Xing Ming: The end of the world temperament and humanistic trajectory
The first pot of gold became a multi-millionaire by stock trading
"I just like to discuss stocks with people online. We gather the same group of people because we like it."
In the 1990s, Xing Ming was just an Internet enthusiast. His daily job was at the Hainan Provincial Government Information Center. "I became China's first generation of Internet users in 1995." At that time, Xing Ming was more familiar to his friends as an expert in stock trading. In that era when bull stocks were frequent, there was a saying that "the mad cow came out of Hainan", and Xing Ming earned more than enough money to make a fortune. In 1999, several local stocks in Hainan that he had followed for a long time made him huge profits. His account exceeded 20 million from the initial few hundred thousand. Xing Ming used it to found Tianya Community.
I don’t know if this is the strangest source of start-up capital in China’s Internet industry. It is not the “venture capital” that often appears in the myths of Internet entrepreneurship. Xing Ming also used his own experience to write down another entrepreneurial path. He is not a returnee from overseas. He went to Silicon Valley to receive training only in the past two years. In 1999, Xing Ming, who graduated from the Chinese Department of Sun Yat-sen University, decided to invest all his personal income in an industry that was still unknown at the time. The only thing he had in common with other entrepreneurs was that they all liked it.
In 1999, when he became rich, Xing Ming decided to build a forum. “I just like to discuss stocks with people online. Later, I added two sections, Miscellaneous Talk and Computer Technology Forum. I don’t know how these forum sections were added. , maybe we gathered the same group of people because we all like it.”
Xing Ming recalled that in fact, the entire development of Tianya is based on hobbies. This foundation means that Tianya never has to worry about updating its own content - it all comes from netizens, and there is never need to worry about website promotion - each forum will do its own thing. Organize events and don't even have to worry about content moderation - moderators are also generated spontaneously from netizens.
As an operator, Xing Ming's biggest role is to maintain such a balance, which he does for 10 years.
Starting a business from poverty
Rejected acquisition by Sina Sohu
"Being able to maintain a certain 'noble' attitude may be because Tianya has never been short of money."
In the past 10 years, Tianya has maintained a low profile. It persisted in a low-key manner and watched many community websites in its industry withdraw from the stage of history. Its only response was to "not change".
Xing Ming believes that the reason Tianya was able to persist to the end was because it did not commercialize it prematurely, but maintained a very natural development state. "The domestic Internet has gone through a very painful period of finding profits. At that time, online advertising had not yet started, and everyone used various methods to increase income, such as frantically downloading ring tones and multimedia messages." However, these have never become Tianya's concern. center of gravity.
“Being able to maintain a certain ‘noble’ attitude may be because Tianya has never been short of money.” Xing Ming replied, “Because in the beginning Tianya was just a column of Hainan Online, and the cost was relatively low, with only two or three people maintaining management. "This situation was once called "low cost, low profit" by industry insiders, but Xing Ming believes that the cohesion of a community should take enough time to settle.
In 2004, Xing Ming encountered a big temptation. At that time, Sina and Sohu were in contact with him and wanted to acquire Tianya. For a community website that had not yet made a significant profit, joining a big portal seemed to be a very good choice. , "They all want mergers and acquisitions and won't accept shares, but I can't give all of Tianya."
So Tianya continued to wait quietly. In 2005, the concept of blogging and WEB2.0 emerged, and Tianya received investment from IDG and Zero2IPO. At the end of 2006, Tianya once again received joint investment from Lenovo, Google, and Focus founder Jiang Nanchun. Only then did Xing Ming feel that it was time to start from the Commercial value can be tapped from the savings, and with sufficient financial support, this kind of expansion can be carried out without destroying the "feeling of the end of the world".
Netizen temperament
the basic law of a community
"These people and these things did not explode suddenly, but this mechanism produced explosive power."
"Tianya feeling" is what Xing Ming believes is the company's core competitiveness. In order to stabilize this competitiveness, Tianya has been cautious about any changes in the past 10 years. It has almost never been revised, but users still insist on it.
"There is something behind Tianya," Xing Ming said. "It is difficult to explain clearly. If you understand our community basic law, you may understand Tianya's temperament." The so-called "Basic Law" of Tianya is hidden behind countless posts. , hidden in places that users tend to ignore, but are affected by it unknowingly. "It includes the user agreement that we have adjusted many times, and also includes countless rules and regulations created by netizens over the years."
In Tianya, the original temperament came from the "opinion leaders" at the beginning of the emergence of China's Internet. Not long after the establishment of Tianya, the masters on the Sitong Lifang Forum left collectively, and the representative figures "Xiao Hei" and "Xiao Li Feidao" came to station. Tianya brings a professional and serious atmosphere. The persistence of temperament comes from the system. For example, it gives the moderators of each forum enough autonomy to make netizens feel that they are leading the content. It absolutely rejects advertising posts and "disturbing" advertisements. This is the basis of the quality of netizens in the institutional environment. It has attracted more similar users to join. They come to Tianya not just for fun, but to discuss problems seriously and start "Second Life" seriously.
To this day, Xing Ming has lost count of how many hot words Tianya has created. “These people and things did not explode suddenly, but this mechanism produced explosive power, which led to the continuous influence of community websites and the Internet. There will only be more and more topics,” Xing Ming said, because Tianya is already on the road.
idealist who faces reality
Xing Ming is a Chinese language college student who graduated in 1991. He said that era was full of idealism and romance, which was consistent with the times. College students at that time had the spirit of "everyone is responsible for the rise and fall of the world." No matter how things change in the world, people of that generation always have a certain idealism and theory-first attitude. “What is popular among us in the university is to read Kant and Li Zehou.”
Following Xing Ming's memories of the passionate years, the reporter's interview topic started with Tianya's "temperament". We reviewed several early "opinion leaders" on domestic Internet forums. Xing Ming was very willing to talk about his "Basic Community Law" and what users have done for Tianya. He said that as a manager, you only need to carefully maintain the atmosphere of the forum, as long as you can ensure the right of users to speak freely. "You don't have to worry about other content. Users will complete it on their own. Doesn't this sound ideal?"
This kind of management is almost similar to "governing by doing nothing", but it has become a reality in Tianya and has persisted for 10 years. I don’t know if Xing Ming’s “non-Silicon Valley” and “non-technical background” background contributed to this moderate management direction, but it was precisely this gentleness that gave the country’s largest online community time to grow quietly.
During the interview, Xing Ming doesn’t mind being described as “idealistic,” but he will emphasize that the theory may not be without realistic explanations, especially when talking about the ongoing profitability issues. At this time, he will appear more like A CEO.
"You have listened to me talk about 'Second Life' on the Internet for a long time, and the Utopia on the Internet. These are indeed the labels of Tianya, and they are also what I am most willing to talk about." Xing Ming said, but he also admitted that in the face of investors, You need to change to a more realistic language. "We have done a lot of exploration on business models this year, including how to do community advertising. We have also seen that many of our peers, colleagues in the community, are also doing advertising. But many have gone to the traditional way. One portal’s advertising model is obviously not going to work.”
"The key here is that the advertisements you make cannot destroy the user experience. Because communities and portals are different. Portals are compiled by editors. How can I embed advertisements? You can see it if you want. No. If you want to see it, you can pull it down. But the community is a bit like everyone’s home, a circle. This is my personal home, a home here, and you are interfering with some of my experiences. Therefore, we have done some advertising before, and users are very worried about it. We were disgusted and later we removed these advertisements and even sacrificed some advertising revenue. In fact, the same is true for communities. You can also make it a certain type of group of people, because communities are typically people-centered and people-centered. Groups and birds of a feather can be turned into advertisements related to a certain group of people in the community without destroying their experience and becoming what they need. At this time, a new advertising model will emerge. "
"I would say that virtual online life is a certain game concept, and the precise marketing of enterprises in the community is an e-commerce concept, plus the concept of advertising. I believe investors will understand it. If you say this, you will not say that I Are you idealistic?" Xing Ming asked with a smile.
From a business perspective:
Tianya Community will give netizens a feeling of home.
Tianya has an unstoppable force of natural growth.
When choosing an investor, you really need to choose one with a long-term perspective and don't act too hastily.
Tianya still insists on being a community and cannot become a portal or other things. This is our long-term strategy.
The pressure from capital is not great for us, because it was our own investment from the beginning, and we don’t have any hasty ideas in this regard.
I think a very important reason for Tianya's success is that Tianya has gathered a group of high-quality people and developed a strong sense of humanistic care.
Many venture capital investors find it incredible that no one has gotten involved in an Internet company like Tianya so far!
Core competitiveness is profound humanistic temperament
Word-of-mouth marketing eliminates advertising posts
In 2009, when Kaixin.com and Xiaonei.com came up with new tricks for the "community website" model, Xing Ming, who had been working in the industry for 10 years, suddenly discovered that the Tianya community he ran was actually ahead of the trend. Tianya persisted The positioning of "user-generated content" and "making friends" for many years is now called "Web2.0" and "SNS" (social dating network), which are the most fashionable words. He got it right.
However, all community websites are still facing the same problem: once the user base is established, how to generate commercial value? The situation of Tianya is even more confusing. It has 10 years of user accumulation, more than 25 million registered users, and deeply rooted usage habits. How can it still make profits without compromising loyalty?
value of human touch
“Are you afraid of Tencent?”
"It's impossible to say I'm not nervous, but Tianya has its own core competitiveness."
In 2006, when the Internet company Tencent proposed an online life strategy to aggregate QQ users into a large community, community website practitioners felt two things. First, the commercial value of the community website was affirmed, and secondly, it was a threat. After all, , Tencent has a huge user base. Will these users who are accustomed to using QQ abandon the community forums they often go to? Besides, Tencent also has great financial strength.
"If I say that Tianya's core competitiveness is a certain kind of humanistic temperament, or human touch, would you think that I am too vain?" Xing Ming asked seriously. He thought this was a very real question. He gave an example. , "Users who often go to Sina and Sohu to read information would not call themselves 'Sina people' or 'Sohu people,' but Tianya is already a website with a temperament." This temperament makes users often joke, "I am Hun Tianya.”
In Xing Ming's view, no matter Sina, Sohu or Tencent, they were originally positioned as some kind of "tool" for reading information or communicating information, while Tianya was positioned as a platform to gather popularity from the beginning, and it took 10 years to develop Out of one's own character, this seemingly nihilistic cultural bond is the core competitiveness.
But does the human touch generate business value?
Xing Ming reminded reporters that after 10 years of development, Tianya only has more than 20 content editors so far. However, the content produced by Tianya is constantly emerging and provides talking points for the entire Internet. They all come from the users themselves. Indeed, , Tianya did not produce good profit figures in the early stages of development, but it also did not cost much. It is users who independently drive the development of Tianya. How can human touch be worthless?
In addition, there is more value to be explored. "On the basis of cohesion, users will continue to present various needs in Tianya. They have shopping needs and gaming needs." Currently, Tianya is starting to These business needs are accurately classified and attract corresponding advertising information.
Falseness and authenticity in virtual communities
"Are you nervous about the school network and Kaixin.com?"
"No, our paths are completely different."
However, more than one community website in Tianya has realized the importance of "character traits". The newly born social networking sites Xiaonei.com and Kaixin.com are coming fiercely, but Xing Ming is not nervous at all.
"The direction is completely different. Many websites encourage users to use their real names, while Tianya is dominated by an ID (online identity) culture," Xing Ming said. "Sometimes the more virtual the environment, the more real the business needs it reflects."
Xing Ming described the truth and falsehood on the Internet with a dialectical attitude to reporters, "We found the same characteristics in the entire Chinese community. When you speak online in another identity, it is easier to tell the truth. Therefore, I don’t think that only real-name communities have marketing value.”
In the Internet environment, in 10 years, thousands of IDs in Tianya have embarked on a virtual and real trajectory. Xing Ming feels that this is a Chinese version of the "Second Life" game. "People use the most authentic attitude , Live the most authentic life in Tianya, and have the most real business needs. For example, a product recommended by most netizens is more likely to be recognized. "
In Xing Ming's view, it is precisely because of the nature of the "second society" that the marketing of community websites is not as simple as placing a few advertisements on the web page. "In order to ensure the user experience, there are not so many places to place advertisements." , on the contrary, the promotion of enterprises on the website is not just a display, but "buying their own territory and doing real business in the virtual society" and establishing a "special area" for sincere interaction with users.
Practice: Organizing a Posting Company
"How can the advertising revenue of community websites increase? Help companies with word-of-mouth marketing?"
“Word-of-mouth marketing needs to be done, but advertising posts must not be tolerated.”
Utilizing humanistic qualities to ensure user groups and website content sources, and then subdividing these solid user groups for precise word-of-mouth marketing is the online marketing direction Tianya agrees with. The next step is the issue of specific implementation.
However, this problem is a headache, because the current "word-of-mouth marketing" has almost become a negative term. Those "posting companies" hidden behind the Internet are mainly engaged in "human posting", and their employees post or distribute corporate information in replies. Regarding the advertising content, “Each item earns less than 50 cents,” Xing Ming said. “We call this word-of-mouth marketing.”
Xing Ming believes that advertising posts will greatly affect users' experience of using the community. They are "annoying and have no advertising effect." In Tianya, the policy of "rejecting advertising posts" is being resolutely implemented by all moderators in the forum. What Xing Ming wants to build is ecological Tianya, "a huge ecosystem including users, communities, enterprises, and advertising agencies."
Yu Lijuan, vice president of marketing at Tianya Community, added: "The so-called ecological marketing concept, in the most popular terms, is to give the greatest help to those who need it and the least amount of trouble to those who don't need it."
Does this mean that Tianya is preparing to reorganize large and small publishing companies? "We are just lobbying," Xing Ming said. "Our professional team has visited many posting companies and told everyone about Tianya's advertising system. We want to turn them into our partners and become a professional advertising agency alliance. This is better than posting. An advertising post is more valuable.”
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