Top of the big era

Ziweixing now is different from previous years.

This is a big company.

Large companies have advantages and disadvantages.

The most obvious shortcoming is the lack of creativity.

Some new projects are easier for small companies to complete than for large companies.

Just like the takeout business.

Fantuan can be far ahead, but together Baidu Nuomi and Alibaba’s Tao Diandian are hardly rivals of Fantuan. This is not only due to the creativity of startup companies, but also to the management strategies of large companies and the hard-working spirit of small companies that are barefoot and not afraid of wearing shoes.

The same is true for short video business.

If Ziweixing does it, it may not be successful. Leave space and let startups do it...Musical.ly may be out of the market. After Musical.ly succeeds, Ziweixing will follow up and either copy or directly initiate mergers and acquisitions.

Rather than doing everything by hand, large companies give appropriate space to the market, deliberately leave some development opportunities for startups, and then spend money to buy them when the time is right. This is a more stable and easier to succeed choice.

It’s nothing more than spending more money.

Zhou Buqi has continued to pay attention to the short video market.

Now it seems that the time has come!

Zhou Buqi said: "Short video can become the soul of the mobile Internet and an intermediate item that can integrate social networking, e-commerce, film and television, local life and other fields. This is a business that we must win no matter what."

Liu Qing has heard the big boss expound on the importance of the short video field many times in the past two years, and said with a smile: "Musical.ly's entry point is actually quite good, with market statistics. Since the birth of imaging technology, all The most popular short video in the world is music MV.”

Zhou Buqi nodded, "Well, let's start with music."

As you can tell from the name, Musical.ly is a product built around music.

The same goes for Douyin, which was developed to imitate Musical.ly, and its earliest positioning was music.

The difference is the semantic difference between Chinese and English.

"Douyin" can be positioned as music, or it can be expanded from music, because Douyin can also be understood as "beating sound", whether you are telling stories, making funny jokes, singing, dancing, or live streaming games, There is sound transmission.

Chinese names are very malleable.

Not so with Musical.ly, which is exclusive music and specific music. It lacks scalability. It is too difficult to expand Musical.ly from music short videos to short video business in a wide range of fields. It has been strangled from the very beginning of its name.

Therefore, if we want to achieve greater development, we must change our name.

Later, Douyin acquired Musical.ly. After global operations, it gave up the name Musical.ly and changed it to TikTok. TikTok is an onomatopoeia in English, which is a bit like the "tick" sound of clock hands moving in Chinese. This is very similar to the charm of Douyin, which can not only continue the dynamics of the music, but also allow more sounds to be spread. .

Liu Qingdao: "Musical.ly solves a certain market demand. Because MV shooting is difficult, there are many people who can randomly act in front of the camera. There are not many people who can talk and sing to the camera anytime and anywhere. So Musical .ly has created a lip-syncing mode, where users can lip-sync and coordinate with audio lines to make the content more interesting.”

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "It's a good entry angle, much better than most short video products in China. There is a cognitive bias against short videos in the current market, thinking that this form lacks depth and is more It is easy to take it out of context. As a result, it is actually difficult for content in most fields to be spread in the short video field. Music MV is a good angle to build up the market and heat up the market. As it becomes more popular, a lot of non-music related content will begin to enter short videos.”

Liu Qing said softly: "Because this is a pioneering new market that breaks the perception. You can't just take it all in. You have to open a hole first and then make this hole bigger."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "Yes, music MV is a reasonable choice to think about the traditional long video model. Controlling the audio duration within 15-20 seconds not only reduces the cost of expression, but also increases the interest of the content. The general trend is inevitable , the mobile Internet will bring the world into an era of fragmentation.”

Liu Qing nodded and said: "Well, Weibo has replaced blogs, and the communication effect of long articles is obviously not as good as short content. Text information has completed the transformation, and next, video content will also change towards short content."

"Short videos are more communicative than short texts." Zhou Buqi shook his head, "In the past, it was the PC Internet, and the threshold for accessing the Internet was quite high. You had to have a computer first. The transition from blogs to Weibo is not It’s so obvious. It wasn’t until the advent of the mobile Internet in the past few years that Weibo completely shattered traditional Weibo’s long content. What’s more important is the popularity of the device.”

Liu Qing said "Yeah", "Indeed, it is not computers that lead the global technological era, but smartphones. Smartphones that everyone has in their hands have better dissemination at the mass level. Image content can also be better than written content. More communicable.”

Zhou Buqi said: "So this Musical.ly must be won without any surprises."

"Get it..." Liu Qing was a little unsure, "How to get it? Now, the Musical.ly team is very confident and is actively seeking financing. This matter should not happen. It’s too difficult. Many investment institutions are optimistic about them. In the end, it is likely that several powerful investors will invest together to share the share.”

Zhou Buqi didn't take it seriously.

In the Internet industry, it is no longer dominated by venture capital institutions, and the market situation is no longer the same as ten years ago. Ten years ago, it was really venture capital that had the final say. Even a boss like Boss Ma had to stay humble in front of the investors.

It's different now.

The Internet industry is in the hands of Internet giants.

Even if you are a world-famous venture capital institution like Sequoia Capital, you have to give in when facing industry giants like Ziweixing, Alibaba, and Baidu. These Internet giants are not only rich, but also powerful.

Zhou Buqi said: "We don't need to care too much about other investors. What I'm most concerned about now is whether Musical.ly can develop. Don't let us buy Musical.ly and do bad things with good intentions. Musical.ly has gained market competitiveness under Ziweixing’s system.”

Liu Qing nodded lightly, "It's not impossible. Musical.ly has achieved very good results, but after all, it's just the beginning. The business, market and user levels are not stable enough. It may not be right to break the status quo rashly."

"So this matter requires you to make a good balance." Zhou Buqi explained the task, "If after the evaluation, we think we can ensure that Musical.ly can be launched, then we will directly acquire it wholly without hesitation. If it is fully After the acquisition, it may have an impact on the mentality of the entrepreneurial team, which will in turn affect the development of our own business, so we don’t need to be too aggressive and invest in shares first to seize the opportunity when the time comes. We will launch mergers and acquisitions after our business is stable.”

Liu Qing said: "If we invest now and fully acquire it later, we may have to pay several times the price."

"It's just money." Zhou Buqi doesn't care about this at all. "What I want is not cost control. What I want is to ensure that the short video business can be launched! How big can the price be? US$500 million, US$1 billion, It’s a long-term trend.”

Liu Qing took a deep breath and said, "Okay, I understand what you mean. I will lead a team immediately to inspect Musical.ly and make a detailed report."

Zhou Buqi said: "You are solely responsible for this matter!"

"Okay." Liu Qing felt that a heavy responsibility was on her shoulders, but there was one more thing she had doubts about. "Musical.ly is run by a domestic entrepreneurial team, but the business is all done in the United States. Musical.ly can be a local company, Or it could be an American company.”

"Um."

"Should we win Musical.ly under the name Ziweixing, or Ziweixing International, which focuses on overseas markets? If it is Ziweixing International, we still need to communicate with that company."

"We should still focus on landing business." Zhou Buqi believes that this matter is very critical. "We must do a good job in dividing the short video business at home and abroad from the very beginning. Musical.ly's markets are not all abroad. Then let Ziweixing International participate in Musical. ly, let’s seize this pit first. In China, we can imitate Musical.ly and come up with a similar product. Just like Helo and WeChat, no matter how close the internal cooperation is, they should be the same in appearance. Products must not be confused.”