"Sure enough, you can't underestimate the world's heroes!"
While the Toutiao Department responded quickly, Zhou Dongsheng was currently in the office of the chairman of Dongsheng Group.
Looking out the huge floor-to-ceiling window, with an unobstructed view of the Oriental Pearl Tower and the Huangpu River, Zhou Dongsheng leaned on the comfortable boss chair and was filled with emotion.
Sure enough, I had a good plan, and my opponent had a plan. The Toutiao Department's quick response not only minimized the impact on public opinion, but also cleverly diverted its own contradictions.
As the latter spends huge sums of money, spending astronomical figures like 1 billion to subsidize the creation of short videos on the platform, the focus of the general public has also shifted.
After all, among the concepts of the magnitude of 1 billion, which the general public is most exposed to, perhaps only the total population of China is close to it.
As for other situations, it is rare to be exposed to such a magnitude, and the number 1 billion brings a geometric increase in shock compared to 100 million.
Although it is only the difference between eight zeros and nine zeros, just like one's own bank balance, the positive feedback brought by one more digit often makes people want to repeat it several times.
Especially when the money is "closely related" to you.
Yes, it is an eternal truth that money moves people's hearts. When Toutiao announced that the "1 billion subsidy" was used to subsidize the creation of short videos, it was enough to have a fatal attraction for many users.
After all, as an emerging industry in the current short video field, it can be said that there is a lot of waste waiting for development, although there are already leading IPs such as [Papi Jiang], [Muzi Qi] and [Big Wei Prince Mi] that have begun to emerge.
But obviously, there are still a lot of gaps in the industry that have not been filled, and it is far from reaching saturation, let alone forming the Matthew Effect.
In other words, everything is uncertain, and anyone may become the dark horse.
Even just for the name of the "1 billion subsidy", it is enough to attract a large number of users to join the Ame platform, and tentatively start publishing their first short videos.
Everything is difficult at the beginning. Once countless users take the first step in the short video field, in such a huge process, gold will inevitably emerge and some creative creators will emerge.
Whether it is cash subsidies or the sweetness brought by traffic, it will form an incentive for creators. Once this positive feedback mechanism is successfully established, it will form a virtuous cycle that is most needed for platform development.
This provides a steady stream of traffic support for the development of Ame.
Toutiao has just received US$1 billion in financing, and is willing to spend RMB 1 billion directly to bet on the short video field.
It is not difficult to see that Toutiao is indeed very optimistic about the development of short videos, and also hopes to develop short videos into a new growth point for itself.
What Zhou Dongsheng didn't know was that what prompted Toutiao to make this decision was precisely the rapid development trend of Douyin in China, which had attracted hundreds of millions of users in less than a year.
Although Zhou Dongsheng has contributed to the trend, to a certain extent, it is enough to prove the potential of the music short video track.
Although there are already leading players in the short video field such as Kuaishou and Meipai, even Weishi, which is backed by Tenda, has been squeezed out.
However, it has not effectively hindered the development of Douyin at all. This is the strongest evidence of the potential of the "alternative" music short video track!
It is precisely because of this gem that Toutiao immediately planned to bet on the future of the short video industry after completing the financing, and even did not hesitate to fully replicate the essence of the Douyin software.
I just want to grab a piece of cake from the market with lightning speed.
As long as we can capture the market first, it doesn't matter how much we argue with the rest of the business, even if we lose some money as a result.
Just like the quarrel between Microsoft and Apple over the operating system back then, once Microsoft has completely completed its monopoly on the operating system and everything is finalized, the question of who develops the visualization system first will lose its meaning.
After all, it is impossible for the market to turn back. The market inertia is so great that not even Apple can turn around. It can only open up a new world on another track.
Examples like this have always been common in shopping malls that are like battlefields.
After all, there is nothing new under the sun.
But after the headlines spent a lot of money on gimmicks like "1 billion subsidy", for the general public, the discussion of who is genuine and who is pirated has obviously lost its meaning.
After all, who can have trouble with money?
The only thing that the general public is concerned about is how to harvest this wool, what method can be used to get the money as quickly as possible, what simple and crude way can be used to gain popularity, etc.
If you don’t make money, you are a bastard!
Zhou Dongsheng methodically peels off the cocoons and analyzes his opponent's thinking from his own perspective. This is also a way of progress for himself.
After all, if you want to go higher and further, obviously you can't always go smoothly, there will always be times when you hit a wall.
This time, the opponent Toutiao Department obviously understands human nature better than he does, and human nature is just like that. In Zhou Dongsheng's view, no one is nobler than the other, and naturally there is no need to entangle and condemn the opponent.
After all, the card of moral condemnation has been played, so the next step is naturally a hand-to-hand combat with real swords and guns.
As for how to catch the opponent's "1 billion subsidy" big move, judging from Zhou Dongsheng's limited ability, he really didn't come up with any clever way to resolve it for a while.
The only simplest and crudest response is to follow up and launch the same creative incentive method to further consolidate content creators on the Douyin platform.
After all, such a "1 billion subsidy" will not only completely solidify the foundation of the Ame platform, but also directly shake the foundation of the Douyin platform.
At present, except for some leading IPs that have successfully embarked on the road of monetizing traffic through advertising, the vast majority of middle- and lower-level creators who continue to produce high-quality content are still using their love to generate electricity.
There is no doubt that one of the driving forces behind their continuous output is that after becoming a leading IP, they can receive advertisements to monetize their traffic, thereby increasing their income.
Before Toutiao launched the banner of “1 billion subsidy”, this seemed to be the only feasible way to monetize traffic in the industry.
But when Toutiao represents the platform, it undoubtedly provides countless creators with a seemingly more convenient shortcut.
Before becoming a leading IP, being able to receive some official subsidies is undoubtedly an incentive measure that is more conducive to the growth of creators.
After all, there are tens of millions of content creators, but how many top IPs are there?
The pyramid structure is a stable structure derived from the evolution of thousands of industries. It is an effective law in any industry, and the short video industry is naturally not immune to it.
Therefore, if we want to stabilize the underlying structure and not be shaken by the money offensive of Toutiao, the only way is to provide more benefits to users.
After all, we don’t suffer from scarcity but inequality. At the very least, we must ensure that the basic users of Douyin will not be disappointed. Otherwise, everyone will be short video users. Others have money to take it, but your family does not treat users as human beings...
Once you lose the support of the people and become disloyal, the only outcome is natural betrayal and alienation.
And when the Toutiao system starts to get involved as a troublemaker, it will inevitably force the entire industry to enter a stage of fierce competition faster.
Just like the "thousand-broadcast war" on the live broadcast platform next door, in the final analysis it is all about competing for traffic, and the battle for traffic in the short video industry has also quietly sounded the clarion call for battle.
After the first round of confrontation between the two sides, only the wrangling between each other was left in the public opinion field. It was obviously impossible to determine the winner with just one mouth.
Then, we can only go to the venue to see Zhen Zhang.
At the same time, Wenxue Network has already released news of a new round of financing. At the same time, Dongsheng Group, as the second largest shareholder, naturally takes advantage of the trend and leads the way as an investor.
It has to be said that whether it is Douyin, which now has hundreds of millions of users, or Zhou Dongsheng, the upstart capital behind Dongsheng Investment, it is enough to make many institutions have a strong interest in this financing.
Taking a closer look at the first two rounds of financing of Wenxue Network, starting from the entry of Dongsheng Investment, which independently won the A-round financing, Wenxue Network launched a series of drastic measures.
Not only has it changed the company's strategic direction and shifted its focus on overseas markets back to China, but with the entry of Zhou Dongsheng's two major media companies, Dongsheng Media, which has now been merged into one, has injected a large amount of traffic into it.
Including many game anchors who were flourishing on the live broadcast platform at that time, not to mention the mainstay [Papi Jiang] who was almost tailor-made for them.
Not to mention the Golden Second Awards, a short video industry award ceremony that pioneered the industry. If it were only hosted by Wenxue Network and Dongsheng Media, it would inevitably be suspected of being self-entertaining.
It was even more difficult to rise to the top of the industry. However, under the guidance of investor Zhou Dongsheng, Ding Sanshi, an Internet tycoon, was brought in to help.
This directly increased the value of this award ceremony, and at the same time, Pig Factory Capital entered the round of financing led by the investment.
With Pig Factory's resource replacement in music, it directly opened up the upstream resources of Douyin's localization strategy.
The biggest obstacle to Douyin's music + short video model, the issue of music copyright, has been completely eliminated. After these two rounds of financing, Wenxue Network is indeed out of control in terms of development.
Of course, Wenxue Network also paid a heavy price for this. After two rounds of financing, more than 40% of the equity was transferred, plus 5% of the personal equity of Zhou Dongsheng, a strategic investor.
Currently, more than half of the equity is in the hands of the founder team headed by Yang Luyu. The benefits and costs of embracing capital are roughly the same.
At that time, in the B round of financing, the valuation of Wenxue Network was only US$300 million. In other words, with the US$1 billion in financing Toutiao received, it could easily buy three Wenxue Networks and still have US$100 million more.
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But obviously, after a full year of development, the Wenxue Network, which is now at its peak, is no longer what it used to be.
Although it cannot be compared with the entire Toutiao series, which has a valuation of more than 10 billion U.S. dollars, it has already far exceeded the value range of "1 billion U.S. dollars" just by sitting on the unique advantage of domestic and overseas markets.
To a certain extent, under the influence of Zhou Dongsheng, Wenxue Network has completely broken through its original outcome of being acquired by Toutiao for US$1 billion.
Today, the market value of Wenxue Network is conservatively estimated to be no less than US$3 billion!
The valuation of the market is never groundless. As a reference for horizontal comparison, the two industry leaders, Kuaishou and Meipai, are undoubtedly the most valuable objects of reference.
Among them, Meipai is just one of the businesses in the company's diversification strategy compared to the towering tree behind Meitu.
Meitu, which submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as early as August this year, has taken the lead in embarking on the IPO journey. The entire company is currently valued at more than US$5 billion.
Compared with Meitu, a company with a big business, Kuaishou is undoubtedly more valuable as a reference.
After all, like Wenxue Network, Kuaishou is also an explorer that only focuses on developing the short video field, and the short video business is its only core business.
As early as March this year, Kuaishou, which only has a single business of short videos, had a valuation of more than 2 billion U.S. dollars. It is obviously not a problem to double it in the next round of financing.
If we only count the number of users in this single domestic market, Kuaishou, which has more than 300 million users, is naturally far ahead.
However, for Wenxue Network, which has markets at home and abroad, it is obviously even better in this regard.
Although Wenxue Network has accumulated users in overseas markets, it has already been surpassed by the localized Douyin.
Among them, the user base of musical.ly has only recently reached the threshold of 100 million users.
However, as a software that can still operate smoothly in two domestic and overseas markets with completely different cultures, its value is obviously a typical example of "1+1 is greater than 3".
If it is raised to the level of a "bridge" for cultural exchanges between the East and the West, it is natural and reasonable for the market to give it an extremely high valuation.
If this estimated goal can be achieved, it would not be surprising if the value of Wenxue Network could increase dozens of times.
So when Wenxue Network released the news of its financing intentions, many investment institutions were extremely enthusiastic and almost crushed the threshold of Wenxue Network.
So for a while, Yang Luyu didn't even have time to pay attention to the reaction of the Toutiao Department. Instead, he was busy dealing with the olive branches offered by many investors.
It can be said to be painful and happy at the same time. No one will reject this kind of happy trouble.
Among them, even the investment department of Tenda, which is already preparing to invest in Kuaishou, the industry leader, cannot help but have a strong interest in Wenxue Network.
After all, as a major overlord of China's Internet, Tengda's appetite is no longer satisfied with this one-third of domestic land.
The investment and deployment of the overseas strategy are undoubtedly Tengda’s next ambition.
However, it is precisely because Tengda is so large that it is very difficult to realize the overseas strategy as one move affects the whole body.
Therefore, we can only settle for the next best thing and choose to invest in various overseas projects or companies that have the potential to enter overseas markets.
Among them, League of Legends, which is popular all over the world, can be regarded as one of the most eye-catching results of Tenda’s overseas strategy.
As the only short video platform in China that can make waves in overseas markets, Tenda is no less interested in Wenxue Network than Kuaishou.
Even worse!
After all, such a springboard to overseas markets is too tempting for Tenda!
When Tenda noticed the company Wenxue Network, it was natural that he would meet an old acquaintance who seemed to be everywhere.
Damn, it’s you again, Dongsheng Investment/Zhou Dongsheng!
