At the end of September last year, Sogou issued an announcement announcing the completion of the merger with Tencent, and since then, in addition to some of the closed businesses, Sogou's major businesses have been merged into Tencent, of which the most concerned Sogou search business has been merged into Tencent's newly established "information platform and service line" (under the PCG business group), supporting the development of other businesses on the platform and providing users with information search and other services.
After Sogou Search was fully integrated into Tencent's system, it also ushered in a new round of business adjustment. Recently, sogou search app issued an announcement that due to the company's business adjustment, sogou search app will be fully upgraded to Bingo App in mid-to-late January 2022, after the completion of the upgrade, the original Sogou search app in the favorites, search history and web browsing history and other records will be affected, users need to do a good job of data backup in advance.
According to industry practice, the name of an independent search app will generally use the search engine name directly, and Baidu, Microsoft Bing and Google are similar practices. It can be seen that the arrival of Bingo App is not a simple "brand upgrade" or business adjustment, and Sogou Search will be injected with more resources under Tencent's system to support Tencent's future search dream.
A more focused Bingo app
Sogou has a lot of roots with Tencent, and in 2006 Tencent launched its own search engine "Search", but after several years of operation, the market performance of Sogou was not satisfactory. In the end, Tencent chose to buy a 36.5% stake in Sogou for $448 million in 2013, and merged its businesses such as Sosou and Input Method into Sogou. Tencent gained a sense of security by investing in shares, while Sogou further expanded the search scenario and gained valuable social traffic.
In 2014, Sogou also obtained Tencent's exclusive content resources, and WeChat began to access Sogou, making it a new channel for searching for public account resources. According to the Sogou prospectus, 38.2% of the total traffic of Sogou search comes from Tencent. However, even with the support of Tencent, Sogou is still difficult to challenge Baidu's market position, and statCounter data in August last year showed that in the domestic market, Sogou's market share was 14.02%, far lower than Baidu's 76.91%.
Sogou's original development model is difficult to get a new breakthrough, and the arrival of Bingo App may be an attempt to transform Sogou search. The adjustment announcement said that Bingo App will retain Sogou Search App's search engine and novel bookshelf services, "and is committed to providing users with efficient, convenient and intelligent learning and life tools." ”
It is worth noting that on the one hand, the "search engine" will be retained, that is, Sogou search will continue to exist, but it is not excluded that it will be renamed Bingo search, or a new intelligent search engine will be launched based on Sogou search, the product kernel will not change, and the UI and search trend will be mainly modified.
On the other hand, as mentioned above, much of the data of the Sogou Search App will not be able to be directly migrated to the Bingo App, indicating that the new App is a newly designed product, not a simple upgrade of the original product. In terms of product positioning, it is speculated that Bingo App will be a multi-functional search application similar to quarks, with a variety of lightweight learning and office tools.
After the author's query, he found that the Sogou search App cannot be found in the Apple App Store, and the Xiaomi App Store prompts "the developer's own reasons, temporarily do not provide downloads." ”
For the Sogou team, the renaming of the search independent App does not mean that Sogou search will fade out of the market, and the team genes of Sogou search will be injected into new products to better serve users. Now many independent search apps are changing, in the new market environment, the traditional search model is becoming more and more chicken, a variety of content Apps and third-party browsers have search functions, independent search Apps need more new features to retain users.
In recent years, Sogou has continued to exert efforts on the AI track, and has certain advantages in speech recognition and image recognition, and a number of technologies can be landed through Bingo App, including scenes such as picture scanning, rapid image recognition, text recognition and voice search, which require AI assistance to provide users with services in the form of light applications.
Quickly integrate to maximize the potential of Sogou search
From the end of September last year to the beginning of January this year, Sogou just merged into Tencent within a few months of launching new products, indicating that Tencent has formulated a corresponding development strategy before acquiring Sogou, and Sogou Search App has changed its name to remove the brand elements of Sogou, accelerating the integration of Sogou Search and Tencent services.
Sogou Search belongs to the Tencent PCG Business Group, which has platforms such as QQ, Tencent Video, Weishi and Tencent News. It is worth mentioning that Tencent PCG's viewing team itself has a search department, according to the report of interface news, the establishment of the information platform and service line has been integrated into part of the Sogou team, and the core function of the search engine will become the core business.
Specifically, in the future, the technical strength of Sogou Search will benefit many Tencent-based services, such as the PCG watch service that mainly competes with today's headlines. From this perspective, Bingo App may integrate a number of Tencent information flow services to open up different search scenarios, in addition to search engines, including short videos and news.
On the other hand, Sogou Search will also shoulder the heavy responsibility of exploring the next generation of search engines, and is Tencent's pathfinder in the search track. Tencent Vice President Yin Yu mentioned in an internal letter welcoming Sogou that the future search also needs to realize the process from "information" to "use services", from "answers" to "solve problems". In the past, the traditional search only simplified the path for users to obtain answers, and further screening was needed after the search was completed, and the advent of the App era also intensified the barriers to information acquisition and weakened the influence of universal search.
For example, different search engines have their own search trends, mostly recommend the content in their own product system, in this process users want to break the information cocoon, can only continue to expand the information access channels. In the context of the common development of general search engines and vertical search engines, manufacturers need to help users simplify the channels and forms of content acquisition.
For Bingo App, what is more embarrassing at this stage is the problem of product positioning and promotion. First, some functions of The Bingo App overlap with WeChat, and rich Mini Programs reduce the probability of users installing other software. In terms of search, WeChat search is no longer a simple internal search function, but a connector for WeChat content ecology. In the WeChat open class in 2022, WeChat Search shouted out the slogan of "use WeChat, search all", with the help of the development of WeChat ecology, Search Monthly Active has reached 700 million, and more content and services will be connected in the future.
Second, after renaming the Sogou Search App to Bingo App, it is easy to be resisted by users. At that time, the renaming of Ali Planet every day encountered similar problems, the new brand needed to be re-promoted, and the resistance of some old users easily affected the reputation of the product in the early stage.
In the author's opinion, after the merger into Tencent, Sogou has gained a bigger stage, and more AI technology will be applied, but Sogou's original product or service needs to find a reasonable positioning to maximize the value of Sogou. In addition to the Sogou Search App, more Sogou services will have "Tencent color" in the future.
End
The times are moving forward, the needs of users are also changing, sogou so many years of ups and downs is a true portrayal of the development of the domestic search market. In the era of mobile Internet, the infrastructure attributes of universal search are gradually disappearing, in essence, search solves the connection problem of "people and information", and people have more ports to obtain information and thus reduce their dependence on a single search method.
Take the friends around me as an example, they are more accustomed to "using what search engine in what software", and most of the time they will not switch to the browser and then open the search website. While curiosity is human nature, the more convenient in-app search process simplifies the user's steps and suits people's inertia and intuition.
The full integration of Sogou search and Tencent services is a way to open up universal search and vertical search services, and Bingo App may be a new starting point for Tencent to transform search services, relying on its own content and social advantages to attract users and retain users.