the car and left. In the car, he called Wang Xiaochuan and told him, "You must exercise restraint when advertising. To compete with Baidu, the most important thing is the match between service quality and search results."

"good."

Wang Xiaochuan had a headache.

Weidian's advertising has been very restrained, and its advertising scale is about 70% of Baidu's. In addition, Weidian has very high requirements for advertising content, so that Weidian’s revenue is only half of Baidu’s.

Once we compete head-on with Baidu, our revenue will decrease again.

Zhou Buqi said: "In the PC era, any website may jump to the search page. In the mobile Internet era, the product logic has changed and turned into independent apps, and the jump cost is very high. Search services still require It is provided in the App. At present, I think there are three Apps that can have built-in Weidian search service. The first is an independent App of Weidian search; the second is Weidian Browser or UC Browser. , bundled with micro-search by default; third, it is an independent app of Toutiao, which users can use when searching for information.”

Wang Xiaochuan smiled and said: "It seems that in the mobile Internet era, Weidian's market share can really surpass Baidu."

Zhou Buqi said: "We still need to provide good services. We have the best product matrix and can provide the best advertising solutions. The number of advertisements has decreased, but the advertising conversion rate has increased, and the overall efficiency will not be too low. Don't rush to make big money here. Baidu has to rely on search advertising to survive, Ziweixing doesn't need that."

"I see."

Wang Xiaochuan accepted this statement.

From the perspective of product ecology, Ziweixing is indeed much better than Baidu. In the past few years, Baidu has failed in almost everything except search business.

As a result, there is a big gap between Baidu's user data accumulation and analysis applications and Ziweixing. The better you understand your users, the greater the value of your advertising. The longer the timeline is pushed, the greater the advantage Ziweixing will have.

In the afternoon, Zhou Buqi met Yang Mi, Jiang Bingjie and Li Xinwan. The girls were buzzing with excitement, talking about Huayi's stocks, and all of them spoke eloquently, just like stock analysts.

Zhou Buqi knows what they mean, but it’s a long road for Jieyu Media to go public, so just wait!

There are benefits, and you are indispensable!

If a company wants to go public, it must have a certain number of shareholders, which cannot be too few. This requires Jieyu Media to carry out a wave of joint-stock reform before going public, giving quotas to outstanding internal employees and contracted artists, and giving them the opportunity to purchase original shares, thereby expanding the number of shareholders and meeting listing requirements.

Who is not given this kind of original stock?

To be honest, it doesn’t matter whether there is a share allotment or not among Jieyu Media’s internal employees. It doesn’t matter if they have them or not. What is more important is to allocate original shares to some important people, such as directors, producers, and actors who have long-term cooperation with Jieyu Media.

This time when they went out on a date, Zhou Buqi didn't go to the hotel. Instead, they changed their sport. They dressed up and went to the bowling alley to play ball.

After a while, Lao Zhang came. Seeing Yang Mi, she couldn't help but be stunned. I thought that this little Zhou was really different now. He had become famous and his style was wild and blatant.

Zhou Buqi quickly introduced her, saying that this was Miss Yang Mi from Farfetch China, who was also here to discuss work this time.

"That's it!"

Zhang Chaoyang laughed.

Zhou Buqi still refused to admit it, but in front of Lao Zhang, there was no need to hide it too much. They played a few balls together, and then asked: "Tell me, what do you want from me?"

"Two things."

"oh."

"The first thing is, the Dota game you mentioned, Changyou has developed an independent product, and its official name is DOTA2."

"Oh." Zhou Buqi was not interested in these things. He waved his hand and motioned for Yang Mi and Jiang Bingjie to play by themselves. Then he said casually: "Just make it. Have you found the publisher?"

Zhang Chaoyang said: "That's what I'm talking about. Blizzard will help with global distribution. But that's not the point. When I was looking for a publisher in the United States, I found Riot, a game company, which also developed a competitive game imitating DOTA. It’s called League of Legends. Penguin even invested in it last year.”

"I go!"

Zhou Buqi was stunned.

Zhang Chaoyang glanced at him and said, "This game competes with DOTA2. According to your theory, hidden dangers must be nipped in the cradle."

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, this is EA's logic. It would rather be destroyed than have potential threats. Well... Lao Zhang, you have a very unique vision. Penguin is now the largest game manufacturer in the country. If they are allowed to put " "League of Legends" will definitely become Changyou's "DOTA2" biggest competitor when it is introduced to the domestic market."

"Then take it?"

"How much?"

"When we raised money last year, the valuation was US$30 million. At that time, League of Legends had not yet been developed. Now that the game is completed, we have more confidence."

Zhou Buqi asked: "What do you think?"

Zhang Chaoyang said: "Cash alone may not be able to convince Riot's board of directors. I think we can start Changyou's listing plan and use the original shares to acquire Riot. Both parties will enjoy the capital gains brought by the listing. At the same time, it can also curb Penguin's domestic gaming. market momentum.”

Zhou Buqi took a deep breath and said, "I think it's okay. Now that Nasdaq has picked up and the global capital market is recovering, it's not impossible to launch Changyou's listing plan."

"Then it's settled."

Zhang Chaoyang is very happy. Although Sohu is Changyou's major shareholder, it must respect the opinions of the two shareholders and reach a consensus.

"What about the second thing?"

"cloud computing."

“What happened to cloud computing?”

"Do you think Sohu has a future if it enters the market?"

"I go!"

Zhou Buqi was stunned.

What's going on? The trend of cloud computing has really been driven by Ziweixing! It’s just Penguin entering the market to do cloud computing. Even Sohu is going to enter the market?

Well……

It’s not too surprising. Sohu is a veteran Internet company. It has basically kept up with every trend, but it has also basically failed.

Zhang Chaoyang said: "I'm not talking about enterprise-level cloud computing like Ziweiyun, but a personal cloud network disk, like Microsoft cloud disk."

Microsoft Cloud Drive is a product launched for Google Docs.

Google Docs can store document files in the cloud for individual users to use. As a sworn enemy, Microsoft has played a more straightforward role. It is no longer just documents. All files can be stored in the cloud!

Then Microsoft Cloud Disk was launched in 2007.

This is also a branch of the cloud computing industry. Because it is for individual users, the meaning of "computing" is gone, only the meaning of "cloud", and it is relatively simpler technically.

There are also many domestic manufacturers that have followed this route and produced many network disks, such as 115, Baidu, Sina, 360, Penguin and other companies have followed suit.

But if you keep doing it, most of them will die.

This thing is so expensive!

Even Baidu, which is the best, has tens of millions of paid members. The membership fee is not even enough to cover the electricity bill for the huge servers in the data center. It is just burning money, and it keeps burning.

Baidu Netdisk can persist because Baidu has lagged behind in the mobile Internet era and lacks traffic entrances, so it can only support Baidu Netdisk.

Foreign network disks can survive because, firstly, there are many foreign paying users, and secondly, foreign network disks give away less free space. Apple Cloud Disk and Google Cloud Disk only provide 5g of space, while Microsoft Cloud Disk provides 10g of space. If it is not enough, you can buy it. The free space provided directly by Baidu Netdisk is 2T, which means that many people do not need to pay, and it also increases the operating costs of the Netdisk.

This is really not a good direction.

Zhang Chaoyang said: "I have received the letter. The country must strengthen the copyright management of film and television content. Once implemented, the price of film and television copyrights will take off, and video websites will no longer be able to afford copyrights. The foundation laid by Sohu Video in the past few years, I’m afraid it’s meaningless.”

Zhou Buqi frowned, "So you want to build a Sohu network disk? Let users share video content on the network disk by themselves, so Sohu doesn't need to buy the copyright?"

"right."

"You think too much!"

"Can't you?"

Zhou Buqi hummed: "If you spread some pirated resources, it's nothing. I'm afraid that a lot of illegal and bad video content will be spread on the network disk. I'll be careful to catch you when the time comes!"

Zhang Chaoyang laughed and said, "It's serious!"

Zhou Buqi said: "This business is not good. The investment is too big. Sohu can't afford it. If Sina and NetEase want to play, let them play. If you have the energy, why not start Changyou."