Last night I saw some news about Sogou on Weibo:
The first is that Sogou CEO Wang Xiaochuan said that 360 copied Sogou's model. In this change, Google was the most affected, followed by Baidu. Sogou was not affected, but narrowed the gap with the leader Baidu. Because of the entry of 360, search has entered the new Three Kingdoms era of Baidu, Sogou and 360. Sogou and 360 are both enemies and friends;
The second article is: The famous breaking account @IT Deep Throat posted on Weibo that Sogou has committed to Tencent with an offer of US$2 billion. Former Sogou web search results manager @Guo Ang 9 replied: Not true.
Later, @Guo Ang9 posted this on Weibo:
Sogou and 360 are essentially a browser battle, in the past and now, so Sogou actually has little impact. This day arrived as everyone expected, but it was a little early. Sogou students, don't be nervous, it doesn't matter where you are, the income is not bad at all, and you have been working as the fourth person for much longer than the second person. The most important thing is to continue to improve ourselves, maintain the leading edge of products and technologies, and launch more valuable innovative products.
These three Weibo posts basically represent the opinions of three people with different identities, namely authorities, bystanders, and related parties, on how Sogou should handle itself during the 300-year war.
So, who should you listen to?
Enemy? Friend? Foe and friend?
Let me ask a question first. Baidu has already gained such a large share of the Chinese search market that even Google cannot take advantage of it. How can others search?
Take a look at the answer of Dr. Wu Jun, a former Tencent executive who returned to Google as chief engineer: I went to Tencent not to do search, but they insisted on letting me do it. I don’t think Tencent can succeed without the search gene, but they still insist on letting me do it. The new architecture I made would be great if it went online, but they failed to make adjustments. (Via@RuLiyun, please see Sina Technology Report for details: "Former executive Wu Jun reflects on Tencent's search strategy")
After reading this answer, you will know why Google cannot defeat Baidu.
The input method-browser-search "three-stage rocket" model proposed by Sogou has a bit of a flavor of "rural areas surrounding cities and armed seizure of power", and according to Sogou, 360 is also playing this trick. The implication is that , now that 360 is rushing so fiercely, it completely proves that this model is correct. Sogou will closely unite around the leadership with Wang Xiaochuan as CEO, and strive to build a harmonious society that "challenges Baidu, beware of 360".
Harmony is not something you can buy if you want to. In one sentence: Only those who have the ability to win wars can maintain peace. I deeply believe that.
Sogou can say that it and 360 are "frenemies and friends", but only Sogou has the ability to compete with 360 to actively maintain this delicate relationship. In terms of revenue and users, Sogou is still weaker than 360. Whether it is a war or a peace, an enemy or a friend, the initiative is currently in the hands of 360. Sogou is not affected in this round, and 360 is not particularly affected. Factors targeting Sogou.
As one of the most effective teams on the Internet in China, 360 basically has no chance of failure when conducting searches. Just switching the traffic previously contributed to Baidu and Google is enough for 360 to maintain a sufficient share; the key is, to which point 360 Search intends to be considered satisfied, or to put it more vulgarly, how much benefit does 360 need to get? Will stop.
If this benefit is said to be "how much market share 360 has gained through the 300 war", then it is too simple and sometimes naive. The share price of 360 has risen from US$15 at the beginning of the month to nearly US$25. Such real money is the visible benefit. In the previous 3Q war, 360 was looked down upon by investors because it dared to fight against a giant company with tens of billions of dollars like Tencent. The same reason applies to choosing Baidu this time. 360's stock price will continue to rise.
Therefore, although Sogou lists 360, which has a similar model to its own, as its top competitor, 360 does not necessarily look down on Sogou. The benefits gained from defeating Sogou are not in the same order of magnitude as those gained from the 300 War. Wang Xiaochuan's talk about the New Three Kingdoms Era is also to put gold in his own face. The current situation has not really reached the stage of the Three Kingdoms melee. Sogou can at most shout "Come on" from the side. Although it cannot directly influence the battle situation, it can just hand over a towel or a knife. Bottles of drinks are of great significance to both contestants.
Therefore, IT Deep Throat’s claim that Sogou is committed to Tencent is basically nonsense. What Sogou needs to do is to avoid becoming the third contestant, or prematurely becoming a third-party contestant. If we really join forces with Tencent, it would be spectacular to have two browsers and two input methods push a search engine at the same time, but Tencent can’t even make difficult decisions well (by the way, if the difficult decisions back then were It is recommended that users uninstall QQ, the results will definitely be very different). This not only exposes their strength, but also fails to protect themselves. They will inevitably be jointly attacked by both sides after the 300 war comes to an end.
Change the rules or change the battlefield
If not me, Who? if not now, When?
This sentence often said by Jack Ma must best represent Sogou’s mood. Sogou definitely wants to be the third player, but not now. So, how should Sogou fight?
If we follow the capital logic behind 360’s previous two wars, market share serves the interests of real money. As @Guoang9 also said on Weibo, it doesn’t matter whether Sogou is the second or fourth in the market. , the income is not less at all. This is quite noteworthy.
Traffic is worthless, traffic that can be monetized is valuable. Search is an important means of monetizing traffic, and the strength of channel capabilities directly determines the ability to monetize. Baidu has the largest Internet channel in China, and the 360 channel, which has been inherited from the 3721 era to this day, is the only competitor that can compete with Baidu. The corporate database held by 360 is at least not worse than Baidu.
In terms of search monetization capabilities, that is, in terms of channels, Sogou is not as good as Baidu and 360. The "technology + channels" approach proposed by Sogou is somewhat helpless. After all, the channels are not as good as others, so we can't compete with others for channels. It is impossible to achieve a breakthrough in the short term at this point unless the rules of the game are changed or the battlefield is changed.
What does changing the rules of the game mean? For example, Baidu’s bidding ranking is a CPC model. Regardless of whether it is effective or not, Baidu will be paid when you click on an advertisement. If Sogou changes its model and declares that clicks will not be paid, but instead will be divided into CPS, is there any chance of this happening?
If the search engine changes from CPC to CPS, merchants will definitely applaud and support it. There are many shortcomings in the bidding ranking model. Merchants have always dared to get angry but dare not speak out. As e-commerce grows and develops, the voice of CPS becomes louder and louder. If Sogou can capture these e-commerce users, it is expected to achieve rolling success. If it creates a virtuous cycle of development, or drags down giants like Baidu, it will be considered a success. Of course, this approach may go against Sogou's unwillingness to end prematurely, so just think that I gave Sogou a bad idea.
For Sogou, changing the battlefield is more important. If the monetization ability on the Internet battlefield cannot match that of Baidu and 360, then the mobile Internet market deserves Sogou’s attention. The nascent mobile Internet not only has greater opportunities, but more importantly, the advantages of its biggest rival Baidu will no longer exist: various applications have changed the way users obtain information, and the function of the browser as an online portal has been diluted and fragmented. The standardized information organization method has weakened the status of search. More importantly, compared with other Internet giants, Baidu lacks achievements in the field of mobile Internet.
In other words, in the field of mobile Internet, search is no longer the "killer weapon", but the ability to build a platform is crucial. Baidu has always placed too much emphasis on revenue from bidding rankings, and would rather spend its own money to join the Baidu Alliance to maintain Baidu's traffic, rather than spending a lot of effort building an open platform on the mobile Internet that others would give it money to. In contrast, 360 and Sogou are much more active.
It is foreseeable that the field of mobile Internet is where Sogou is really willing to become a competitor. However, in this field, even if Baidu loses its chain and cannot keep up, there will still be other powerful ones that are more suitable for the mobile Internet era. The emergence of players, such as UC.
Therefore, even in the mobile Internet market, the scene in the 300 War is likely to repeat itself: the enterprising 360 still plays the role of challenging the market leader, while Sogou is still like the 300 War, waving flags and shouting from the side, handing out water. towel. Perhaps it can be said that it is not a bad thing to have both sides, but if it comes to this, the joint cooperation between Sogou and Tencent will have greater room for maneuver. At that time, we will see what the three people mentioned at the beginning of the article will say on Weibo.
PS: Just like the previous 3Q war, the follow-up progress of the 300 war is more complicated because of 360 who does not follow the rules. It cannot be explained clearly in one article. Regarding Baidu's reaction, my colleague Zhang Haichun has already mentioned it in the article "300 Wars: How does Du Niang take over?". Children's shoes who have insight into 360, Baidu and Sogou are also welcome to continue the discussion.
On the next page, we will see the full text of Wang Xiaochuan’s internal email about the 300 War:
Attached: The full text of Wang Xiaochuan’s internal email:
Dear Sogou colleagues,
Since the launch of universal search by 360 last week, the changes in the search market pattern have attracted widespread attention in the industry, including Sogou’s development strategy and response. Here, I would like to share some thoughts with you:
Sogou began to implement the three-stage rocket strategy of "input method-browser-search" in 2010. Sogou's search traffic grew by leaps and bounds, becoming China's second largest search engine company. This will find a way to break the market structure dominated by Baidu. 360 is essentially a client company, with the browser as its core profit. 360 copied the successful model of our three-stage rocket to enter the search field and gained a certain market share. This is also within the expectations of the board of directors and does not affect our strategic plan. In fact, I am happy to see new changes in the search market, which further proves that our "non-Baidu way to challenge Baidu" is feasible.
Data shows that in this change, Google was the most affected, followed by Baidu. Sogou was not affected, but narrowed the gap with the leader Baidu. Our big strategy is to "challenge Baidu and guard against 360", and this has not changed. Competition between 360 and Sogou is nothing new, especially in the browser field. In the field of search, I think this will be a joint subversion of Baidu by both parties. Because of the entry of 360, search has entered the "New Three Kingdoms Era" of Baidu, Sogou and 360. We are both enemies and friends with them.
Google's success represents the victory of technology, and 360's search results represent the special significance of channel power in China. Sogou is a technology-based company, and the core driving force for its growth is technology. We will still follow the balanced development route of "technology + channels" in the future. Our biggest challenge is the unfair competition we have faced from our competitors since Sogou Browser was launched, which has prevented our technological progress and product innovation from being fully demonstrated to users and the industry. But the important thing is that we must continue to adhere to the professional ethics of Sunshine Civilization and focus on product innovation. This is a belief and a strength. Although this road is not easy, I firmly believe that we can go further.
In the previous quarters, Sogou achieved the highest growth rate in the industry. Next, we will continue to maintain rapid growth and will successively release and operate a number of innovative products, including the new product "Exploration Engine" that combines browser and search. At the same time, we will also accelerate the pace of market construction and capital operations to match our technological innovation capabilities and strive to achieve greater breakthroughs as soon as possible.
I believe that with the efforts of all colleagues, the pragmatic and innovative spirit represented by Sogou will surely bear fruit and make important contributions to the healthy development of China’s Internet.
We are on the way!
I wish you all a happy Chinese Valentine's Day!
Wang Xiaochuan
August 22, 2012
(Cen Feng provided a special article for Lei Feng.com, please indicate the source of Lei Feng.com and the author when reprinting, and link back to this page)
Original text: http://www.leiphone.com/sougou-in-360-baidu-war.html/2
-