Edit | Yu Bin
Produced by | Chaoqi Network "Yu see column"
Following the explosion of the meta-universe concept in 2021, products that have partnered with this concept have already appeared in early 2022. In mid-January, an app called Gel went live for the first version and completed five updates in less than a month.
Surprisingly, in less than a month, Gel has topped all the free app lists in the App Store China, surpassing even The National App's WeChat, which has 1.3 billion monthly active users.
According to the statistics of the three parties, as of February 12, the download volume of Apple devices is expected to be 1.85 million since the launch of gel, and during the peak period of its download volume, the number of downloads in a single day is as high as 435,000.
At this point, gel has also become a phenomenon-level mobile application, and it has become a hot topic for a while. However, since then, the Gel App team has released an open letter saying that it will be removed from the app store from the same day and suspend new user entry. However, it should be known that this product has been on the shelf for less than a month from the top of the shelf to the sudden initiative to take off the shelves. So, what kind of magical existence is this app? Let's uncover the truth together.
The concept is new but the experience is not satisfactory
It is understood that Gel and the self-media platform "Little Information" belong to the same parent company: Cyber Elephant Group. The group is also an upgrade of the previous bit of information.
However, the two styles are very different, and the news and information business of a little information and the social track of acquaintances of the gel do not have much intersection. This may be related to its business upgrade.
In fact, in addition to a little information product, Cyber Elephant Group also has social application gels, video creation tools flying scissors, and flying chart games. Relying on the new concept of virtual social networking, the gel that comes out of the circle obviously has extraordinary significance for cyber elephants.
However, perhaps even the company behind the gel did not expect that this product was so popular, directly exposing its various uncomfortable experiences to the public.
In fact, the general Internet new product release, there will be a round of internal testing links, for example, there have been many user feedback, just downloaded gel for a few days, frequent stutter flashback, message delay. Some users even said that they intend to deprecate it.
Subsequently, some users complained about the gel on the Internet, saying that it violated the privacy of users, and even multiple brands have posted articles alleging that the avatar in their Apps is suspected of infringing intellectual property rights. Even for its interface design and software functions, it is said that it is too similar to Spot software, social application ZEPETO, positioning application Zenly, etc., and is quite a synthesis of multiple software.
As an application that catches up with the new concept of the metaverse, the impression given by the gel to people is naturally refreshing, otherwise it will not be close to the major Internet giants in a short period of time and become the top of the download list.
The experience found that the avatar on the gel line is very cute, not only can you choose your own shape, but also have a very cute face pinch function. According to many netizens, the platform can also share the current location and status with friends, achieve online intimate interaction, and even carry their offline life trajectory to the online virtual space perfectly.
Therefore, some netizens said that although the metaverse era has not yet arrived, they have already seen the shadow of the metacosm on the gel. However, its influx of a large number of users in a short period of time makes it difficult for Gel to cope, so it has to choose to temporarily remove the shelves and stop new user registration. In the final analysis, in addition to the risk of infringement being questioned by the outside world, the biggest problem is that the user experience is somewhat unsatisfactory.
Rubbing edges with the meta-universe, it is difficult to borrow the power of the parent company
It is understood that the Cyber Elephant Group behind the gel is also the driving force behind its rapid popularity. You know, according to the public third-party data, around 2020, a little information product under Cyber Elephant is still "more than 70 million".
Moreover, the launch of gels has long been a sign. As early as the end of 2021, Yang Yuxiang, executive president of Cyber Elephant Group and CEO of One Point Information, told the self-media "Leifeng Network" that they invested in "a team of hundreds of people and developed it for more than a year" and "hope that it can be a sustainable big product." ”
In fact, this product, which Cyber Elephant has high hopes for, is the gel that people see so far. However, the main avatar of Gel is actually not new, and the QQ show and ZEPETO that appeared in the early years have long been very skilled.
Moreover, given that the concept of the product is not closely related to the metacosm, it has also been questioned. Some people in the industry even believe that this may be the use of the metaverse concept to pull up the valuation and continue the capital story.
As we all know, in 2021, with the popularity of the metaverse concept, many concept stocks related to it have also eaten up short-term dividends and harvested a wave of traffic and funds. It's just that such a tide comes and goes faster. What really tests these enterprises is not just the concept, but who can apply it to the ground.
However, as investors gradually return to rationality, the future market space of the metacosm is not undervalued. According to Bloomberg Industry Research, Metacosmum will reach $800 billion in 2024, and PwC expects Meta-Universe to reach $1.5 trillion in 2030.
It can be seen that if the gel is hoping to get close to the meta-universe concept and try to make money in this track for development, it is inevitable to cross many obstacles. "Yu See Column" believes that even if the gel practices the internal skills and starts again, it will face many obstacles.
First of all, its parent company is the industry gene of self-media information, and it does not have too much technical research and development background, and the cyber elephant group has shifted from information content operation to social product operation, which will inevitably face the test of operational difficulty.
Secondly, after the advent of the gel, it has aroused a lot of heated discussions, but also caused a lot of controversy, how to avoid risks in terms of intellectual property rights and user privacy? If you are not careful, the reason for the next removal is probably not to take the initiative to remove the shelf, but to be ordered to rectify.
Again, the "premature birth" of gel and the popularity will not remind other Internet giants, but also secretly began to compete with them at the product level. During the period of its active removal and rectification, if other Internet manufacturers enter the game, they may face an embarrassing market position.
Finally, the difficulty of operating social products cannot be ignored. Previously, many social products, whether they were locked in acquaintance social or unfamiliar social networking, were short-lived and learned from their predecessors. For example, as early as 2019, chat treasure, toilet MT and multi-flash three social software collectively called WeChat on the same day, but in the end it was less than two months old, which has long been "a loss of soldiers".
The reason for this is that on the one hand, whether the business logic can run through has yet to be verified. On the other hand, whether the company can deal with the various risks contained in social products can be calmly coped with. The genes and experience of the enterprises behind the gel in this regard are still insufficient, and they will inevitably try and make mistakes in the future.
Deeply trapped in the logical paradox, I am afraid it is difficult to defeat WeChat
It is understood that the positioning of gel is acquaintance social, you can change a virtual space with friends you already know to be friends, and share bits and pieces of life together.
However, the real scene did not make the gel wish. In fact, users do not have so many friends who can get along in the virtual space, so during the "cold start" period of the gel out of the line, users can only "pull people's heads" everywhere through Weibo and Xiaohongshu, and have to find strangers to "make up the number".
Suddenly, the sharing posters of major social media about soliciting gel friends flew all over the sky, which also made its original positioning slightly embarrassing. As a result, Gel also fell into the paradox of the social logic of acquaintances in its positioning.
On the one hand, it needs to use acquaintance relationships to generate a social relationship chain, and it is more meaningful to share some joy of life in a virtual space. On the other hand, given these virtual activities, users have a hard time finding playmates and have to seek strangers to join.
However, acquaintances pay more attention to the maintenance of relationships, and strangers pay more attention to freshness, how to make the two sides attract each other for a long time. Judging from the current positioning of the gel, it seems that only one face pinching tool is enough to impress a wave of people.
As a result, it has also fallen into the dilemma of how to choose its true positioning, at least, in the form of acquaintance social products, how to break through the experience of existing WeChat products is a big problem.
Therefore, from the perspective of product innovation, the gel has indeed made a breakthrough, but from the logic behind its long-term operation and platform development, even if commercialization is abandoned, its future defeat of rare acquaintance circle social products, I am afraid it is not so easy.
Moreover, compared with WeChat, the capital and technical strength behind it are also very different. According to Tianyan, the copyright holder of the Gel App is Beijing Yidian Entertainment Technology Co., Ltd., which was established in December 2017 with a registered capital of 20 million yuan and is wholly owned by Beijing Yidian Wangju Technology Co., Ltd., an affiliate of "One Bit Information".
However, as we all know, Tencent behind WeChat is one of the largest Internet integrated service providers in China, and its user level is even more national. The companies behind the gel are dwarfed by that.
In addition, from the perspective of commercial ecology, after years of development, WeChat has built ecological products such as WeChat public platform, enterprise WeChat, video number, and mini program, and can bring commercialization around WeChat Pay.
However, as mentioned above, although the gel is backed by a little information, it is far from its original platform tone in positioning, and it is difficult to borrow power. Gel will also be more difficult to form an ecological closed loop with other products of Cyber Elephant.
It is worth mentioning that before the gel, there have long been a number of products labeled with meta-universe labels on the market, but none of them have become a climate, or even the end.
When gel first came online, it seemed to make people see a possibility. But with its rapid removal, everything returned to calm.
epilogue
The explosion of the metacosm has indeed made some investors stage a myth of overnight wealth in the stock market. But it is bound to make many investors who do not know the truth and blindly follow the trend suffer.
The low-key dormancy of the gel for many years shows that it is not only willing to rub the hot spots, but even has the sea of stars in its dreams. However, the high-rise buildings are flat, and while they rush into the market before they are fully prepared, they also make their long-dormant ambitions public.
On the surface, it seems that it occupies the industry opportunity and seizes the opportunity to enter. But in fact, this may make it usher in many fierce enemies, and even lay the groundwork for its future fate. However, one day when its "return of the king" can be repeated, whether it can repeat the prosperity and prosperity of that year may depend on its creation.