Open business day-to-day

Chapter 403 The road to a global social giant

Liu Hengdao: "Mr. Lin, if we want to turn WeChat into a social platform, I don't think we can simply imitate WeChat. We need to dig deep and innovate based on the characteristics of official accounts to provide users with a better experience and more Meticulous service."

Lin Rui thought for a while and said, "What you said makes sense. You can't blindly imitate Penguin. If you want to make WeChat a global social platform, you need to recreate the official account according to the specific situation."

"What are your thoughts on this?"

Liu Heng pondered for a moment, then spoke again.

"I do have some ideas, but they're not mature enough."

Lin Rui smiled and said: "It's okay, just say it if you have any good ideas, let's discuss it."

So, Liu Heng cleared his throat and began to introduce.

"Mr. Lin, I think so. Although Penguin has launched subscription accounts and service accounts, some functions are not carefully divided, and there are still many areas worthy of innovation and improvement."

"For example, we can launch different official account templates according to different industries, categories and companies."

"Such as government departments, catering industry, retail industry, food industry, financial industry, enterprises and institutions... etc., including some small and medium-sized enterprises and individuals."

"According to the nature of the company, the industry, the scale, and the user group, different official account templates are launched. It is even possible to launch a custom official account template on this basis, allowing users to freely add and delete some functions. "

"For example, in the catering industry, we can launch corresponding templates in a targeted manner. Some of the functions in the templates can be store inquiries, queue ordering, even takeaway services, member recharges, etc..."

"This is difficult to achieve on Weibo through official accounts. Moreover, although some companies have their own official websites, almost no one logs in. Relatively speaking, more private official accounts are more convenient for them."

"This method is convenient for all kinds of companies. What activities are there? Any discounts can be announced through the official account."

"It can even connect with some government departments. Water bills, electricity bills, and Internet bills can be connected with relevant government departments through the official account and paid directly."

"Some relevant government departments can also choose corresponding templates, set some unique functions, and provide users with consultation and online services."

"In this way, the official account can be thoroughly rooted and form a huge network of relationships and media covering all users. It allows countless users around the world to establish contact with enterprises and media through WeChat, and it becomes an indispensable tool in their lives."

"In this way, WeChat's user stickiness will be greatly improved, and the moat will be extremely wide, making it invincible."

After Liu Heng had finished speaking, there was still some more to say.Obviously, I admire my own set of ideas.

After the voice fell, the person was still slightly excited.

The same is true for Lin Rui. Liu Heng's proposal really touched his heart.

If the official account is built in this way, user stickiness will definitely be greatly improved, and the influence on all sectors of society will also be greatly increased.

"Not bad, not bad... Your proposal is very good. It is very feasible to create an official account in this way."

……

Later, Lin Rui and Liu Heng discussed this again, and they chatted for more than two hours before ending the conversation.

The next day, Lin Rui convened the company's top management and held a plenary meeting.

At the meeting, Liu Heng threw out his idea again, which caused a lot of shock. If WeChat can really transform from a communication software to a social platform, it will also be a huge change for the entire company.

Not only has the potential increased, but the boundaries have also shrunk, and a road leading to a global social giant has slowly opened up.

At the meeting, the atmosphere was ignited, and everyone started a large-scale discussion around Liu Heng's proposal, checking for omissions and filling in vacancies, striving to form a concretely executable operation plan.

In the next few days, several meetings were held in succession before the matter was settled, and everyone was looking forward to the official account to be launched.

In addition, it is necessary to compete with Penguin for time, and it is not allowed to develop slowly. Under Lin Rui's instruction, a research and development team with a scale of thousands of people was quickly established.

In the next period of time, they will create different official account templates according to different industries and categories, and strive to allow any company, unit or individual to choose a template that suits them.

Fortunately, there are various official microblogs on the Weiyang Weibo platform, which provide data as a reference and provide detailed materials for the creation of the template.

Otherwise, it's really a bit blind.

……

The time came to May 5th. On this day, Tencent's WeChat users officially exceeded 10 million, which is a milestone.

Weiyang Technology’s WeChat has 8200 million domestic registered users, which is still far behind WeChat.

WeChat's overseas version of WhatsApp has grown even more rapidly. Since March 3, WeChat's global users have reached 16 million, and the overseas version of WhatsApp has nearly 3 million users.

With the introduction of a series of new features of WhatsApp, new users began to increase on a large scale.

First, on March 3, WhatsApp launched the nearby people function, which was very popular; in early April, several social games were launched, which attracted countless users to participate; Great enthusiasm and attention.

With so much attention and enthusiasm, many overseas users have registered WhatsApp accounts.

Currently, the total number of WhatsApp users is close to 3.5 million.

If we add the 8200 million registered users of WeChat in China, the number of registered users of WeChat in the world will reach 4.3 million in one fell swoop, making it the world's largest mobile social software.

Over the past few days, the contact with Ali has also achieved remarkable results. The other party accepted Xingkong Technology Group and became a shareholder of the restructured Ali Group.

In this regard, Xingkong Technology Group is also a bit lucky, and it is catching up with a good time.

On the one hand, as a leading e-commerce company in China, Ali’s top two shareholders are foreign investors. The addition of the shares held by the two can even form a controlling stake in Ali.

As a leading e-commerce company in China, such a shareholding structure is really eye-catching.

Although it can be attributed to the reasons of the times, whoever blinded the domestic investment institutions at that time let foreign investors invest.

However, as a representative of China's e-commerce, it is really uncomfortable to see that it belongs to foreign capital in terms of equity structure.

Star Technology Group, as a purely domestic-funded enterprise, holds a large number of shares in Ari.

At the moment when Ali is delisting, it is obviously not good to operate like this.

But on the other hand, as a purely domestic-funded enterprise, becoming a shareholder of Ali, or even the third largest shareholder of Ali, is also of great benefit to Ali.

At least, in terms of shareholding structure, the shares held by Xingkong Technology Group, together with the shareholdings of Ali’s management team, can already compete head-to-head with Softbank and Yahoo’s shareholdings.

In this case, the ownership structure is at least not so eye-catching, and no one is catching Ali all day long as a foreign-funded enterprise, and at most it is a joint venture.

On the other hand, Ali can't do without compromise.

Xingkong Technology holds so many shares of Ari in the Hong Kong stock market. Ari wants to delist, wants to reorganize the group, and then packs it up for listing on the US stock market. Without the cooperation of Xingkong Technology Group, it is impossible.

Lao Ma is also a smart person. After struggling for a long time, he agreed to Xingkong Technology Group to become a shareholder.

The difference now lies in how many shares are more appropriate to take out.

Weiyin holds 18.1% of the shares in Ali, a Hong Kong stock. Lin Rui intends to use these shares as a basis to spend a large sum of money and inject it into the restructured Ali Group to maintain the shareholding at 18.1%.

Ari obviously does not want Xingkong Technology to maintain such a high shareholding. In their opinion, Xingkong Technology does not need capital injection. They only need to convert the 18.1% of the shares into the restructured Ali Group according to the valuation.

Starry Sky Technology Group is naturally unwilling.

Now, this is also the main disagreement between the two sides.

According to the information sent back by the negotiating team, those who disagreed with Star Technology Group’s injection of a large amount of capital and maintained its shareholding in Alibaba Group at 18.1% were mainly the top two shareholders, Softbank and Yahoo.

Because, if they do this, it will dilute their shares in the restructured Ali Group.

With one more shareholder holding 18.1% of the shares, each of their shares will shrink by nearly 1/5.

There is nothing wrong with Lao Ma and the management team, because their shares are already small, and Lao Ma doesn't even have 10%, so it won't be diluted much.

Moreover, the introduction of domestic shareholders is actually not a small benefit to them.Increase their control over Ali and weaken the voice of the other two major shareholders.

Since Lao Ma separated Alipay from Alibaba last year, his relationship with Yahoo and Softbank has become more and more tense. If it is not for the establishment of a partnership system, it is hard to say whether this position can be stabilized.

Especially Yahoo, which holds 40% of Alibaba's shares, and the conflict with Lao Ma is almost open.

Of course, it can also be said to be a contradiction between Ali and Yahoo.

Since 05, when Yahoo merged into Ali with US$10 billion in cash and all Yahoo’s businesses in China, it immediately became Ali’s largest shareholder, holding 40% of the shares. Ali and Yahoo also had a long honeymoon period.

But a sudden incident in 2008 brought it all to an abrupt end.

On January 2008, 1, Microsoft took the initiative to offer US$31 billion, intending to acquire Yahoo. If the transaction is passed, Microsoft will become Ali's largest shareholder.

Facts have repeatedly proved that Microsoft's involvement in the companies it invests in is much greater than that of Yahoo, and it is a difficult partner to deal with.After Microsoft became Ali's major shareholder with a 40% stake, it will be difficult for Ahri to maintain its current independence.

This made Ali realize that it is also a disadvantage for major shareholders to hold too many shares.

However, then Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang eventually rejected Microsoft's proposal.

Yahoo's investors were furious that Microsoft's offer, already at a 70% premium, was rejected by Yahoo executives.

A few months later, the global financial crisis roared, Yahoo's stock price plummeted, investors lost money, and asked Jerry Yang to step down.

If Jack Ma was finally relieved that Microsoft's acquisition of Yahoo ended without a problem, it didn't last long.

A few months later, Jerry Yang announced his resignation as CEO of Yahoo, and Carol Bartz officially succeeded Jerry Yang as CEO of Yahoo.

Bartz is very different from Jerry Yang in many ways.Yang Zhiyuan treats people politely, with a gentle personality, he is easy to discuss when things happen, and he will not point fingers at Ali.But Bartz is different. He has a strong style and often swears in meetings.

In 09, when Ma Yun and some Ali executives visited Yahoo headquarters, they talked about the rapid growth of Taobao's performance. Bartz did not congratulate them. Instead, he criticized Ali's management and weakened Yahoo's market share in China.

Bartz even said publicly: "Anyway, I already have a reputation, so let me tell you frankly... I want you to take Yahoo's name off the website."

It is obvious that Ali operates Yahoo China, and such a poor performance has caused damage to Yahoo's brand.

Lao Ma later told reporters: "If you don't do a good job in your own business, don't get angry at me." The relationship between the two immediately froze.

Ali executive Wei Zhe publicly questioned the relationship between Ali and Yahoo: Why do we need a financial investor who has a bad relationship and no business synergy or technology?

The biggest change is that Yahoo's own search engine technology has fallen behind.The biggest reason for the existence of the partnership between Alibaba and Yahoo is dispensable.

Worse is yet to come. In 2010, the general manager of Yahoo Hong Kong announced to the outside world that they were considering attracting mainland Chinese advertisers to place advertisements on the website and building a cross-border e-commerce information platform.

This means that Yahoo has become Ali's competitor. Ali responded immediately, saying that he would re-evaluate his relationship with Yahoo.

The dispute between the two sides gradually became public.

Later, Ali made Alipay independent, which intensified the conflict between the two parties. This time, not only Yahoo, but even Softbank had great opinions on Lao Ma's team.

Now, there are even rumors that Ali is already trying to recover part of Yahoo's shareholding in Ali.

Obviously, they are looking for ways to reduce Yahoo's influence on Ali and reduce Yahoo's shareholding in Ali.

Starry Sky Technology Group stepped in at this time, and the timing was extremely ingenious.

The old horse stabbed Lin Rui horizontally, taking advantage of Ah Li in this way, he was both angry and relieved.

Angry at Lin Rui's approach, it is really taking advantage of Ali's major shareholders and diluting their shares.Although he is only a minority shareholder, Yahoo and Softbank suffered the most, but they were also taken advantage of after all.

However, the introduction of Xingkong Technology Group can reduce the shareholding and voice of Yahoo and Softbank. If the communication is good, Lin Rui will stand on their side and further weaken the influence of Softbank and Yahoo.

In the past year, because of the independence of Alipay, the Alibaba management team represented by Lao Ma has also been in trouble with the two major shareholders of Yahoo and Softbank. Even the rationality of Alipay's independence has been criticized by the two major shareholders.

However, Alipay's independence has nothing to do with Xingkong Technology Group. If Xingkong Technology Group becomes Ahri's major shareholder with 18.1% of the shares in the future.

As long as you negotiate with Lin Rui in advance, let him be the major shareholder and support Alipay's independence.It is not impossible to bring this matter to an end.

Only in this way, Lao Ma can only support Xingkong Technology to invest in Ali, and even in order to build a good relationship with Lin Rui and gain support for Alipay's independence, he must express his goodwill.

How can it be regarded as goodwill, that is, not to hinder Xingkong Technology's shareholding in Ali, and even provide some support.

In this regard, the old horse is a little depressed, but the two phases are less harmful.Compared with Star Technology's stake in Ali, it is obviously more important to weaken the shareholding and voice of the top two shareholders, and to introduce a major domestic shareholder to fight against them.

There are more shareholders, and it is more conducive to their management team to divide and disintegrate, and to control the company.

Thinking of this, Lao Ma sighed, and planned to ask Lin Rui out for tea sometime.

(End of this chapter)