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Because of the presence of Thompson, an outsider, Zhou Buqi didn't have time to rest after returning to China. He went straight to work and sent him to the Ziweixing New Media Building where Toutiao is located.

Liang Rubo was responsible for the reception and introduced the concept of Toutiao product.

Zhou Buqi went to see Zhang Yiming and called He Yang and Pei Yao.

Although Ziweixing and Ziweixing International have been split, the shares cannot be split. Ziweixing International was split from Ziweixing. At the moment of the split, the shareholders of Ziweixing International were all shareholders of Ziweixing. However, later Ziweixing International developed independently and attracted more new shareholders.

For Ziweixing’s old shareholders, they will still enjoy the dividends from Ziweixing’s international development.

It's just that it's hard to reach out in business.

There is still a connection in interests.

Zhou Buqi said: "The case of acquiring Yahoo is almost complete, but there is one more difficult problem. What should Yahoo do? We have to do something."

Zhang Yiming nodded, "Today's headlines will be a general direction."

Zhou Buqi said: "That's pretty much what it means. However, Yahoo is now a media website. It may not be easy to transform into a media platform. There is great internal resistance."

Zhang Yiming said with a smile: "If we don't transform, we will expand our business."

"Yes, no transformation."

Zhou Buqi was very happy and recognized this entry point.

Doing the same thing in different ways will have different effects. In the early stage of Ziweixing International's acquisition of Yahoo, the influence of Yahoo's old forces will be very great, and a series of games will be required in this process.

The challenges of transformation are too great.

Even internally, they may not agree.

If it is in the name of business expansion, there will be no resistance. All Yahoo people, including Yang Zhiyuan, hope that Yahoo can regain its former glory and make its business bigger and bigger.

Zhang Yiming said: "Retaining Yahoo's current media attributes, it can have its own editorial team, reporter team, interview team, etc. This part of the business can be called Yahoo News."

He Yang also understood and said with a smile: "Yes, since we are building a platform, we cannot do without self-operated + third parties. 'Yahoo News' is the self-operated part of Yahoo's news platform. Next, we only need to add Just introduce more third-party news sources.”

Zhang Yiming said: "There is no need to emphasize the attributes of news. What is more important is the attractive content. This is our experience in making Toutiao. Some boring news is far less attractive to users than interesting old news."

He Yang said: "That's a completely different product concept."

Zhang Yiming said: "Yes, normal news products push content based on time... The time factor is of course very important, and a lot of content is highly time-sensitive. But most of the time, what people watch is not news. It’s about content. There isn’t much news every day, the most important thing is attractive content.”

Zhou Buqi felt that it would be smoother to communicate with the domestic team, and they could basically maintain the same ideas. He nodded, "That's why we want to make content products, not news products."

Zhang Yiming said: "A very important reason is cost. The cost of news is too high. If you want to be a news aggregator, it may be difficult to make a profit. If it is old news, the price will be much lower and integration will be easier. "

Zhou Buqi couldn't help laughing.

It really hit the spot.

News is timely, but this timeliness means little to most ordinary people.

For example, the Wall Street Journal published an article about Tesla building a new factory. This is of course news. Anyone who knows the news as soon as possible can quickly buy Tesla stocks.

But for ordinary people who don’t trade in stocks, what difference does it make if they learn about this news two months later?

If Yahoo wants to integrate content, there will be a huge cost difference.

The price of news is too high.

can not afford.

Then you can buy old news.

For the fast-paced elites, of course, they need to read the news and quickly grasp social trends; but for the slow-paced ordinary people, except for some particularly time-sensitive content, most news and old news, In fact, there is not much difference.

If this idea were told to Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson, he would probably be stunned again.

If the news is no longer new, is it still called news?

Is that still valuable?

In the domestic team of Zhou Buqi, Zhang Yiming, Guo Pengfei, and Liang Rubo, it is a normal cost accounting consideration.

Although He Yang does not make products, he has been a senior executive at Ziweixing for so many years and has been immersed in it for a long time. He said slowly: "The United States is still different from China. The large domestic media companies and news platforms are all state-owned enterprises. These The level of people is not very good, and they cannot discover the true value of news. Their news is everywhere on Toutiao or other websites, and it is all free. It is different in the United States. These companies are responsible for their own profits and losses. , all have to look for profit models, and they will maximize the value of news.”

Zhang Yiming said with a smile: "Yes, it has copyright, but it is also very expensive. If Yahoo wants to transform into a news platform and content platform, it must find a way to obtain high-quality content at a low price."

After a pause, he continued: "There are many integrated content platforms in the United States. When I started Toutiao, I was actually inspired by my American colleagues. However, they did too poorly. It is not just the large American media companies and news Each platform has its own subscription software, and it is difficult for integrated software to reach an agreement with every company on copyright issues. Also because their product model is not novel enough, today it is still the model of 'people looking for information'."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "The progress of science and technology is to make human beings lazier and lazier. This is the first driving force. The development of mobile apps should especially target this driving force. The simpler it is to use, the more fool-proof it is. The more popular it will be. The AI-based recommendation algorithm allows information to find people, which satisfies the general logic of human beings becoming lazier and lazier."

This is of course not entirely true.

Laziness is human nature.

But there are always some people who want to break through human nature and are unwilling to live a lazy life. They get up early every day to run and keep themselves busy diligently. Life lies in exercise.

But for most people, laziness is the theme.

In the past, Yahoo still continued the product positioning of the 1990s, targeting the elite group of users... This was a problem. No matter how well Yahoo did, it was destined to become more and more niche. It has nothing to do with the quality of the product, but everything to do with the positioning of the product.

The so-called transformation, the most important thing is the transformation of product positioning.

We need to transform from the niche to the masses.

Elites may not be lazy, but laziness is a more common attribute.

This is actually not an easy decision to make.

Many people who run businesses often have some very lofty ideals and feel that they should do something higher-level... so they can't help but do something.

This is one of the reasons why many products made by American Internet giants will later be defeated by domestic apps. The most typical example is TikTok.

To say how high the technical content of this thing is, it’s not even possible.

The most important thing is whether you are willing to lower your face and specifically target those mass users, and control those mobs through information cocoon rooms.

The Internet is originally about information dissemination, breaking down information barriers and giving everyone the opportunity to work hard.

But if you want to work hard, you have to work hard, which goes against lazy human nature.

what to do?

Through the Internet, you can connect idiots with idiots, trap them in a cocoon, let idiots have a carnival together, and make them feel that they have found utopia and that I am the king of this world.

They can be so lazy that they don't have to think.

The traffic has increased.

This method is somewhat deceptive, but it is in line with human nature. If you are too embarrassed to do it, then you quit, and then you can only make niche products in a small circle.

The mob doesn't care who is really good for them. They only care about short-term simple happiness. As for whether this simple happiness is a mental poison, whocare?

Some people want you to think, and some people don't want you to think.

Due to lazy human nature, the public prefers people, organizations, institutions and products that do not make them think.

This is the next transformation path that Zhou Buqi is looking for for Yahoo.

Zhang Yiming said: "In addition to costs, there is also a big gap in income. Essentially, all Internet money-making models can be attributed to the sales model, and the sales attribute of news is not very strong..."