Top of the big era

As the world's largest Internet giant, Yahoo has developed for so many years. Its businesses are all-encompassing. As long as it is a business that appears in the Internet industry, Yahoo has almost everything.

This resulted in the entire company's business structure being extremely bloated.

Now that Yahoo has basically been included in Ziweixing International's territory, it is time to make some business adjustments. What should be closed, what should be sold should be sold, and what should be integrated should be integrated.

Recently, Zheng Xiaoli started handling a case.

She wants to spin off Yahoo’s “Yahoo Q\u0026A” business and integrate it into the US version of Zhihu Quora, and then introduce Quora, which has more powerful content, into Yahoo’s platform.

In the past, Yahoo was a news platform.

Since it is news, the key point is “new”.

Because the audience of Yahoo in the past were social elites, they needed the latest social trends to understand what is happening in the world today, so as to adjust their future work and life status.

Things are different now. Yahoo App has transformed into a platform-based product.

Not just news, but old news.

There can also be other content that is not news or old news.

After all, it’s a place where you see things through words.

The introduction of Quora can provide Yahoo with a huge content library.

After returning to Silicon Valley from Hollywood, the first thing Zhou Buqi did was to meet with Zheng Xiaoli. When he heard about this, he smiled and said, "That's not easy. I'll just hand over Quora to you."

"This..." Zheng Xiaoli was a little worried, "Is this appropriate? I used to be the vice president of product, Robert..."

Zhou Buqi waved his hand and said nonchalantly: "No matter who it is, no one can stop Yahoo's transformation! Xiaoli, we are our own people, and you don't have to be too careful with those Americans. Most of those people Some of them are here to make money, and they may not necessarily be of the same mind as us."

Zheng Xiaoli smiled, but she still had to be cautious, "Well, I'll go talk to Robert and hope he won't be dissatisfied."

Zhou Buqi nodded and said with a smile: "How is it? How is the development of the platform-based Yahoo App?"

Zheng Xiaoli said happily: "It's far better than expected. As you said, this society is divided into 28 and 28, and the mass group will always be more than the elite group. Since this year, the number of Yahoo App users has increased by 120 million. Among them, the North American market has increased by 80 million. The total number of users has reached 260 million."

Zhou Buqi said: "Huge users are the foundation and the foundation of the traffic business."

Zheng Xiaoli said with a smile: "As we have analyzed before, mass users have very poor sensitivity to news. They care about interesting content rather than hot news. A lot of Hollywood entertainment news, such as Tom Cruise's daughter , Leonardo’s new girlfriend, these were all published half a year ago, and their performance is no worse than the latest Hollywood gossip news.”

The news market in Europe and the United States is different from that in China.

Domestic users will be very concerned about national affairs. After watching the superficial and simple international news, they seem to know everything about international events, as if they have the courage to guide the country.

Another example is military and patriotic news, which are also popular sections in the country.

However, this kind of content is a niche sector in developed countries in Europe and the United States, and entertainment, finance, sports, life, tourism and the like are popular fields.

This actually makes Yahoo's development more difficult.

After all, international politics, military protests and national sentiments are the areas where media hype and conspiracy theories are easiest to create, and where it is easiest to arouse resonance and emotions among the public, thereby driving the widest traffic.

When traffic breaks out, advertising revenue breaks out.

Toutiao is easy to create in China.

It is far more difficult to promote Yahoo's transformation overseas than to start Toutiao from scratch. Even if the transformation is successful, it is still unclear whether this "free + advertising model" news streaming platform is a correct business model.

Well-known media such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times can live very well because their app subscription fees are as high as ten to twenty dollars per month.

Zhou Buqi wanted to discuss this, "Yahoo App is a free platform, but it contains a lot of old news and vulgar content, which many elite users may not like very much."

Zheng Xiaoli said with a smile: "That's true. Fortunately, we have two sets of plans. In addition to Yahoo App, there is also Yahoo News App. On Yahoo News App, all high-quality content is available, except Yahoo's self-operated news , and some selected news purchased from outside. Most users choose Yahoo App, and elite users can choose to use Yahoo News App.”

Zhou Buqi asked: "What about the business model?"

"ah?"

"The Yahoo App is easy to say. As long as there are more users and the traffic is high, advertising will be enough to run this business model, just like Toutiao in China. But the Yahoo News App can really operate with advertising revenue alone. Get up? What do you think about a paid system? Like the Wall Street Journal."

"don't want!"

Zheng Xiaoli did not hesitate and flatly rejected the suggestion.

Zhou Buqi was relatively calm, "Let's talk about it."

Zheng Xiaoli said: "Yahoo created the 'free + advertising' Internet model. Anyone can change it, but Yahoo cannot change it. This is Yahoo's history and heritage. Especially now that Ziweixing has acquired Yahoo, if even the free model has changed, This will make many users lose their loyalty to Yahoo even more."

Zhou Buqi mused: "There is no sustainable business model for high-quality online news."

Zheng Xiaoli smiled and said: "That's not necessarily the case! In other words, you don't necessarily need to make money. You can look for greater strategic value."

"Um?"

"Yahoo is not one of those small news websites, nor is it traditional media such as the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. Yahoo is a huge Internet giant with a rich and complete product ecosystem."

"Um."

Zhou Buqi nodded.

Zheng Xiaoli continued: "The Wall Street Journal's App must be charged. Without charging, they would not be able to survive at all. They only have news services. High-quality online news, just like news in traditional media, must be charged. Yahoo News apps don’t necessarily need to be like this.”

“Can Yahoo News App successfully develop its business model by being free?”

"cannot."

"ah?"

Zhou Buqi laughed dumbly.

Zheng Xiaoli said: "Yahoo App can make money. Although it has not made money yet, it will definitely make money in the future. Each of us believes it. However, the high-quality Yahoo News App is also operated for free, and it is indeed difficult to be responsible for its own profits and losses. However, Yahoo There are also more linked products. After integrating with Ziweixing International's business, there will be even more linked products. For example, products such as Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Travel, EverZoom, EverDrive, Weishu, Ziwei Cloud, etc. Even external Netflix, Spotify, and PayPal. Yahoo News App will have the world's largest user base of social elites, and it can achieve its goals by recommending more Internet services to these high-income, highly educated, and high-consumption groups. It has strategic value. Just like Micropoint Antivirus, it does not make money on its own, but with this product, it has laid the foundation for the development of Ziweixing's huge product line. I think this is the greater value."