James Gleick said in A Brief History of Information, "Strategies for dealing with information glut are diverse, but at the end of the day, they can essentially fall into two categories: either filtering or searching." When information becomes cheap, attention becomes expensive. ”
The most expensive thing this year is not gold or oil, but your attention.
According to Morketing's inventory of the advertising and marketing revenue of Internet companies in 2019, Baidu's advertising revenue in 2019 was 78.1 billion yuan, Tencent's advertising revenue was 68.377 billion yuan, and ByteDance's advertising revenue reached 150 billion yuan.
Another fact that is very similar to this revenue ranking is that in terms of their respective information abortion businesses, ByteDance is the first to do information flow, followed by Baidu, and Tencent last. Zuckerberg may not have imagined that when Facebook first proposed the concept of information flow in Internet marketing, a company with $150 billion in advertising revenue was born in the far East.
In fact, the information flow product with the algorithm as the core has gradually been "localized" today, and with the growth of Baidu APP monthly active, people have once again focused on the value of search technology, so search + information flow has become another hot and attractive track.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > information flow + search track: byte attack, Tencent's forbearance</h1>
On February 28, ByteDance launched the "Headline Search" app, Slogan as "The first one is what you want to search", and has been launched with major Android app stores. Zhang Yiming said publicly last year: "Without the expansion of search scenarios and high-quality content, the growth space of today's headlines may only be 40 million DAUs."
"Search is not competitively driven, but based on the product mission and user needs." Zhu Wenjia said that Toutiao is an information distribution platform, and search is a basic form of information distribution. Users see a piece of content on the headline and often want to learn more about it. That is, by searching users can find the information they want more precisely.
The official debut of headline search means that the competition of information flow + search has entered a new stage, Baidu Tencent has long been eyeing the tiger, and a new "search + information flow" battle is about to be staged again.
In November 2019, Tencent announced that it will integrate and upgrade its information flow content services to a new brand "Tencent Highlights". Users can browse articles, pictures, small videos, short videos, short videos, live broadcasts and other content through Tencent Viewing Points in the three platforms of WeChat, Tencent QQ and QQ Browser.
Tencent integrates information flow content, Byte launches search services, while Baidu has been running on the track of search + information flow for a long time.
On January 8 this year, QuestMobile released the "2019 China Mobile Internet Eight Keywords" showing that the year-on-year growth of mobile Internet users has reached a record low, and at the same time, relying on search + information flow Baidu APP to achieve a rare increase in stock.
According to QuestMobile's data, Baidu's mobile mobile terminal penetration rate is 88.4%, which is the largest information flow application in the industry. The data from Baidu's Q2 financial report shows that in the second quarter of this year, Baidu's information flow user usage time increased by 33% year-on-year.
Therefore, it is an obvious fact that the dual-core system of search + information flow is an effective way to tap the traffic increment in the stock market, which is why Tencent wants to integrate its information flow content services.
With WeChat, Tencent QQ, QQ browser as the platform, through the upgraded information flow brand "Tencent Point of View", Tencent will integrate the original three independent product teams into one, the first thing to do is to achieve technical unification in the technology engine and content distribution mechanism, at the same time, on the business side, with Tencent as the main brand, the original decentralized advertising business will be integrated to form a complete information flow capability.
For Tencent, the internal demand for products is always greater than the external search demand, so WeChat search may continue to continue the internal positioning of the platform. For Tencent, search is supported by Sogou search, and it is enough to rely on social platforms internally to meet the specific needs of users.
From the perspective of the time node of the launch of the information flow product, in August 2012, today's headlines were launched, and in October 2016, Baidu released the search information flow product, and it was not until November last year that Tencent launched the "Tencent Highlights".
In terms of attitude towards information flow, Tencent continues to be cautious about products, and this caution is also reflected in last year's public account changes, and the change from subscription model to "subscription + information flow" has a lasting and long-term impact on the entire WeChat content ecology.
In fact, as a super product with such a large volume and such a wide range of users, Any change must be careful, but how to make the existing content ecosystem better serve the information flow and the community must be tencent's current focus on the problem.
For Tencent, QQ, WeChat as a social base camp, in fact, there are many content cards to play, just as a red envelope rain occupied half of the mobile payment in that year, social as the bottom card of WeChat, WeChat will not be easily used until the critical moment.
Two
The information flow "three points of the world" is the table, and the traffic ecological efficiency is the inside
Can headlines do search shake Baidu? I am afraid it is difficult, but search for Toutiao has to do, under the existing traffic product matrix, Toutiao needs a search tool to integrate the existing content system, while "search + information flow" to tap new monetization opportunities.
An obvious but easy to overlook fact is that headlines can not be considered to monetize in the early stage of searching, but in the end they need to embark on the road of monetization.
The traffic dispute in the stock era is essentially a dispute over the ecological efficiency of traffic. The dual-core traffic distribution of search + information flow may not be perfect, but it is an inevitable choice for all companies to improve the efficiency of traffic ecology.
In the view of the Internet jianghu team (VIPIT1), doing search is actually a systematic integration of existing traffic to open up wide-area coverage of traffic, while doing information flow is to strengthen traffic coordination and let internal traffic move, thus generating more monetization value.
Let's try to use E=C1 · C2· T's traffic eco-efficiency model analyzes the logic in it, namely:
Traffic ecological efficiency = coverage rate× traffic coordination × traffic conversion efficiency (transform)
For example, Baidu knows the traffic linkage between Q&A and Zhihu, and as a professional community platform, regardless of content depth or professionalism, it is better to know Q&A than to know Q&A, but the audience is relatively narrow, and Baidu knows that although Q&A is not deep and professional, it wins over a wide audience. Further up, there is Baidu Academic, which meets the needs of more vertical and professional community exchanges.
The linkage between the two is to maximize the strengths and avoid the weaknesses, and realize the maximum efficiency of ecological flow.
For another example, Tencent can form a complete traffic system integration after completing the integration of its content platforms with search, and under the premise of taking WeChat (social) as the framework, open up the traffic liquidity of the internal information of the Mini Program to the official account and then to the short video of Weishi, thus forming a new traffic coordination mechanism and improving the overall traffic ecological efficiency.
This is also why WeChat has always wanted to search deeper into the mini program to obtain a wider range of traffic capture and integration capabilities.
Therefore, Baidu, Tencent, and Byte divide their respective traffic territories in the name of search + information flow, but in fact, they are constantly improving their own traffic ecological efficiency, that is, not necessarily every part of a traffic ecology has a strong ability to monetize, and it is more necessary to achieve an overall traffic efficiency.
This is somewhat similar to the "ecological efficiency" of Amazon, Ali, Meituan and other enterprises, in fact, such as Amazon, Ali, Meituan, not all businesses are profitable, but these profitable and loss-making businesses are combined to achieve the improvement of ecological production efficiency as a whole.
The source lies in the nature of the Internet, the main body of Internet economic activities is producers, consumers and third-party channels, and Internet technology is actually playing a role in the undertaking of channels, so as an essential third party, the commercial essence of the Internet is value-added services.
Therefore, the more efficient this third-party channel is, the greater its value will naturally be. The essence of the information flow has become the "fragrant food" that everyone flocks to, because this technology effectively improves the traffic coordination and traffic conversion efficiency, thereby improving the overall traffic generation efficiency.
In terms of monetization, the monetization advantages of information flow do not need to be repeated, and the fact that information flow has become Baidu's "cash cow" business has also proved this.
While providing strong monetization capabilities, the negative effect of information flow on the ecological efficiency of traffic is actually revealed, on the one hand, there may be incremental information distribution bottlenecks in the information cocoon driven by algorithms, on the other hand, the recommendation accuracy based on big data analysis also needs to be improved.
For example, recently The Internet editor Evin bought a pair of sneakers on a certain platform, but still received information flow advertising pushes for modified sneakers from various platforms. This clichéd "hindsight" problem is actually not just an "information cocoon" problem, but is caused by the information asymmetry between different platforms generated by data barriers.
Therefore, information flow not only needs to rely on algorithm-side optimization to obtain accuracy improvement, but also needs to achieve a kind of "user situation awareness" on the data side to improve the positive effect of information flow on the overall traffic ecological efficiency.
Three
The Next Stage in the Evolution of Information Flow: The "Socialization" of Technology
Information flow is a way to solve the problem of traffic acquisition in information excess, when people find that the information filtered by the algorithm is not accurate enough, or the algorithm filters the information, the value of the search is revealed again.
In fact, whether it is search or information flow, it is a way to meet people's information acquisition needs, the difference is that the search corresponds to the determined information or service needs, and the information flow is an active supply of "information to find people" based on algorithm guessing. Search + information flow is the satisfaction of two different needs.
The core value of search + information flow is actually very simple, that is, it can provide users with convenient, accurate and efficient active + passive information acquisition. This simple core value can really increase the retention and conversion of APP users. This is also why Baidu APP can still achieve an increase in stock after adopting the dual-core mechanism of search + information flow.
In fact, compared with Tencent, byte's demand for this "dual-core growth" is more urgent, because the social links of WeChat in Tencent's information flow advertising business play a crucial role, so compared with other types of traffic, social attributes mean a natural barrier.
For Byte, although the traffic of vibrato is very fierce, it is not irreplaceable, and it does not have a strong scarcity itself. In addition, for Byte, the rise of live streaming may be an increment, but it may also be a variable: the rise of live streaming on other platforms may rob a part of the traffic that originally belonged to Douyin.
In modern warfare, the best defense is offense. The search + information flow is more like a "defensive attack" for Byte, that is, the improvement of the ecological efficiency of traffic through search + information flow to make up for the loss of traffic that may be caused by the rise of live streaming.
As mentioned in On Industrial Society and Its Future, psychologists use the term "socialization" to refer to the process of training children to think and act in accordance with the requirements of society. "A well-socialized person believes in and obeys the moral code of the society to which he belongs, and is well suited to his identity as part of the normal functioning of society."
For the Internet industry, a fully "socialized" Internet technology can adapt to the basic norms of the society in which it is located, and can promote and enhance the normal operation of business forms.
The search technology itself is an Internet technology that has been fully "socialized", but the information flow with algorithms as the core needs more "socialization" to meet the requirements of the technology itself under the existing commercial and social norms.
The Internet Jianghu Team (VIPIT1) believes that whether Tencent does information flow or byte does search, the essence is a process of technical "socialization": whether people are looking for information or information is looking for people, they are all using technology to tap the value of the existing traffic ecology to achieve the optimization of the business efficiency of the enterprise itself.
Search + information flow, in fact, the current information flow is not completely "socialized" temporary solution, for the algorithm-driven information flow, the future will one day have a super algorithm insight into the Internet world, to fill the lack of information flow "socialization" of the shortcomings.