Two People: 1 Hundred Million In Five Years

From 2 users increased to 100 million registered users, 15 million active daily users, 3G portal network took 5 years.

In October 2009, Guangzhou, Guangzhou's Zhuzhou new city, Deng Yuqiang held a celebration. The company's CEO 3G turned the cell phone into a series of numbers on the big screen as the dice. 100 million, this is the total number of registered users of the 3G portal of the digital technology operation in October 2009, and the annual turnover is expected to reach 150 million yuan.

As early as the early issuance of 3G licences in early 2009, there was no shortage of explorer in the 3G market. After years of exploration, the 3G portal finally found a "small key" that affected the huge market and volatile market, and its business model also gradually formed.

Hurricane effect in free mode

At the beginning of 2004, Deng Yuqiang and Zhang Xiangdong two people discussed the construction of the largest free mobile phone website in China in a 6 square meter cabin on the Stone Road West of Tianhe, Guangzhou.

In March 16th of that year, the 3G portal was formally launched. There are only 2 online people on that day - Deng Yuqiang and Zhang Xiangdong. How to sell? This is a big problem. There was not much money and no channels to cooperate with operators. They thought of viral marketing: taking themselves as seeds, transmitting ten, ten to 100.

They first aimed at those students who had not yet had Internet experience and mobile phone players on the Internet, and posted posts on various mobile forums, and invited the moderators in the mobile Monnet forum to be moderators on the 3G portal. These webmasters also rely on the special position in the forum, bringing a large number of active users to the 3G portal.

"The domestic Internet is easier to form a gathering effect, also known as the hurricane effect, that is, businesses with high-quality information and content, users will take the initiative to move closer to it, rather than relying on advertising money, users do not eat this set." Cao Ming, vice president of 3G portal market, said.

It is in this mode that the emergence of free WAP has won the support of users. Besides students, selling mobile phones has become their propaganda team. At the same time, they also make use of every meal, meeting, travel... They can participate in any social activities that they can think of and participate in.

3G portal has become the representative of "independent free WAP website" in the process of transmission. It has been online for 8 months, and the number of users has reached 1 million.

Advertising is content, entertainment is advertising.

With customers, how can we make money?

The founder of the technology has positioned the website as "media". According to the traditional profit model of the media, advertisers must seek business interests. However, in the advertising campaign of mobile website, Zhang Xiangdong tried to subvert the definition of traditional advertisement.

Since March 24, 2006, the 3G portal has officially started mobile advertising. Through a link to BENQ MP3, BENQ pioneered a special area on the 3G portal to provide the most fresh products and brand information. "This is the first mobile marketing case in the free independent WAP field." Zhang Yi, chairman of AI media market consulting group, told China business reporter.

However, this kind of advertisement is just an attempt. A brand marketing manager told reporters that he was not optimistic about mobile Internet advertising, because the size of the screen is limited, the effect of communication is not obvious.

There is still a lot of support for this statement. In response, Zhang Xiangdong said: "this is not professional!" he retorted that mobile advertising has more advantages than traditional media advertising, such as "the nearest media", which has the function of integrating the media, and the multimedia function is more powerful.

Zhang Xiangdong, a journalist, defined the mobile Internet advertising as follows: advertising is content, entertainment is advertising. On Christmas Day 2007, fashion brand CONVERSE entered the 3G portal through the interactive game of "looking for the elk for the Santa Claus" by sponsoring an embedded advertisement with game icons, which attracted more than 4 million users' clicks and participation in two weeks.

"One of the bad impressions of traditional advertisements is disturbing. The traditional ads which are forced to insert are influenced by the new media, like parents' preaching to rebellious children. Emphasizing interaction and entertainment, allowing users to participate is one of the most important standards of advertising effectiveness. Zhang Xiangdong said that the best way to promote mobile marketing on free WAP is to push and pull together, first of all, to encourage users to interact with each other through activities.

This advertising mode has created a doubling performance over the past 3 years. Since 2008, some mobile phone manufacturers, even mobile operators, and nine major banks have launched ads to the 3G portal. 2009 performance is expected to exceed 150 million yuan, an increase of 50%.

"Website + client" combined into flavor viscose.

There is no shortage of operators who see the advantages of independent and free WAP mode. By the end of 2006, tens of thousands of WAP websites had appeared in China, and several major portals of the Internet had built WAP websites.

At this time, the 3G portal network is facing challenges: how to stick 10 million users firmly and become loyal users to cope with the competition of giants entering the market.

"At that time, we were not unable to make money, and we were more concerned about continuing to win popularity." Zhang Xiangdong said, at that time, it was all day long to think about how to use the low-cost and interesting way to let people know the mobile website that provides free content.

"We believe that the profit on the Internet must start with user needs, to ensure a large number of user base, and to ensure that they have gold demand." Deng Yuqiang said that as early as 2006, they started the layout of mobile client software, and formulated the strategy of "website + client".

Since the launch of the Internet in 2004, it is a daily application to see the information on the mobile Internet anytime, anywhere. But how can users save more money and more conveniently open the mobile phone to get services on the mobile network? The response speed of the client is more important than the network obviously.

"The package offered by China Mobile is 5 yuan 30M a month. Using the client to access the Internet, more information can be downloaded in limited traffic. Moreover, the operation of the client is easy to be habituation to users, thus sticking to customers. Deng Yuqiang, born by IT, understands the development of client like Moore's law.

In June 2006, the 3G portal launched the first version of the mobile streaming media player GGTV, which is mainly used to support mobile phone live television, mobile movies, network video and other on-demand. In March 2007, GGTV was active and more than 500 thousand users per day. In April 2007, the 3G portal announced the launch of the new player GGLive. After installing the software, it can broadcast programs, and can also watch NBA, live concerts and other live broadcast anytime and anywhere.

The mobile client products are directly linked to the forums and news pages of the portal, and participation in interaction can make the number of advertisements covered by multiple times, thus achieving the advertising effect. Deng Yuqiang believes that this is equivalent to "essence" plus "viscose", which can attract and stick firmly to it.

Expert opinion

The uncertain future of 3G

Zhang Yi, chairman of AI Media Consulting Group:

For a long time, 3G portals have paid too much attention to advertising as the main mode of income. I personally do not agree. In three years, it is difficult for China's wireless advertising to continue the PC Internet's current glory. I believe the carrying capacity of a single mobile website determines the total capacity of its advertising. I suggest that the 3G portal can expand its revenue models in terms of user payment products, such as paid reading, mobile games, SNS, etc., from the perspective of users' payment. From the perspective of 3G portal's questionable user scale, it can be fully charged with the morning horse charging project, and the revenue idea is clear.

Li Xing, Dean of School of Journalism and communication, South China University of science and technology,

3G has brought huge traffic benefits to mobile operators through free use of large numbers of users, but operators only pay for promotional activities, which is not cost-effective for 3G portals. In addition, as a media, 3G portal has no problem in advertising profit mode, but after all, it lacks the advantages of content production, so it can not have strong original content like traditional media. If we only rely on content services to fight the world alone, some businesses, such as live video, are still likely to be replaced by other media tools. As a media channel, the direction of its application determines the future. Therefore, more attention should be paid to the future application of the market, such as mobile search business, which represents the new force of the market.