Chapter 512 Social Wars
Jiang Qin had already made an appointment with Peng Sheng of Tencent before coming here. He would visit Tencent Building on the morning of the 22nd, so he got up very early the next morning, changed into a suit, and went to a hair salon to get his hair done.
Feng Nanshu was not suitable for participating in such business occasions, and she would be afraid when surrounded by strangers, so Jiang Qin sent her to the Shenzhen branch.
Xu Kaixuan and Guan Shen were responsible for accompanying him.
Because they were here to discuss the cooperation between WeChat and Zhihu, Peng Sheng specially invited Qi Zhong, the manager in charge of WeChat promotion.
"Boss Jiang, I've heard of your name for a long time."
"Hello, Mr. Peng, Mr. Qi, please take a seat. Don't be polite. Just treat it like your own home."
Peng Sheng and Qi Zhong smiled and said hello three times. Just as they were about to sit down, they realized that this seemed to be their company.
Jiang Qin took out a cooperation agreement and handed it over: "Mr. Qi, please take a look."
"Mr. Jiang is really decisive. I thought we were going to have a nice chat for a while." Qi Zhong pulled his chair forward and sat down, then took the cooperation plan and said casually.
Jiang Qin raised the corner of his mouth: "I do like to chat, everyone says I'm a chatterbox, but it's not appropriate to chat now, because there's not much time left for WeChat."
“…”
Qi Zhong looked up at him, silently put away his smile, his expression became more serious, and then he opened the first page of the plan.
There were only four words on it: Social War.
Tencent is a company that started out as a social software company, and its most famous product is QQ.
This social application is deeply loved and sought after by young people. At its peak, the number of simultaneous online users even exceeded 200 million, making it a ceiling-level social application in China.
But because the software is completely free, it has no profitability on its own. The high operating costs caused Tencent to lose money in the early stages.
It is said that earlier, Mr. Ma had decided to sell QQ for 700,000 yuan because he could not afford the operating costs. However, he gave up when he realized that he was losing more and more money.
It was also from that time that Tencent began to frantically develop offline industries, such as games, audio and video, etc., and then used QQ's huge user base as a traffic pool to make money with the help of these industries.
QQ is not profitable but these industries are, especially the gaming sector, which is simply a huge money-making beast.
Therefore, QQ is to Tencent as Zhihu is to group buying. Both are a kind of traffic pool. Their monetization capabilities are very poor, but their ability to attract traffic is extremely strong.
As long as you plan the downstream monetization tools well and form a chain, you can make profits.
Therefore, Tencent’s current business layout is almost entirely based on QQ’s traffic pool, that is, an industrial layout based on social networks.
However, the changes of the times will always restart the old track and transform it into a new track.
The social track, which originally had QQ as its ceiling, has transformed into a new outlet in recent years.
Because the era of mobile Internet has arrived.
First is China Mobile, which used its huge user base to develop Fetion. So far, the cumulative number of registered users has reached 200 million.
It is said that China Telecom and NetEase are also secretly planning a tool called YiXin, which is also positioned to provide free calls and free text messages.
Alibaba also revealed that it intends to enter the social networking track, which is "Laiwang" that it invested heavily in supporting later.
The most important thing is that Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi Technology, released an instant messaging app called MiTalk.
You know, social networking is Tencent's main battlefield, and the fact that so many competitors are emerging all at once is definitely not a good sign.
But the wheel of history is rolling forward, and you can't stop it.
Then Tencent faces a big challenge: how to control the mobile social network in its own hands.
At that time, they were also working on the mobile QQ project and had accumulated a large number of users. At this time, they took advantage of the victory and their winning rate was almost over 60%.
But the problem is that QQ itself is tied to many monetization industries, and these industries are more dependent on the PC. Another point is that QQ’s functions are too fancy, and there is no clear positioning for the mobile terminal, so older people can’t understand how to use it.
What about Fetion and MiChat? They only retain the most primitive "text messaging function" and "voice call" as basic services.
This means that the entry barriers for Fetion and MiTalk are very low, and their audience groups are wider. Even people who are a bit older and can send text messages are their target users.
Therefore, Tencent decided to develop a new social app specifically for social networking on mobile networks without affecting existing industries.
WeChat came into being.
But how to promote it quickly is also a big problem for them.
They started late, and they had to face a buggy competitor in the form of a telecommunications operator. Their initial products were not as good as MiTalk. This was a fucking headwind to their start.
Therefore, Qi Zhong was very interested in Jiang Qin's initiative to cooperate.
"In fact, the idea of Internet business is the same. Users are the most fundamental. In the early stage, everyone is scrambling for users, hoping to win the game. In that case, everyone has to compete to see who is faster."
Jiang Qin looked at Qi Zhong and said, "The first people to come into contact with mobile Internet were definitely students, and college students are the highest quality users. Currently in China, we are the only one that is targeting the most accurate college student market."
Qi Zhong nodded: "I know this."
"So, Mr. Qi, you should start your promotion from the easiest place. The more accurate you are, the faster your speed will be. Then you can add QQ to attract traffic..."
"Mr. Jiang, please name a price."
Jiang Qin stretched out a finger and waved it in front of him.
Qi Zhong was stunned for a moment, then shook his head decisively: "Too high. Judging from the number of users on your forum, the advertising investment will not reach tens of millions, and the conversion rate is still unknown."
"I know the price is a bit high right from the start, but I can't help it. I'm a bit short of money recently."
Hearing this, Peng Sheng, the investment manager, suddenly had an idea: "Mr. Jiang is short of money recently? How much?"
Jiang Qin was stunned for a moment: "I forgot that Mr. Peng was here too. I was just joking. We are not short of money."
"Mr. Jiang, let's be frank. If Pintuan has funding needs, we are willing to fully support its development."
"Mr. Peng, we haven't raised much money. We are still developing new projects recently. Community group buying is also more expensive. We are indeed a little tight, but it's not too serious yet. We can still make ends meet."
"But when group buying develops to this stage, if the funds can barely be turned around, it will be very bad."
Jiang Qin was silent for a moment: "It is a little difficult, but we can try again."
Peng Sheng couldn't help but lean forward and said, "Group buying is gaining momentum right now. Mr. Jiang may have contacted many investors privately. It's normal for him to be hesitant, but the conditions offered by Tencent must be the best."
"I believe what General Peng said."
"Then Mr. Jiang should not hesitate any longer. With your ability and the funds we can provide, Pintuan can completely unify the group buying market this year."
Jiang Qin pondered for a while before speaking: "I will consider this matter. Let's talk about the cooperation between WeChat and Zhihu first."
Peng Sheng felt that he had convinced him, but it seemed that he was still a little short of success. It seemed that group buying had not yet reached the end of its rope.
Qi Zhong pushed up his glasses and exchanged glances with Peng Sheng. "I need to hold a meeting with the team to decide on the price, but it will definitely not reach the figure Mr. Jiang mentioned."
"Then we can try another way of cooperation."
"Please speak, Mr. Jiang."
"Let's sign an agreement to allow Pintuan and WeChat to reach a long-term and in-depth cooperation, become strategic partners with priority, and seek common development. What do you think?"
Qi Zhong was stunned after hearing this: "Mr. Jiang seems to be more optimistic about the WeChat project than we are? But group buying and social networking don't seem to be closely related?"
WeChat has just been developed, and its functions and positioning are borrowed from its peers. It does not yet have a long-term development plan. Qi Zhong does not even know whether it can win the social war.
But he had a feeling that this person seemed to be inexplicably optimistic about WeChat.
Jiang Qin spread his hands: "Anyway, WeChat won't suffer any loss."
“…”
"In addition, I have another request. I want to meet with Mr. Li from Tenpay. I wonder if Mr. Qi can help me find the way?"
After hearing this, Qi Zhong and Peng Sheng understood instantly.
After saying so much, about investment and promotion, actually we still want to cooperate with Tenpay.
But when you think about it this way, some things suddenly make sense.
They knew that group buying had already taken up most of the market share in first-tier cities, but he did not have any mobile online payment channels, so this was the real purpose of his visit.
Bah, what a dog!
He rejected Tencent's investment. Logically, he had no chance to cooperate with Tenpay. However, he used the cooperation between WeChat and Zhihu as bait and hooked them!
Now that they have put forward this condition to your face, you have no choice but to agree to it.
What a calculation...
Qi Zhong was silent for a moment, then he and Peng Sheng took Jiang Qin to the Tenpay office area.
I just waited from 11 am to 3 pm, and had a meal in between. Mr. Li from Tenpay kept making excuses, saying he was busy outside and wanted to postpone it to tomorrow. Then he said tomorrow was not a good time, so we could just wait until the weekend.
Seeing the sun about to set, Jiang Qin couldn't help but sigh: "Forget it, since I can't see it, I'll come again next time."
Peng Sheng and Qi Zhong stood up upon hearing this: "Please don't mind, Mr. Jiang. You also know about the license payment. Mr. Li has indeed been too busy recently."
"It's okay. The cooperation between Zhihu and WeChat will continue unwaveringly."
Jiang Qin took Xu Kaixuan and Guan Shen away from the headquarters. They were in a good mood along the way and even couldn't help humming a song on the way back.
Guan Shen and Xu Kaixuan were also very confused. They didn’t know what the boss was so happy about. The advertising fee was cut and they didn’t even meet the person in charge of Tenpay. How did they win?
"Boss, we have already signed an agreement with Alipay, why do we need to go and meet the person in charge of Tenpay?"
"Don't put all your eggs in one basket."
Guan Shen said, "But now that no one is around, aren't all the eggs still in one basket?"
Jiang Qin looked up at her and said, "That's different. We went to find him and waited for four hours. He chose not to see us. By then, we will help Alipay flourish. Tencent will not blame us, but will only regret not meeting me in the first place."
"Since we have already cooperated with Alipay, why should we worry about offending Tencent?" Guan Shen didn't understand.
"In the business world, there are no real strategic partners. Alibaba is willing to cooperate with us now because we can help them promote Alipay. During this period, we will definitely be inseparable."
"But have you ever thought about what we will do if we don't accept Alipay's investment after it becomes popular? We have to keep several options open."
“If we want to maintain our independence, we have to find a way to use our opponents to check our opponents.”
Jiang Qin sat in the back seat of Wuling Hongguang, crossed his legs, and turned to look at the Tencent Building outside the window.
The so-called "having the best of both worlds" means not offending anyone and leaving a way out for each side. Only by being constantly snatched away by others can you always have value in existence.
(End of this chapter)
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