What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 427 Three Major Problems
The MusVid app that appeared on the Apple App Store didn't have many changes in its interface compared to the beta version. The main changes were the addition of secondary interface options, such as one-click editing, filters, stickers, and templates.

Without a doubt, the team led by Lü Haiying and Ge Zhijie is determined to lower the creative threshold to the very end.

And this kind of creation is the vertically segmented 15-second lip-sync music short video.

Vine pioneered short videos, Instagram added creation tools, and MusVid set its competitive advantage as differentiation from the very beginning. Only differentiation can make it stand out in the vast market.

Vertical segmentation and differentiation are two major weapons in competition.

The Mus team worked together to solve the question of what kind of software it was, followed by the question of which market to compete in.

Lü Haiying unequivocally chose the United States, and even Yu Xing's opinions during the meeting were rejected and persuaded by her.

Yu Xing thought it was possible to do it together in Europe, America and Asia.

Lü Haiying offered a highly empirical reason: "Just as we are not in a hurry to launch such short video projects in China because the infrastructure of operators is not mature enough, similarly, among the many countries in overseas markets, only the United States and South Korea have the most developed public Wi-Fi."

“The United States is highly commercialized, and dense Wi-Fi networks have been formed around airports, shopping malls and cafes. Chain brands such as Starbucks and McDonald’s are attracting customers with free Wi-Fi, trying to create a closed loop of internet access and consumption. Verizon, an American operator, has also acquired Wi-Fi service providers, making airport coverage more than 8%.”

“South Korea’s Wi-Fi coverage is also good, and it’s a government-led promotion. This year, it launched a ‘Nationwide Free Wi-Fi Expansion Plan’. Large cities like Seoul have already achieved street coverage, and subways and buses are also connected. But the market is too small, and it’s in Southeast Asia.”

"When we first start, we need to concentrate our resources and efforts. The best solution is to successfully establish a foothold in the US market and then use the US's global reach to expand. If we can get into the US market, we will have a much better chance of getting into the European market. On the contrary, if we do Europe first and then attack the US, it will be much more difficult."

"Global internet giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Google have proven the priority of the market through their development, and I think this must be respected."

After taking on the project, Lü Haiying did not stay in Lingang, but instead took her team on a trip to overseas markets.

Yu Xing initially thought that her observations would only be superficial, but he was surprised to find that she actually provided extremely detailed observations and accurate judgments.

He was immediately persuaded and admitted that he had misunderstood, praised Lü Haiying's efforts, and was amazed by her almost visible progress.

Lu Haiying has indeed made a lot of progress, but she remains very humble: "It's all thanks to my senior brother's excellent teaching. Back then, when I worked with my senior brother on Guiai.com, I learned about vertical segmentation. Later, when I worked on Baixiaosheng, I found differentiation to be incredibly wonderful. And seeing my senior brother directly confronting Tencent, his strategic planning and resource utilization still leave me with much to think about today. If my senior brother hadn't specifically mentioned the overseas market this time, how would we have dared to create MusVid?"

Yu Xing almost burst out laughing when he saw her deliberately serious flattery.

Ge Zhijie, the technical lead, paused for a moment before managing to stammer out, "Yes, yes..."

"No need for boasting, but this judgment is indeed worth my attention, and we should all adjust our mindset accordingly. The situation overseas is different from that in China." Yu Xing waved his hand. "Yes, if you win over America, you win over Europe. That's definitely true."

He pondered for a while, and once the questions of "what to do" and "where to do it" were clear, the focus shifted to "how to do it".

Regarding how to proceed, since everyone is looking at overseas markets with limited perspectives, there have been many clashes and additions of opinions. However, there is one point that everyone agrees on: a dilemma that MusVid may face when promoting itself.

The number of software programs that Carbon Silicon Data has handled, from WeChat to other programs, has unknowingly approached ten. If we include the software that has helped drive traffic, influence, and collaborate with each other during the development process, there are even more. In recent years, there have been numerous exposure channels available to us.

WeChat targets app store distribution and products from second- and third-tier internet companies, while Carbon Silicon Data targets the pre-installation market and hardware manufacturers. In this way, they can avoid the reach of the giants to some extent and always find exposure to traffic.

Especially in the pre-installed market, the influence of internet giants on hardware is not strong.

But the situation is different overseas, where Facebook and Google dominate the exposure channels, with the latter controlling Android app distribution.

For app projects like MusVid, there are two unavoidable issues: growth and monetization.

Facebook and Google together accounted for 66% of the global mobile advertising market this year, and their growth momentum shows no signs of slowing down. Next year, they may approach 80%, which means that for every $100 spent on advertising by an app, nearly $80 will go to these two giants.

If MusVid wants to acquire users, it will inevitably need to advertise on Facebook or Google. As a software developer, it is even more inseparable from these two companies if it wants to make money from the users it has already acquired, because 90% of apps monetize through Google's AdMob or Facebook's Audience Network.

It goes in one end and out the other, a complete blockage at both ends.

Overseas traffic entry points and advertising monetization have created a closed loop, making it difficult for most developers to survive independently outside the ecosystem of these giants.

The project has to compete with them, but the users come from them, and the monetization still has to come from them, which may lead to a vicious cycle.

Faced with this situation, the huge differences between domestic and overseas markets forced the entire Mus team to rack their brains to figure it out, which is somewhat similar to the upper limit that once stood in the way of WeChat's growth.

Back then, the domestic smartphone market was in its early stages of development, so there was bound to be an opportunity for competitors to catch up, and the problem was clearly visible.

The series of meetings have not yielded a clear answer yet. Of course, this is not an issue that will arise anytime soon. The monopoly of the two giants has already provided a very clear picture of the initial development. Everyone is buying traffic from Facebook and Google, and MusVid is no exception.

Yu Xing was satisfied with the performance of the official version. Two days later, he shared the internal discussion with Xiao Ying and still praised Lü Haiying highly.

“I told Xiaoying that we could find resources to get them $5000 million this year, but she only wanted $1000 million, thinking that this was enough to deal with the current stage of development.”

"Well, if it were someone else, they might not ask for 5000 million, but they might ask for 2000 million or 3000 million."

Seeing how much Boss Yu praised her, Liu Wanying laughed and said, "You should praise her in front of her, or rather, in front of her team."

“I praised her, but too much of a good thing can be bad.” Yu Xing shook his head repeatedly. “I can praise her once, but if I praise her too many times, she will be under a lot of pressure if her previous data performance isn’t that good.” Liu Wanying said in surprise, “It seems that she has learned her attention to detail from you.”

“To use a better word, it’s called keen insight,” Yu Xing smiled slightly. “However, we are still considering the competition with the two giants, especially Facebook. We haven’t figured it out yet, and we are exploring it as we go.”

Liu Wanying asked, "How have the data performed these past few days?"

"Mus is a pure cold start; we haven't bought any users yet, and only the iOS version is available. But it's already averaging 500 downloads per day these past few days, which is quite impressive," Yu Xing presented the data.

Mus hasn't done any advertising yet; they're just observing the actual feedback.

In just three days, the total number of users exceeded 1600. Moreover, based on the user association, many new users immediately followed "old" users after downloading the app, which is very likely due to spontaneous recommendations.

This performance is still very encouraging.

Liu Wanying chuckled: "Tsk, a few hundred or a thousand users, well, it's really just a weed. I hope it won't get noticed by Weishi."

“Weishi definitely won’t pay attention to Mus, but even if it doesn’t, it might still release a similar feature.” Yu Xing said with a sigh, “The person in charge at Weishi is also a talent. There are still many hidden talents in various companies.”

Liu Wanying nodded repeatedly: "Yes, yes, I'm just afraid that Boss Yu will just go up and stab people no matter what they're saying in their gibberish."

Yu Xing's plan to strike had been brewing for a long time, but it was uncertain whether it would last until this year.

In the first week of November, the two faulty prototype vehicles from the Silicon Carbon Group had their air suspensions replaced with the latest batch, and then underwent similar impact tests, which indeed did not cause any further problems.

However, considering the time already taken in previous tests, this may also be related to the duration, and further observation is needed.

Regardless of the quality of Wibac, considering the other party's black box solution, slow supply cycle, and attitude towards solving problems, Yu Xing was determined to further promote the localization of air suspension.

In the second week of November, Yu Xing departed from Lingang to attend an officially invited internet conference in Beijing.

This year, he has further reduced his public appearances compared to last year, and he didn't even attend the auto show. He previously only attended a mobile internet forum in Shanghai, but this time, with the endorsement from above, he is also eager to make a move.

Not only Yu Xing, but also other well-known internet companies attended the "Chinese Dream, Internet" themed conference.

Yu Xing met with old friends at the event.

Yu Xing spends his days in Lingang surrounded by machines, workshops, and technology. Even when attending meetings and discussions on silicon carbon data, he still feels a distance from the internet industry. Therefore, Yu Xing genuinely felt a sense of warmth when he saw familiar faces.

In contrast, people are also curious about the current state of his car manufacturing business.

Yu Xing generously shared his current situation and the problems he encountered along the way, and the recent anecdote about Wibac being suspended in mid-air was particularly interesting to listen to.

“Pony, long time no see. Hi, Chiping, come on, let’s make a short video.”

Yu Xing took advantage of the time before the meeting started to chat with his old friends. He saw Pony and Liu Chiping without any reservations, and the two of them also behaved very gently.

"Thank you for your support of our project, Mr. Yu." Liu Chiping said with a smile after shaking hands. "If you are willing to cooperate more, Mr. Yu, we will try our best to make you a big blogger. You know what, your videos that you used to say that Tencent could not do well with Weishi have recently become quite popular."

Whether it was intentional on Weishi's part or genuine user interest, Yu Xing's Weishi account has seen a resurgence in popularity.

Yu Xing wasn't angry; instead, he smiled broadly and greeted Xing Hongyu, who was two steps behind, saying, "Sure, let President Xing give me more promotions. By the way, how's Weishi doing lately? Is there some competition from Weibo?"

Xing Hongyu glanced at the two bosses out of the corner of his eye. Seeing that they didn't react, he hesitated for a moment and then said truthfully, "Weibo is encouraging celebrities to record more 'Miaopai' videos. The effect is good and it's worth learning from. Such daily active user performance will be very good."

Yu Xing nodded and smiled, "That's for sure. The appeal of celebrities was demonstrated in the competition between Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, that kind of..."

He paused mid-sentence, realizing that a point had come to mind in his recent reflections on the situation with Mus: Weibo, Twitter, and Facebook are all social media products, and the approach is to target users from the top down!

In short, these types of products focus on the core of social interaction, and Sina Weibo established this lead by being earlier than Tencent Weibo.

However, Mus and even short videos are content-based products.

Celebrity users do have a natural influence; they can get a lot of likes and shares just by sending a greeting or showing their face. Ordinary users, on the other hand, must create content that is more popular with their audience if they want to stand out on content platforms.

The former is radiation from high to low, while the latter is a breakthrough from low to high.

However, the lifespan of this type of content is different. Greetings from the former will quickly be lost in the online world, while content created by the latter can continue to spread and attract more users.

How do I play MusVid?
The only way is to use technology and algorithms to attack from low to high.

They're already in the fray.

(End of this chapter)