Little Red Book: Value Dismantling Under Draught

Small red book platform governance key period, sound volume was once passive. As a result, many platforms continue to "lift" them and sprint in their form.

For example, micro-blog recently launched the social APP "oasis", the interface resemblance to Instagram, the content is high imitation small red book; vertical community mother helps to initiate the alliance of pregnant and child production, claims to build "Xiaohong book" in maternal and infant fields; with the help of grass and grass economy, the travel photo is known as "Travel Edition Xiao Hong Shu", financing 50 million.

Another movement seems to have a secret connection with Xiao Hong's book: not long ago, we quickly learned about it. A friend said that at least he could make a little red book.

The little red book of platform governance cycle has become a standard that many people would like to call it. What does this reflect?

A phenomenon: the little red book that is attached to it.

Quark believes that this phenomenon reflects that in the little red book, there must be a hidden symbol of the development of the whole industry in this cycle. The little red book did not lose its industry value because of its governance. It can even be said that the trend of governance precisely confirms its core competitiveness.

At the moment, the analysis of Xiaohong book around this phenomenon should enable us to see some frontier trends, or capture the hidden secrets of industrial transformation, innovation and growth.

Or from the above enterprises to "lift" the phenomenon of small red book. As you can see, "oasis" carries multiple categories and vertical contents. It is indeed like creating a new "grass planting community" in the "red book". In addition, it also strengthens the content of e-commerce service entry. The mother helps the superficial form, content form, richness and readability, and is very similar to Xiao Hong's book.

Obviously, if the key words are summarized, the topics of their little red books are community-based, grass planting economy, multi type media forms and contents.

In the view of quark, this basically covers the characteristics of the whole surface of Xiao Hong's book.

These characteristics are indeed the core competitiveness elements of Xiaohong book, which is currently considered. Do not say that the platform is not a violation. If you want to let people know that you are still in the Internet industry, you should feel that you are very young when you mention these key words in a proper time.

However, quark believes that if we look at this kind of surface characteristics, though it is a core element, it is still hard to understand why this phenomenon will fall on the little red book and the real competitiveness of the company. Because no matter whether it is community, grass or many kinds of community content services, it is not the first creation of small red books to look at every element individually. In addition, I think it is difficult to understand why it is subject to this round of regulation and governance.

Competitiveness analysis of Xiaohong book

We believe that there must be a more systematic and platform based capability hidden in the little red book. It is not limited to the above surface form.

What is it?

It may be necessary to briefly review the past and present of Xiao Hong's book. It was born in 2013, started in "Xiaohong Book exit shopping strategy" (that year September on-line), and then quickly presented the community form, "Xiaohong book shopping notes" in December that year on-line. Later, the two gradually merged, and in December 2014, with the help of "welfare agency", a classic product: 95% of the goods were swept away for 2 hours. In the following years, it was known as the concept of "cross-border electricity supplier" and was once regarded as a platform for foreign terminals, honey buds and other platforms.

From 2013 to 2016, the concept of cross-border electricity providers was really crazy. Some listed companies, which are irrelevant to business, have even established overseas cross-border e-commerce business because of their overseas business. At that time, the location of red book was consistent with the trend and business logic. Moreover, the community-based electricity supplier has become a trend, and the concept of cross-border integration has become an independent sector. Later, Tmall and Jingdong

Vip.com and others have also strengthened their layout with the concept of independence.

However, in the second half of 2017, Qu Fang talked about community, content and lifestyle, and rarely mentioned Hai Tao or cross-border e-commerce services. At the end of November, Xiao Hong began to invite the stars to come in. Star "grass" directly led to community activity.

The subsequent news is more sensitive: in late 2017, Xiaohong published the news of transformation. In June 2018, Xiao Hong received $300 million from Ali's leading investment, and its post valuation was over $3 billion. At that time, the founder Qu Fang and CEO Mao Wenchao said in the internal letter, "all return to zero and start again", signalling a signal of restarting. And Ali's competitiveness in the global e-commerce dimension has also given the outside world a deep imagination.

The continued verification after financing. After August 2018, the key words of Qu Fang and Mao Wenchao were community, content and lifestyle. And Xiaohong's fast sprint and short sprint video sites are a form of rich media that is a landscape of the short video industry. In addition, its technology platform concept, based on the operation of technology and data continues to attract much attention from the industry.

In the same period, the data transmitted a signal: the QuestMobile report showed that from the beginning of 2018 to the end of June 2018, the small red book DAU rose from about 3000000 to 8 million 406 thousand. Q1 daily activity increased the total net app rank sixth, the community class ranked first.

This should be the footnote followed by Xiao Hong's book: since August 2018, it has weakened the electricity supplier and transformed the content community in an all-round way. In fact, before that, it has been working for a long time and has established a leading position.

Today, Xiao Hong book, although there are still mall, or even self owned goods, but it not only for cross-border electricity providers, and even the concept of "business" has no longer strengthened. We also see that its cooperation with ALI is getting deeper and deeper. The whole platform of Xiao Hong's book is almost the mapping of Ali.

The platform's sound volume and brand influence over the past year have been more focused on the community dimension. Up to now, more than 300 million registered users, more than 100 million of the monthly live users, 70% of them belong to the post-90s users, and the community daily exposure is over 3 billion times, of which 70% of the exposure is from the notes of ordinary users.

This data equivalent is enough to enhance the BAT and byte beating of the community and social dimension, as well as the huge platform that has been seen as the spice of social networking providers.

In the new expression, the little red book is "a lifestyle platform", "deliberately" to find a beautiful, real and diverse world, to find interesting stars, to mark their lives together with them, "marking my life" became the Slogan of APP.

Before this platform governance, the form of Xiaohong book is like a "Taobao of community concept" in the digital economic era. We are continuing to open platforms, build ecosystems, and set up a set of regulatory mechanisms around the platform.

You may think that the situation of Xiaohong book is just a case of strategic transformation under the concept crisis of "cross-border electricity supplier". Its effectiveness is incidental.

It seems to be so on the surface. But if you look back at the birth of the little red book and the development history of more than 6 years, we will find that although there are many adjustments and upgrading during the period, for example, from shopping strategy to information sharing community to "community + business" form, a base that has never changed is: it has never shaken the "community" orientation.

More than 6 years of operation and many classic service cases are the result of "community" stimulation. In parallel with the concept of "Internet +", Xiao Hong is like a "community +" service form.

Qu Fang's speech 4 years ago can explain many problems. In 2015, it was also the year when the concept of "cross-border electric business" was the hottest. In an interview, she said that the core of Xiao Hong's book is the community, which is very important.

At that time, she emphasized how far each community can go and how much value it can create. Two important things are important: first, who the seed user is; it will lay the gene; two, the core rule, what the community encourages and motivate, and its values will determine how far the community can go.

You can see that the two dimensions she emphasized are "communities", and she did not mention the elements of "cross-border electricity supplier" or "electricity supplier".

Indeed, over the past 6 years, Xiao Hong is more like a concept platform for "community +". The dimension of e-commerce is more like an extension of services than core elements.

Quark believes that this vein is the foundation of today's results. At the same time, it is also the background for many enterprises to "rely on" the little red book and create topics.

However, there is still a core problem: although it has been insisting on the "community" orientation since its birth, Xiao Hong is not the source of the concept of "community". The short video and many grass and grass economies are not the original ones. The outside world has strong opponents in every dimension. Why can Xiaohong Book precipitate the above equivalent data and get the first prize? Even though the platform governance cycle has become a topic of close proximity to many companies?

Compared to the concept of community positioning, this topic, I am afraid, is the secret that Xiao Hong Book surpasses the concept of cross border electricity supplier and completes the transformation. It is also the real core competitiveness of the company.

Let quark try to dismantle the logic of the little red book.

Combined with the above discussion and the impression that the outside world has left for over 6 years, let us first see how many elements the company has combined.

1, consumption insight

This layer is most easily forgotten. But over the past 6 years, we have seen that in the speeches of the two founders, there are more human factors, including users and consumers. Rather than that, Xiao Hong emphasizes the concept of "community", rather, it knows more about the change of consumption trend and the change of people's basic needs.

Ignoring this, the whole platform building can easily collapse.

2, product strength

This layer is also easy to be forgotten. In fact, it is the technological condensation of consumption insight.

Xiao Hong's product design, especially the UI interface and structure, is popular among young people. This is not because of its technology, but also to the presentation of elements, such as thousands of people, thousands of faces, information flow, waterfall flow and so on. They are all public and universal forms. The structure of red book platform and UI design can throw BAT and headlines into a street and penetrate Z generation mentality. It is not accidental, but depends on its understanding of users. This is centered on user and data. Of course, technology presentation is also a key tool.

3, open community-based positioning

Positioning is no longer mentioned. However, the "lifestyle" is closely related to the UGC mechanism of the whole category.

4, the generation mechanism of whole category content.

There are secrets in combination with 3.

The sudden growth trend will soon encounter difficulties: first, the vertical community will almost invariably strengthen the transaction attribute and bring the goods with strong thinking, so that the heavy supply chain, technology, infrastructure and infrastructure layout can not be avoided. The cost pressure can no longer rely on vertical service dilution. Once the scale of transaction attributes is reached, the community attribute and content generation capacity is not weakened, which is the contradiction between the transaction and the transaction business, which leads to the deviation of the value of the whole platform. Two, under the previous heavy service form, with the upgrading and grading of the consumption, the vertical platform will be short of multi category services, unable to build the so-called scene and lack of more choices, so it is very difficult to continue to infiltrate the minds of the young users, and can not occupy more time. There are many drooping communities in the industry, including the little red book at the beginning of their birth in 2013.

Of course, there are many actions to expand the category from the commodity side, but almost without exception, they are all blood and tears. Since 2014, there have been statistics of entrepreneurial failure cases over the past 10 years. Among them, there are many tragedies, such as vertical communities, vertical electricity providers, vertical community electricity providers, and related O2O venture projects.

They ignore a reality. We can see in the above mentioned Qu Fang's 2015 speech. How far a community can go and how much value it can create is two important things. One is the seed users lay the gene, the two is the core rule. The direction and values of community encouragement determine how far it can go. Here is the power of the core rules. Vertical communities can not be pursued without commercialization. As long as they want to get through the depth, they will inevitably face the game between the core rules and the commercialization of the community platform.

On this topic, Deng Chao, a little red book CPO, has a brilliant expression: "community is the city, content is service."

Quark believes that "community is the city". Taking "city" as an example, it shows the secret of the UGC mechanism of Xiaohong book, which conforms to the classical framework of complex economics. We see that in reality, many platforms seem to be large in scale, but they are finally reduced because of the lack of diversity. "Content is service" shows the trust degree of the "red grass" economy platform and users and users, and the content production and distribution mechanism of user self-organization form, which is based on the core rule guidance of the platform.

5, rich media form

Integration of video, graphics and other media presentation forms.

6, technical support

Little red book does not seem to focus on technology. A few days ago, on the WAIC, Xiaohong book CTO Liu Yang emphasized that the whole community platform is like "a real, beautiful and diverse virtual city" without technical support, which is unimaginable, and the latter is the foundation of "city". Xiao Hong uses technology to connect all sectors of the city, providing "infrastructure, hydropower, gas and safety measures", and also more efficiently "connecting residents, information and transactions".

He points out the inner competitiveness from one angle: different from other search engines' knowledge search, what users are looking for in the platform is "lifestyle choice and decision" support, clothing wear, accommodation, cosmetics and so on. The answer is extremely personalized, without unified knowledge search results, so we must rely on AI's understanding and distribution of content, so as to achieve personalized search.

Of course there are many layers. Such as brand marketing and platform active mechanism, technology system and so on. Its "de centralization" and respect for individual mechanisms convey a spirit of openness and inclusiveness. Xiao Hong book APP's slogan, "marking my life", is a vivid manifestation.

Apart from these elements, the UGC service mechanism and service touch can make people feel the strong side of Xiao Hong's book directly.

But there are other platforms that are more powerful than others. For example, the volume of short video, red book is certainly not as good as fast, shaking. Other elements can't be seen by others alone.

But the competitiveness of Xiao Hong's book lies in the organic integration of the above multiple technologies and business elements. In this cycle, its value in the whole industry is a super synergy under the draught.

You may say that other colleagues are also moving towards the form of Xiao Hong's book. For example, the above mentioned topics such as "close to" cases, quick investment knowledge, and byte beating acquisition Interactive Encyclopedia are all cases of reverse integration. Many platforms are also gathering people to grow grass. Ali investing in small red books, spelling many forms, and so on, in their own dimensions, is also an ecological construction with broad vision.

Why, the small red book with a smaller revenue scale and a lighter model seems more accurate?

In the view of quarks, many of their peers are indeed tilting huge sums of money, moving towards the community and the economic form of grass planting. However, the temporary combination and integration is totally different from the independent and organic form developed by Xiao Hong's book in the past 6 years with the help of consumption insight into "community". This gap is not a technical issue, nor a product entry form problem, but a platform organic problem.

Even if we develop a product form similar to the little red book overnight, we have a richer media form and a higher number of users than it does. In the short and medium term, it is impossible to form a content production mechanism similar to it. Completely kneading is not an organic and complex "city".

In fact, we can see similar scenes in today's headlines and many other areas.

For example, today's headlines have reconstructed information distribution patterns by means of algorithm, media and content product matrix. Baidu and Tencent want to restrain their development. It is difficult to do so. Many of them are under the consumption classification, integrating elements such as "social games + game mechanism + group buying", plus open payment, logistics (and building a system like rookie) and so on, and accomplishments a new platform. Similarly, it is impossible for Amoy and Jingdong to reproduce the same shape.

Because behind this, the giants already have relatively complex business organizations. It is impossible to return to today's headlines and spoil the source of technology and business.

Returning to the case of little red book, other platforms are also unlikely to return to 2013 to replicate a community platform.

Strong input will backfire. Because the draught has changed. On the surface, Xiaohong book focuses on today's form in 2018, but in addition to community positioning, the number of users, the impact of grass planting economy on the whole industry environment and consumption trends have thrown other companies away.

Of course, it depends on the factors of founders, decision makers and teams. They are the power to turn all of these into reality.

The little red book at the moment is the best time point for air outlet, the super synergistic industrial efficiency symbol of multiple technical elements and commercial elements in the field of living community-based.

Value dismantling under draught

So, what is the value of this community platform?

In 2018, Ali was awarded the round, and the valuation of the book was $3 billion. At that time, its shape had no present situation.

A month ago, at the end of July, when the book was under the supervision of the platform, "LatePost" reported that, before going off the shelves, Xiao Hong was making a new round of financing with a pre valuation of US $5 billion, and the amount of financing was $4-5 billion. Besides, the main points for investors to pay attention to are: DAU's future growth space, liquidity, and whether it can become China's Instagram.

Xiao Hong then denied this. At the moment, however, its valuation is at least a step higher than the $3 billion in 2018.

Xiao Hong is very cautious about this topic at the moment. This may relate to its business model reengineering. Before, its service mode is "content + short video + electric business", plus advertising service, basically a complete closed loop. At present, the basic service module in APP is also true.

However, a friend familiar with the internal trend said that at present, at least, the "electricity supplier" is not part of the "commercialization" part.

My personal understanding is that this trend is related to the fact that Xiao Hong still needs to strengthen community attributes, build deeper moat, and also take into account the interests of investors such as Ali. After all, Ali electricity supplier dimension is strong, if Xiao Hong book is still independent of the layout of the electricity supplier module, there may be a direct game. There should be a more rational pattern of deep cooperation between them, rather than today's relatively simple graft and diversion.

Because Xiao Hong's book is not lack of consumption insight, and it can perceive the change of demand side faster than Ali and other partners with the help of powerful grass planting ability and user equivalence. To achieve an agile response, you need to have the ability to customize and respond individually. That is to say, the realizable level of Xiao Hong's book may have other rich forms.

In this dimension, quark does not agree with the view that it is regarded as the "Chinese version of Instagram".

On the little red book, the shadow of Instagram is shining. It is also shining in the way of Tao, fast, know, Baidu, today's headlines, B stations, and many more. And it is not any single platform.

The organic nature of Xiao Hong is here. It is an independent platform. Respecting its independence, we can continue to capture its growth and investment value.

As far as the basic business model is concerned, the biggest face of Xiao Hong's book now is C2C. It comes from the power of UGC. But we see that it is integrating into the mechanism of PGC, and the face of a B2C is also very clear.

However, in the view of quark, in the next stage, especially in the platform governance process, compared with the direct realisation mode, Xiao Hong's book should go to S2B2C's form on the basis of C2C and B2C. Its face will be very diverse, it is necessary to ensure the vitality of the platform opening, and at the same time to achieve standardized management. This process is not easy.

But on the basis of this, we believe that the value of Xiao Hong's book is that it will generate strong platform capability in the process of rapid growth and improvement of governance capability. As for commercial realisation, it should not be an urgent option at the moment.

Of course, when writing here, it is necessary to resume the topic of regulation and governance. This is indeed one of the urgent options for the development of Xiaohong book.

You might say that, since such an excellent platform, why has there been a lot of topics such as black production since 2018? Up to now, APP is still unable to download in multiple application stores.

Quark did not regard this incident as a negative indicator of Xiao Hong's book. On the contrary, it reflects the competitiveness of Xiao Hong's book and confirms our judgement: This is an open community platform with strong super synergy.

The governance problems it encountered are just like the challenges that BAT, many spate and multi platform platforms are facing. The source is not the platform itself, but the stubborn disease under the line. Not long before it came, the fast hand and B stations had just undergone similar rectification.

Of course, the platform can not avoid the responsibility of supervision, auditing and evasion. The response of Xiao Hong's book is almost the same as that of Ali and many other platforms. In addition to relying on technology, a full-time management team directly responsible for the establishment of the founder has been established, and a long-term mechanism of governance has been established. Actually. Before this round of supervision, Xiao Hong has been building a relatively complete normative system around this level.

The reason why it is stuck in this round is that it is related to its development potential since 2018, and two is related to its previous content category. Since 2018, its transformation has made remarkable progress and is growing too fast.

In the face of Xiao Hong's book, the outside world must reestablish such a recognition: although it is still a small company on the actual financial aspect, Xiao Hong is a huge platform in terms of content generation mechanism, content capacity and influence. This dimension is not inferior to the influence of BAT. It is indeed an efficient product of super synergy on a communal outlet.

We must see that the platform governance like Xiaohong book is a long-term process. While strengthening governance, we should give an inclusive approach to such open platforms and not kill them one by one. We believe that the competent authorities can see more positive value of these platforms.

In fact, we have seen an excellent mechanism in the process of Ali's governance over the years. Compared with the early positive anti-counterfeiting, it is more and more focused on long-lasting platform incentives, especially through platform services, with the upgrading of consumption, in the source of goods and services, industrial belt and other levels, with a system of thinking forging quality driven incentive system. Taobao and Juhuasuan played a great role in this process. This has even forced the upgrading of China's manufacturing industry. We believe that with the deepening of the governance of Xiaohong, especially the strengthening of the community core rules stressed by Qu Fang, the company should also be able to establish a more long-term mechanism.

Earlier, after the fast track, B station and other platforms resumed, the growth rate did not weaken. Quark believes that once the shelves are put on the shelves, Xiao Hong should also keep pace. Of course, this also depends on its actual mode and operation. If we are eager to cash in, it is likely to delay platform governance.

Therefore, at this level, quark asserts that in the next cycle, the focus of Xiao Hong's book must be concentrated on the intensive content of the community. The platform governance and business upgrading are not contradictory, but on the other hand, it is a synchronous relationship with the rising tide. Once the effective mode is established at these two levels, the little red book will become more powerful. In this process, its realizable mode and business mode will naturally come into being.