Top of the big era

Zhou Buqi kindly took Lao Zhang to make money together, but he didn't want to cause him any misunderstanding, which would cause him to be mentally stimulated and start to feel depressed again.

That would be a sin.

I don’t know whether Lao Zhang is pretending on purpose or is really sad. He is obviously very upset about losing his position as Changyou’s largest shareholder.

Zhou Buqi decided to lend his luxury yacht to Lao Zhang, so that he could have a good vacation, relax and not be so stressed!

Sohu... it's just like that, an industry in decline, no matter how hard you try, it's useless.

For Changyou, you just need to control the current management and don't let them make mistakes, and then wait for Changyou's stock price to take off.

The bigger the boss, the harder it is to work too hard!

If you work too hard, it will be easy to think too much and make blind decisions.

Zhou Buqi now owns three luxury yachts. One was stolen from Masayoshi Son and is worth US$150 million. One was custom-made by his own shipyard and is worth US$250 million. Recently, his father bought a new one. The boat cost him US$87 million for socializing and entertaining in Europe.

Lend Lao Zhang the "old ship" that was taken from Son Zhengyi at the port of Liverpool and let him play with it!

Zhou Buqi will not go with him to be cool.

This stage is very special and he can't leave.

Firstly, Sister Bao is pregnant, so she has to take good care of her; secondly, Shi Jinglin's belly has not moved yet, so she has to continue to work harder.

There are also work matters, now is a special period.

The worst period of the subprime mortgage crisis has passed, and all walks of life are working hard to recover, especially technology stocks, which have completely escaped the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis.

However, the European debt crisis is always a hidden danger that worries everyone.

Finally, in the first two quarters of this year, the impact of the European debt crisis broke out, making the global financial market wail, and even technology stocks collapsed along the way.

Fortunately, in the second half of the year, things changed suddenly.

Under the influence of various stimulus policies, the situation has begun to improve.

This made everyone suddenly realize.

Depend on!

The European debt crisis, which seems scary, is actually just that. It has a relatively strong impact on some countries in the EU, but has a limited impact on other non-euro area countries.

The most important thing for market development is confidence.

Now, everyone has seen the impact of the European debt crisis, which was loud and clear, and everyone smiled, and market confidence was quickly restored.

But having confidence is not enough, you also need money.

In the first half of the year, due to the "threat" of the European debt crisis, market sentiment plummeted and reached its lowest point; in the second half of the year, market sentiment picked up and investment confidence suddenly returned.

In other words, the current stage is a "V" shaped trough period!

The technology industry, in particular, has huge future growth potential, and there will no longer be the impact of an external financial crisis in the short term. The European debt crisis has hit so hard and has not shown much destructive power. It is conceivable that technology stocks will be booming for a long time in the future!

So this has caused a series of big phenomena in the technology industry.

Now is the low point.

Big companies are very rich, and everyone is smart, and they are all working hard to buy the bottom of this market!

Now is the trough period, and the overall valuation of the industry is relatively low. For these large and wealthy companies, it is necessary to buy as much as possible and continue to buy various high-quality assets!

If you don’t buy it, you don’t buy it!

Oracle spent US$1.5 billion to acquire RightNow, Microsoft spent US$8.5 billion to buy Skype, Apple spent US$450 million to acquire Anobit, AOL spent US$320 million to buy Huffington Business Network, and EA spent US$1.92 billion to buy it. Friend Studio, eBay spent US$2.4 billion to acquire GSICommerce...

Buy the dip!

All parties are trying hard to buy the dip.

Of course, Ziweixing International cannot waste such a golden period of bargain hunting. It has also initiated many mergers and acquisitions, and has completed the acquisition of the game video website Twich and the game platform Steam.

This is not enough. The company has recently set its sights on a relatively large project, with preliminary funds reaching US$500 million, and plans to compete with Google.

When Zhou Buqi heard this, he became very cautious.

There are too many key projects at Ziweixing International. Helo and Ucgram are relatively low-cost. Cloud computing and artificial intelligence are the real money-attracting monsters. There are also long-term considerations for collaborative office tools and multi-person online video projects... …The company is not listed now, so we have to save money if we can.

Don’t make your stall too big, focus on these big projects first!

There is also the need to compete with Google, which is a bit sensitive.

Now Zhou Buqi and Larry Page are in the honeymoon period, and are embarking on a series of large-scale cooperations that will shock the past and the present. Larry Page is the new official, and he will definitely make great adjustments to Google's business lines, including closures and acquisitions.

At this time, it is not a wise choice for Ziweixing to go out and bid for a project with Google!

Nortel's patent case was an anti-Google alliance spearheaded by Apple and Microsoft. If you participate, you will participate. The younger brother who was drinking soup followed Esta, but he couldn't put it on the table.

This time is different. Ziweixing is clearly going to go head-to-head with Google!

Bad timing.

Out of place.

Zhou Buqi participated in this internal discussion and planned to listen to everyone's opinions. If it is not a very urgent and necessary project, there is really no need to fight with Google.

Lu Qi presided over this meeting. It was actually a small meeting, with a total of 6 people participating.

The target was an advertising company called Admeld.

The intention is very clear, which is to lay out the Internet advertising market.

Products like YikYak, Helo, and Ucgram, including Evernote, Evernote, Weishu, and browsers, all rely on advertising to generate revenue.

Internet advertising has become the largest advertising channel. For Ziweixing International, it is time to enter the market.

This idea is not the first time Lu Qi has proposed it.

Zhou Buqi was not sure before. He returned to China some time ago to discuss with his direct line executives and felt that this was not a proper strategic plan.

Internet advertising is definitely in the right direction, but is it necessary to acquire this type of Internet advertising company?

"This kind of advertising company is just an intermediary company!"

Zhou Buqi is not optimistic about this direction.

Lu Ji said: "It is of an intermediary nature, but the data fraud on the Internet is too serious. Advertisers are more worried about connecting with the platform and hope to ensure their own interests through a third party."

Zhou Buqi shook his head, "In this regard, the U.S. business model lags far behind that of China. The attribute of the Internet is point-to-point, which means eliminating middlemen."

Lu Qi coughed and said slowly: "Yes, I have communicated with China. But the national conditions are different. In the United States...including Europe, the advertising ideas are relatively traditional, and businesses like to use professional advertising. Cooperate with companies instead of directly connecting with advertising platforms.”

"Isn't it the same in China in the early years? Now it has been updated."

In this regard, Zhou Buqi knows better.

In terms of business model upgrading, developed countries in Europe and the United States are much worse than domestic ones.

In the 1990s, the domestic advertising industry was booming. At that time, the country was completely blank and knew nothing about it. They basically followed the European and American advertising models in marketing.

For example, Wuliangye Group wants to launch Wuliangchun, a low-end liquor.

Because there were not enough advertising talents in the country at that time, and the wineries also lacked relevant advertising experience, at this time... they could find advertising companies to cooperate.

In those days, as long as you knew a little bit about advertising operations and had the courage to venture in, you could make a lot of money.

Just like this Wuliangchun advertising case, the person who took over the case was the actor who played Lin Daiyu in the old version of "Dream of Red Mansions". He had no education and no level. He started a company while studying Buddhism, and the slogan he came up with was "Wuliangchun, a celebrity from a famous family." ", and then it became popular all over the country.

From a modern advertising point of view, such low-level advertising planning has no motivation or direction. Such advertising slogans are a complete failure.

But in that era of advertising deserts, it was still very popular.

Because no one understands advertising, businesses go to advertising companies to advertise, and people are curious about these advertisements and are willing to read them.

Later it stopped working.

Everyone gradually discovered that something was wrong. The quality of those advertising companies was not very good. Why do you have to find an advertising agency? Set up an advertising department at home and then connect with the TV station. The TV station also has an advertising department, so you can directly skip the middleman.

In the past ten years, domestic advertising companies have basically closed down one after another.

No one likes this kind of middleman business.

Especially for Internet advertising, companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, Ziweixing, Penguin, including Sohu, Sina, and NetEase have launched their own advertising platforms without the need for middlemen at all.

Under this fierce competition, the domestic advertising industry has already come up with all kinds of unexpected new tricks. The advertising industry in Europe and the United States is still playing the traditional way, and the speed of industrial upgrading is too fast. slow.

Lu Qi said: "You can't say that. The domestic advertising industry... is indeed very innovative, but it is irregular and the supervision is not strong enough. If many domestic advertising strategies were introduced to the European and American markets, they would be fined a few dollars. Billion US dollars. The reason why the intermediary model of advertising companies in Europe and the United States will be maintained is largely due to the deterrence of supervision. Advertising companies bear the regulatory risks. Once illegal advertising does occur, advertisers do not have to face punishment. Quite It’s an extra layer of insurance.”

Zhou Buqi doesn't think this is a convincing reason. "Since it's legal and regulatory, it must be that large companies have stronger ability to withstand pressure. Such middlemen are all small companies. What capabilities do they have? It's nothing more than adding layers of pressure to contain them." Innovation in Advertising.”

This is the difference in route selection. Lu Qi has different opinions, "Google wants to acquire Admeld, and it is very ambitious."

"Google's choice may not be the right one!" Zhou Buqi has his own judgment on this. "The Internet industry will become more and more centralized, and advertising resources will be highly monopolized in the hands of a few Internet giants. This semi-monopoly The overall situation will greatly reduce the operating space of intermediary advertising companies."

This is the danger of monopoly.

If there are 100 advertising platforms in the world and merchants don’t know how to choose, then they can entrust a professional advertising company to evaluate them through various advertising models and choose 2-3 platforms for advertising.

If this is the case, the existence of advertising companies will be of greater significance.

Just like TV advertisements, magazine advertisements and newspaper advertisements in the past few decades, there are thousands of TV stations and tens of thousands of newspapers in the United States. It is really difficult for ordinary businesses to choose.

A professional advertising company is required to plan.

But Internet advertising is different.

This industry is highly centralized!

Almost all advertising resources are monopolized by 3-5 Internet giants. The remaining fragmented small websites are really not worth mentioning.

At this time, is there any difficulty in choosing?

Either choose Google, Facebook, MSI or Apple, there are no more choices. In this case, there is no point for advertisers to plan through advertising companies, and they can just choose among several giants.

The more monopolized the industry is, the smaller the choice advertisers have, and the more destructive it will be to the traditional advertising industry.

However, the high degree of centralization and monopoly of the Internet is the general trend of future industry development.

Google wants to acquire Admeld, so what?

Compared with Boss Zhou's foresight in the industry, Google's top industry experts are just a group of elementary school students who are constantly making mistakes.

Xu Liangjie chose to unconditionally support Boss Zhou, "Indeed, the monopoly trend in the industry is something that must be considered."

Lu Qi said worriedly: "In the past few years, Google has made a big move in the advertising market. It first spent US$3.2 billion to buy the PC Internet advertising company DoubleClick, and then spent US$750 million to buy the mobile Internet advertising company. AdMob…”

"Yes, AdMob." Zhou Buqi smiled, "Don't forget, this company was invested by Ziweixing. Have you forgotten? Why was it acquired by Google? Because I have never been optimistic about this direction."

Lu Qi nodded and said awkwardly: "But if Google successfully acquires Admeld this time, it will further strengthen Google's core position in the Internet advertising industry."

Zhou Buqi said nonchalantly: "Again, Google's choice may not be correct! What does the Internet advertising industry ultimately rely on? It's just like Netflix. Netflix's success is not because of Netflix's own technology. No matter how good the level is, how advanced the model is, it’s because Netflix has the most and richest content! Without content, no matter how many users there are, they will slowly be lost.”

Xu Liangjie was not considered a direct descendant of Zhou Buqi when he was working in China, and Zhou Buqi even had the idea of ​​firing him.

But it's different abroad. He is a direct descendant.

On this matter, Xu Liangjie strongly supports Boss Zhou's point of view, "Yes, in the final analysis, the placement of Internet advertising is not about who controls more middlemen, but about who can truly win the hearts of advertisers! Who can truly win the hearts of advertisers! We truly have high-quality advertising resources! As the industry develops, everyone will have a deeper and deeper understanding of the Internet, and advertisers are not fools. They will know which platform has the highest traffic and which website is the most popular."

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "Yes, that's the idea. We are not involved in the traditional advertising industry in the European and American markets and do not understand it. However, the Internet advertising model will definitely develop towards the domestic model, and it will definitely eliminate point-to-point Middlemen. In the past few years, Internet advertising in the United States has relied on these middlemen to operate. Why? In my opinion, there are two reasons. First, the industry is not monopolized enough and is too fragmented, leaving advertisers with a choice. There is too much room; secondly, the development of the Internet is not enough. Advertisers lack sufficient understanding of the Internet and can only choose to trust advertising companies and let intermediaries make their choices."

Xu Liangjie said: "Another point is that the data fraud in Internet advertising in the past few years has been so serious that advertisers are afraid to directly connect with advertising platforms."

Lu Qi accepted this point of view and said "hmm", "Those small websites will often do whatever it takes to make a profit. This is bad money driving out good money, which will affect many large websites that are officially operated and also suffer a crisis of trust."

Zhou Buqi stretched his waist, "So, this creates the necessity of industry monopoly. The decentralized nature of the Internet makes supervision too difficult. No country or institution can regulate those small websites." Long-term supervision. If these small websites can be included in giant companies, and only some large companies need to be focused on supervision, we can avoid some of the social harm of Internet decentralization. This must be a major trend."

Such an analysis silenced Lu Qi, including the few confidants under him.

After a moment of silence, Lu Qi said slowly: "It seems that the Internet will become more and more highly centralized, and advertising resources will become more and more concentrated."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "Yes, advertising companies are all middlemen, and these middlemen cannot control advertisers. Google's purchase of Admeld, DoubleClick, and AdMob are actually ways to control middlemen. But middlemen are not equal to advertising. business, this is the biggest difference between the Internet advertising industry and the traditional advertising industry."

Xu Liangjie said: "The main delivery platforms for Internet advertising are all C-end products, and C-end products must be mass products and will be well understood by all levels of society."

Lu Qi nodded, "The industry threshold is gone."

Xu Liangjie smiled and said: "That's right!"

"Then..." Lu Ji still had some doubts in his heart, but seeing that the big boss was so firm and had such good reasons, he really couldn't hold on. "Then give up this plan? Give Admeld to Google?"

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "It doesn't matter, you can compete. When the time comes, you can take the initiative to give up the competition and sell to Google to save face."

"okay."

Lu Qi twitched his lips, he was really convinced by this big boss, he would never let go of any opportunity.