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Zhou Buqi did not agree to the plan to acquire the advertising company Admeld, mainly because he was not optimistic about this direction.

Don't look at the fact that Google is making a lot of noise now. It has successively acquired three major Internet advertising operating companies and occupied half of the market, so that it has almost formed a monopoly.

But that makes no sense at all.

That is to say, there will be significant effects in recent years. When the mobile Internet develops and a new generation of digital office talents grow up, Internet advertising will inevitably move towards a point-to-point direct sales model.

Now companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft will strive hard to compete for this kind of advertising intermediary companies, mainly due to the commercial promotion of Apps in the early days of the mobile Internet.

Now is the early stage of the mobile Internet. Which apps have the best promotion effect?

have no idea!

Merchants want to advertise through mobile terminal apps, but they don’t know how to operate it. At this time, the significance of advertising agencies appears. They can use very professional faces to undertake this part of the business.

At the same time, because it is the early days of the mobile Internet, almost all of the mobile apps are startup companies. These companies are very small and usually only have product development departments.

The absence of a marketing department means that they have no advertising resources; the absence of sales staff means that they cannot send people to advertisers to solicit advertisements.

At this time, the significance of this advertising intermediary appears.

You can work directly with this kind of intermediary.

Then hang the advertisements from the intermediary platform on your own products, and everyone will share the profits according to the proportion, and this model will take off.

The main reason why Google is rushing to acquire so many advertising companies is Android.

For example, there is an advertising company A and an advertising company B.

Google has acquired advertising company A, so when mobile apps in Android display ads, they will choose from advertising company A, which greatly enhances Android's industry competitiveness.

This is actually suspected of being a monopoly.

Why can businesses only choose advertising companies owned by Google and not third-party advertising platforms?

Because now is the early stage of the industry, the rules and regulations are not perfect enough, Android is still in a period of brutal growth, and there are many brutal operations and operating methods.

With the development of the times and the maturity of the mobile Internet, the market will become more and more standardized, and the Android system will also be improved and optimized bit by bit.

By then, the mobile app industry will have matured, and advertisers will have a deeper and deeper understanding of apps, so there will be no need to pay extra fees to operate through those middlemen.

In short, the acquisition of Admeld, an advertising company, will be very effective in the short term.

In the long run, it doesn’t make much sense!

Even if there is demand in the future, the core competitive resource is the recommendation effect of platform advertising, rather than the hard work of middlemen.

No one is stupid, and everyone knows to spend the least money to buy the best service.

Just like Netflix.

With the help of Boss Zhou, Netflix is ​​now developing rapidly, with a market value of US$14.2 billion, more than 30 million users worldwide, and revenue in a single quarter of more than US$900 million.

However, is Netflix’s success because of its excellent platform?

In fact, it's not at all. Netflix is ​​just a platform for issuing streaming media copyrights for film and television works. To put it bluntly, it is a middleman platform.

It doesn’t matter how well this kind of intermediary platform is built, the key is to have excellent content to support it.

If the content provider cuts off its "supply" to Netflix, and Netflix has no strategic plan for self-produced dramas, this will be a huge corporate risk. With the in-depth development of the Internet industry, there will definitely be a transformation from channel as king to content as king.

For the Internet advertising industry, these middlemen are the channels, and the stickiness and affinity of the product to users are the content. In the final analysis, if you want to earn more advertising fees, you don't have to have a good relationship with advertising intermediaries, but you need to make your own products better and attract the most users.

Users vote with their feet to choose products, and merchants vote based on users' choices.

This is actually an analogy, but many people just can't think of it, because they "don't know the true face of Mount Lu, just because they are in this mountain".

Even a business tycoon of Larry Page’s caliber can make this kind of stupid mistake.

In fact, he had already learned his lesson.

After Larry Page came to power, he shut down many Google products, including one called Google Reader.

This product is a bit like Toutiao made by Ziweixing in China.

However, there are some core philosophical differences.

Google Reader is an aggregator product, which aggregates excellent content from all over the Internet into this product and pushes it to users. Users do not need to jump among many websites. As long as they log in to Google Reader, they can quickly grasp the latest social trends.

At first glance, it looks like a very good model, very similar to Toutiao.

In fact, it is not the same at all.

Google Reader does not produce content, it is just a porter. Bring other people’s excellent content and push it to users, and then share the profits after receiving them.

To put it bluntly, it is an intermediary based on text content, and it is the business model of an intermediary.

Today’s headlines are different.

At the beginning, Toutiao also had the function of an aggregator, gathering all the excellent content from the entire Internet. But there’s a problem. These contents are copyrighted. If they don’t let you steal them, you can’t use them! Not even giving money!

The reason why Google Reader cannot continue is because as the scale of this product becomes larger and larger, those content developers quit.

They work hard to produce content, and then it is used by Google Reader... Doesn't this become working for Google? Behind the content should be the creators, not the workers!

Larry Page had no choice. Seeing that this product was dying, he had no choice but to shut down the separate operations team and merge it into the newly launched social product "Google+" in an attempt to make the Reader product more effective. The last remaining heat brought some traffic to “Google+”.

The fundamental reason for Toutiao's success is that it has adopted a different business strategy.

In fact, after the launch of Google Reader, dozens or hundreds of similar aggregator products were launched in China, many of which did well and became the focus of capital pursuit.

But it soon stopped working.

Because they didn't innovate and completely copied Google's model. Even the original Google Reader can’t survive, let alone those domestic copycat products.

Imitation is okay, but you must learn from each other’s strengths to innovate in business!

Such as today's headlines.

Behind Toutiao is Ziweixing. Ziweixing has a core strategic product called Xiaonei.com. Xiaonei.com targets the largest group of college students in the country.

Such background factors are the most critical factor for Toutiao to stand out.

Relying on the group of college students, Toutiao can go beyond the category of aggregator products. Toutiao no longer needs to be a middleman to transport content from other websites, but can rely on these active college students to produce its own content!

The secret to Toutiao’s success is not content middlemen, but content producers!

Even though most of the content is highly homogeneous, college students go to other websites and see some excellent content, then delete, delete, modify, and copy bits and pieces to make it their own article.

A lot of articles from all over the world.

This kind of "original" content can effectively circumvent copyright restrictions, allowing Toutiao to no longer be constrained by content providers and instead produce its own content.

Without any interference factors behind the scenes, success was achieved immediately.

Just like Netflix.

After Zhou Buqi became the largest shareholder of Netflix, the first thing he did was to promote Netflix's self-produced drama business and promote Netflix's transformation from a middleman to a content provider.

Netflix is ​​now the largest streaming media platform in the world.

From Zhou Buqi's perspective of "hindsight", these are the most basic and simple principles of Internet management, but at this moment in 2011, they are the most profound, complex and amazing management principles. philosophy.

Lu Qi, Jones and other Ziweixing International executives didn't understand it, and neither did the Google executives led by Larry Page.

Fortunately, Zhou Buqi understood clearly and had to take the initiative to get out of the way of Google and give up the plan to bid for Admeld.

Larry Page was different. He was very concerned about Admeld's case. After hearing that Ziweixing was participating in the bidding, he became very nervous and visited Zhou Buqi's door.

Zhou Buqi couldn't help but want to laugh.

Unexpectedly, a case that he didn't like at all became an opportunity for him to have further contact with Google.

What a blessing in disguise.

Zhou Buqi did not invite him to his office, but took the initiative to express his goodwill and said that he wanted to visit the famous "Google Garage". Larry Page was happy and smiling broadly.

Silicon Valley has a garage culture, and many startups were born in garages in their early stages.

Google started working out of a garage before it had seven employees. Including Apple, Steve Jobs also started his business in his garage.

The most famous one is of course the HP Garage.

At that time, Mr. Hewlett-Packard started his business in his garage, which truly started the garage culture of Silicon Valley and was called "the birthplace of Silicon Valley." Now, the HP Garage has become a national cultural relic in the United States and is protected. You can only take photos from a distance and cannot visit casually.

Zhou Buqi has been to the Google Garage before, but he has never been in it. This time, with Larry Page, he can experience the entrepreneurial environment up close.

By the way, we talked about work.

"Admeld?" Zhou Buqi seemed to have never heard of this company, "What is this?"

Larry Page smiled and said: "It's an advertising company, and Google is interested in acquiring it. But I heard that Ziweixing also made an offer, and the price is very high."

Zhou Buqi stroked an old-fashioned computer covered with a transparent plastic sheet, looked back at him, and said amusedly: "You hate competition?"

Larry Page stood at the door, holding his shoulders, "I just think it makes no sense to raise the price too much. The actual value of Nortel's patent is only 1 billion US dollars, but it was sold to 4.5 billion US dollars by Apple and Microsoft. It is destined to be A losing business.”

Zhou Buqi agrees with this point.

Nortel's patents are too expensive. This is destined to be the most deceptive patent transaction in history. The price is too exaggerated. Apple and Microsoft are really crazy in order to curb Android.

Larry Page said: "Google's acquisition of Admeld is mainly to strengthen Android's competitiveness and compete with Apple's iOS system, Microsoft's WM system, Nokia's Symbian system and BlackBerry's BlackBerry system."

"Ah?" Zhou Buqi was a little surprised, "Android has so many competitors?"

Larry Page smiled and said, "At least that's the case for now."

Zhou Buqi looked left and right, still quite touched, and said casually: "No problem, I will send an email to the board of directors later, telling them to give up competition with Admeld. Good products should serve. Give it to the company that’s a better fit. The greatest companies look at issues from an industry-wide perspective, not from a selfish perspective.”

Larry Page was so impressed that he said, "Yes, that's how it should be."

Zhou Buqi smiled and planned to move out after a brief visit. There was nothing good to see, which was just over 20 square meters. "In my opinion, cooperation and mergers and acquisitions between companies must be 1+1 greater than 2." effect, thereby maximizing the total social cost savings. If Twitter is better in Google users, then leave it to Google; if Admeld can exert more value in Google users, and Ziweixing will compete at all costs, then It’s a regression in productivity for the entire Internet industry.”

Larry Page took a deep breath and said with emotion, "You are like my life mentor."

To be honest, being worshiped by a big boss of this level puts a lot of pressure on Zhou Buqi's shoulders. He can't reveal his secrets at this critical moment and can only push forward. "Competition is essential. Competition brings changes in the industry." Progress. But the technology industry should not only pursue competition, but also pursue cooperation, with everyone working towards a common goal."

Larry Page smiled and said: "Google has officially launched the final talks with Motorola, and it is estimated... that the results will be available within one month."

“Is Google going to make a phone?”

"No."

"It's best not to do it. MySpace is a lesson learned from the past."

Zhou Buqi followed the temptation and promoted Google's sale of Motorola to Asda.

MySpace is a famous social networking site and was once the world's largest social networking site. But it hasn’t worked in the past few years, and it’s been squeezed by Facebook to the point where it’s difficult to even survive.

In order to cope with the challenges in the new situation, MySpace launched a new big plan last year - making mobile phones.

As a result, the thunder was loud and the rain was small, and it was put into the market without even a splash.

Larry Page knew what he meant and said with a smile: "For efficiency reasons, Google can first reach a deal with Motorola. After completing the acquisition of Motorola, it can then split and sell some of its main businesses with Google." Unrelated lines of business.”

"I think you made a very good decision!"

Zhou Buqi shook hands with him.

The deal is considered complete.