What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 568 Clumsy (4k)

Yu Xinglai is here to sell things.

Yu Xing is here selling things again.

The software he sold last time has already failed, and the stock price that surged due to the stimulus at the time has long since fallen back. And now he's doing it again!

Ni Danqing, vice president of 360, immediately expressed his opposition after hearing such an inquiry.

"Mr. Zhou, why would we buy Master Key? Carbon Silicon Data has been squeezing its traffic out of us all year, and now they're trying to dump it on us after they've used Douyin to their advantage? This isn't a dumping ground!"

“I disagreed with that ‘ad killer’ thing last time!”

"Okay, you guys said last time it was good for the capital market, but now we're going to be privatized and delisted, so why are we still buying this stuff?"

Ni Danqing raised two objections: WiFi Master Key's data traffic wasn't as high-quality as it seemed, and 360, which was about to be privatized, had no need to tell a story in the stock market.

Zhou Hongyi remained silent, making no mention of Yu Xing's comments about LeEco.

Seeing that President Zhou had not expressed his opinion, Senior Vice President Chen Jie pondered for a while and then said, "Master Key is not so useless. It started early and its brand awareness is quite high. Douyin is now able to sit in the top position in the domestic short video market, which is inseparable from the traffic of Master Key. Based on this point alone, it will definitely not lack buyers in the domestic market."

Chen Jie joined the company in 06 and has always been highly valued. This year, he has an even greater opportunity to advance his career.

She continued, "I think there's another crucial question we need to consider: should 360 enter the short video market?"

If WiFi Master Key, as one of the sources of traffic for Douyin, enters the market, it will have even greater value.

Ni Danqing retorted, "Trying to use a universal key to incubate something like Douyin is like trying to catch fish by climbing a tree. If it were that effective, would Yu Xing have released it to you?"

Chen Jie shook his head: "President Yu doesn't know we have plans to make competing products."

Ni Danqing scoffed, "So, if he finds out, we'll have to beg him to sell us the master key?"

"Why are you so extreme?" Chen Jie said with dissatisfaction. "Isn't it all black and white? If he wants to sell, we'll buy if we need it, and we won't buy if we don't need it. It's not like we're being forced to buy or sell."

Ni Danqing raised his voice: "360 doesn't need to take over Universal Key. It's a product destined to die. Once the operators start speeding up and reducing fees, the essential scenarios for users to use this kind of software will be greatly weakened!"

The issue of operators increasing speeds and reducing fees has been a hot topic recently, as it has come from public opinion and has also been mentioned at a meeting in Beijing, which called on operators to launch services such as data rollover and broadband speed increases of more than 40% in the future.

The development of 4G is very rapid now. China Mobile took advantage of the pilot program before the official issuance of licenses to grab a large number of 4G users in advance, while China Unicom and China Telecom are making great efforts to catch up this year.

Chen Jie argued, "Speeding up and reducing fees is a means. We can't focus on the means; we need to look at the goals and results. The more widespread 4G becomes, the higher the penetration of short videos will inevitably be. Those operators won't be able to act so quickly. If Master Key can help us incubate a successful project before it dies, then it will have died a worthwhile death!"

Ni Danqing sneered, "Short videos are so easy to make? This market can't accommodate more players. Right now, there are only three: Alibaba, Tencent, and Silicon Carbon. Even Weibo's offerings are falling behind."

Hearing this, Chen Jie calmed down and corrected him, "President Ni, you need to study the short video market carefully. This market has giants like Alibaba and Tencent, traffic giants like Weibo, and experienced operators like Carbon Silicon, but there are also Kuaishou, which competes by differentiation."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Hongyi objectively commented, "Kuaishou's development is indeed quite good."

Unlike the other three companies, Kuaishou previously had a weak presence, but its strategy of targeting lower-tier markets this year has yielded significantly more promising results.

Seeing this, Ni Danqing said, "If differentiated competition were so easy to find, there would be more than just one Kuaishou!"

Chen Jie didn't speak immediately, but instead picked up the teacup in front of him and took two sips of tea.

Seeing her confident demeanor, Zhou Hongyi pressed further, "What are your thoughts?"

"Short videos originated from Vine abroad, but it only insisted on making them 6 seconds long. Domestic companies that learned from it were not so rigid. Weishi could make them 15 seconds long. Now, Douyin has truly popularized this, and everyone is more or less referring to Douyin to make their own videos." Chen Jie did not shy away from this. "This differentiated competition lies within Douyin itself."

The people in the meeting room became completely absorbed.

Chen Jie described his thoughts: "Douyin made a small batch of 1-minute video content to promote itself during the Spring Festival this year, but did not continue to increase the promotion. I think Lingang is still considering the suitability of traffic and stage, and will definitely continue to popularize this kind of longer video in the future."

"The Universal Key is essentially driving traffic to short videos. Every user who uses it is essentially using free Wi-Fi, so the data consumed by the length of the video doesn't matter. If we use 1-minute videos as a differentiating competitive point and quickly promote it with traffic, then 360 will have a place in the short video market."

Chen Jie pointed out a detail about Douyin that hadn't attracted much attention.

This is also because Douyin did not push content on a large scale, and competitors such as Alibaba and Tencent did not learn from this.

The meeting room fell into deep thought.

Even Ni Danqing, who had previously been clear in his stance, was carefully considering these well-reasoned words.

Those of you here have all been involved in the internet industry for many years and naturally have your own judgment. Regarding Silicon Carbon's recent attempt to sell WiFi Master Key, although there are differing opinions, we also share a common understanding—WiFi Master Key has a bleak future.

However, there are ways to play even if it doesn't work, it's not like it's impossible all at once.

After everyone had a moment to process the information, Chen Jie added, "We can do 1 minute, 2 minutes, or even 3 minutes. The current mainstream 15-second format has definitely not fully explored the space for user-generated content. This is what we can do. But once we decide to enter the market, we will also face competition from those few companies. So, if we do it, we should prepare everything in advance."

“What Mr. Chen said makes some sense, but we still need to investigate carefully.” Ni Danqing’s stance softened. “The competition in short videos is not so easy. Those companies are not easy to beat. They can easily catch up. Whether the length of the video is a real differentiator is largely determined by them.”

360 did it, and other companies didn't follow suit, which is differentiation; if other companies followed suit, it would be homogenization.

After a moment's thought, he added, "At least, Mr. Yu from Lingang won't stubbornly refuse to follow, will he?"

Chen Jie had no objection to this judgment.

Based on her current observations of the short video market, Weishi has seen two deaths and two revivals, and now it has merged with Weichat. Alibaba is hoping to achieve success both domestically and internationally, but its overseas presence is not making much of a splash. Kuaishou may find it easy to penetrate the lower-tier market, but climbing to the top will likely be very difficult. As for Weibo, the traffic it gained from its partnerships with the two short video platforms is gradually becoming a liability.

Only Douyin, or rather, only Lingang's carbon silicon data, is the most stable in the short video market.

Although Zhong Zhiling is the CEO of Carbon Silicon Data, everyone in the industry knows that Yu Xing must be overseeing things behind the scenes.

Just like the joining of former Tencent president Martin Lau, it would have been impossible for Zhong Zhiling alone to join; only Yu Xing could persuade him to risk public criticism. Would someone who has shone brightly in the mobile internet era and is renowned for his operations be unaware of the threat of competition?

Zhou Hongyi did not expect that today's discussion on the universal key would lead to a discussion on a short video project. The company had briefly discussed it before, but this was the first time that such a clear and differentiated project idea had been put forward.

And such a clear and convincing differentiation strategy is very appealing.

After a long pause, Zhou Hongyi said, "Any action that changes the market requires taking risks."

Chen Jie perked up and asked, "President Zhou, do you agree with us making short videos?"

"We need to think about it some more, but it's worth considering." Zhou Hongyi only had an inclination at the moment and wouldn't make an immediate decision. She adjourned the meeting, saying, "You all go back and think about it. Lingang isn't going to make a move in just a day or two."

After the meeting ended, the topic changed directly to whether 360 should pursue a differentiated short video strategy.

If you're going to try it, the universal key that hatched the TikTok golden egg is definitely worth getting.

That evening, Zhou Hongyi sat in her study pondering the matter carefully, when suddenly she thought of Baidu's acquisition of "91 Assistant".

In July 2013, Baidu acquired "91 Assistant" for $19 billion, setting a record for the largest merger and acquisition in the Chinese internet industry.

Is 91 Assistant worth that much money?
At the time, there was a certain consensus in the industry regarding this acquisition: whoever controls the application market controls the world.

Mobile distribution was a hot sector at the time, allowing giants like Baidu to seize traffic entry points and establish larger-scale distribution channels. 91 Assistant, on the other hand, was a mature mobile internet platform that was already looking to go public.

However, in Zhou Hongyi's opinion, 91 Assistant is not worth that much money.

Because he himself got involved and helped drive up the price.

360 was one of the early investors in 91 Wireless. Zhou Hongyi's advice has always been to avoid selling the company unless someone offers an irresistible price.

91 people asked how much this irresistible price was.

Zhou Hongyi's answer was $20 billion.

Just before Baidu finalized its acquisition of 91, he flew to meet with Liu Dejian, the founder of the latter, to try to stop the acquisition, because Baidu's acquisition of 91 would indeed pose a threat to 360 Mobile Assistant in the distribution market.

Even so, Zhou Hongyi still felt that the price of 19 billion was outrageous. But for Baidu, it really failed to keep up with the explosion of the mobile Internet and lacked a platform-level product. Tencent has WeChat and Weishi, Alibaba has WeChat, Leyin and UC Browser in addition to its core e-commerce, and even Lingang's Carbon Silicon Data has a software matrix with considerable influence.

How much this moment resembles that moment back then.

With the development of Alibaba, Tencent, Silicon Carbon, Weibo, and Kuaishou, there is now a consensus in the industry that short videos have a promising future and that this will be a huge and worthwhile market to invest in.

Ironically, 360 is facing pressure from various business areas and has just suffered a setback in its mobile ecosystem planning, so it clearly needs to expand more successfully.

Zhou Hongyi is a person with a temper, but she is definitely good at thinking.

He hesitated for a moment but quickly found a solution and called Yu Xing directly.

Instead of figuring it out yourself, it's better to ask the people involved directly about the future of longer short videos.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, Zhou Hongyi took the initiative to mention that she was considering acquiring Master Key. Then, she changed the subject and made a request: "President Yu, I have something to ask you. I was just playing on Douyin and I felt uncomfortable. Could you ask someone in your company to grant my account two or three minutes of access? I want to film more things at once. Fifteen seconds is not enough time for me to say anything."

Yu Xing was a little surprised and laughed, "Sure, Mr. Zhou, your account is verified, right? Douyin currently has a 1-minute time limit. Let's start with this and give you a longer time as soon as it's more suitable later."

Zhou Hongyi probed, "One minute? That's short. When will you be able to offer longer durations? I don't think I see one minute very often."

"The main problem is that data is expensive right now, so we're already compressing videos to the maximum extent possible to help users save data," Yu Xing explained. "Looking at their plans, it won't be rolled out until next year at the earliest. The 1-minute videos are currently in small-scale testing. If we're going to roll them out on a large scale next year, the 2-minute and 3-minute videos will also have to be tested on a small scale first before we can continue to roll them out."

"At this stage, we are still different from Youku and iQiyi. We are short, concise, and fast. The 15-second fragment is more suitable for rapid dissemination."

"Over a longer period, we need to upgrade the content, increase user stickiness and the platform's... how to put it, tone."

While listening to President Yu's casual conversation, Zhou Hongyi silently estimated the key points for Douyin's assessment of the current stage, while offering her own thoughts aloud.

Yu Xing chatted patiently for a while, and finally reminded him: "President Zhou, hurry up, your company is a listed company, don't be too slow in buying software."

Zhou Hongyi said politely, "President Yu, thank you, thank you for not forgetting me with such a good thing."

He ended the call, having already made up his mind: 360 could definitely enter the short video market.

On the other end, Yu Xing put down his phone and thought about the call for a while.

Liu Wanying overheard half of the call and, seeing his reaction, asked, "What's wrong? What's the matter that President Zhou called about? Why are you talking about Douyin?"

Yu Xing briefly described the situation, then shook his head and said, "This phone call doesn't seem right."

Liu Wanying asked curiously, "What do you mean? What's the basis for that?"

Yu Xing thought for a moment: "Too polite, it sounds fake."

Liu Wanying chuckled, but didn't doubt the short seller's keen insight: "So what is he planning to do?"

“The universal key only has that one function and that one effect,” Yu Xing pondered. “360 probably wants to try short videos too. They just asked me about 1-minute and 2-minute videos. Maybe they want to try this area. There’s nothing new under the sun. Let’s follow suit and give it a try.”

He has seen, encountered, and tried many follower product strategies.

"Huh? That's a bit clumsy," Liu Wanying laughed. "Doesn't that mean 360 will become a competitor?"

“It also depends on who makes the short videos,” Yu Xing said succinctly. “As long as they are willing to buy our universal key, I allow them to become competitors.”

(End of this chapter)