Why can Tencent grow step by step?

The biggest competitiveness of any leading enterprise in science and technology industry must be innovation ability. Once you lose this ability, failure is inevitable.

So is Tencent.

(Tencent New Headquarters Building, Nanshan District Science Park, Shenzhen)

There are also children's shoes that show disdain for Tencent's innovative ability. Isn't Tencent only plagiarism?

If that's all you see, I can only sneer at three times and ask you:

How did an enterprise born in a bumpy land, without a father, the care of the Party, and the nourishment of the aquatic plants in Peking University and Tsinghua achieve a market value of 100 billion US dollars in 15 years, and become one of the four largest Internet companies in the world, on a par with the four major banks? If plagiarism is ok, why not copy it?

Well, before it's too late, let's put the clock back to 15 years ago and see Tencent's road to innovation.

1, how did QQ beat ICQ?

ICQ was born in 1996, and instantly became popular all over the world. By 1998, this software has monopolized the instant messaging market in China. This year, ICQ married into a rich family and became the asset of AOL, the largest Internet group in the United States. It is both rich and popular, and its position is unshakable.

From 65438 to 0999, QQ was launched. Only two employees, the founder Ma and Zhang Zhidong, lived in a private house in Shenzhen and spent half a year doing research and development.

At this time, QQ was still very rough, but the Chinese interface made QQ quickly attract the attention of the market. If so, QQ can't catch up, because at this time, a number of communication software of the same type have been born in the market: PICQ, TICQ, GICQ, Sina Paging and Yahoo Instant Messaging. ...

With the following series of innovative technologies, QQ has quickly become a leader in the same type of software-

First, all the information of ICQ is stored in the client. Once the user logs in with another computer, the friends added in the past disappear, and the user information of QQ is stored on the cloud server, so you can log in and chat at any terminal.

Secondly, ICQ can only chat when friends are online. QQ pioneered the offline message sending function, stealth login function, you can choose the chat object at will, and you can also have your own personalized avatar.

Third, ICQ benefits from instant messaging software customized for enterprises, while QQ insists on seeking commercialization opportunities by providing free services to consumers.

It can be said that the success of QQ lies in that it is the first enterprise with Internet thinking in China's Internet history. The fundamental difference between QQ and ICQ lies in the difference between Internet concept and software concept.

Internet concept beats software concept. Isn't this the most popular concept nowadays? But mark realized it before 15 years ago.

The market is always smart, and he only dedicates the reward to the innovative products with the best user experience: by 2000, QQ has become the king of the instant messaging market.

2. How did 2.QQ group beat the chat room?

In the era of the rise of QQ, surfing the internet = chat room+Sina news+email. The most famous chat rooms are Sina, Netease, Bihai Yinsha and so on. At the peak, there are tens of thousands of people online in one room of Netease chat room. The popular story of "first intimate contact" on the Internet happened in the chat room, and how many people met the dream of "dancing" on the Internet.

It's all over.

The decline of chat rooms lies in the unstable user relationship between strangers, and QQ innovative QQ group can view chat records and define friends' names by itself, transforming QQ from the early relationship between strangers to the real user relationship.

At this time, the market value of American AOL Network Group reached $654.38+$63 million. At its peak, its AIM instant messaging software integrated the function of ICQ, and also introduced the function of chat room, with 20 million users.

But the functions of AIM software and AOL chat room are separated, which makes AOL chat room just a tool for chatting with strangers. Moreover, there is still a charge for using these two software services: you have to pay a monthly fee of 19.95 dollars to log in to AOL chat room. Now, it seems really stupid and incredible, but in that era when software was king, it was so natural.

MySpace, an American social networking site, was launched in 2003, and Facebook was launched in 2004, which was 1-2 years later than the QQ group launched in 2002. It can be said that the first social network that achieved commercial success in the world was not FACEBOOK, but Tencent's QQ group.

The new version of QQ released in August, 2002 added new information such as QQ group function, friend phone binding, camera binding, mobile phone address book stored in cloud server, and friend phone category, brand and model in mobile phone data. These functions make QQ quickly transform into a real social network platform, and QQ number has also become people's online ID card.

After 2003, QQ launched QQ show pictures, group photo albums, QQ space and other functions to continuously deepen and meet the potential social needs of users and maintain a strong popularity.

3. How did 3.QQTM beat MSN?

MSN 1999 launched instant messaging service, relying on Microsoft's abundant capital and the binding of WINDOWS operating system platform, and by 200 1, it has already defeated AOL and become the largest instant messaging platform in the world.

By 2003, MSN had 300 million users, ranking first in almost all important markets except China.

This year, the ambitious MSN began to enter the China market on a large scale and started a confrontation with QQ. With the free bundling strategy, Gao Fushuai's brand image, powerful hotmail mailbox and MSN news website service quickly occupied a piece of territory in the business communication market.

At this time, Tencent, the situation is in jeopardy: the QQ show has just been launched, but it has not yet achieved profitability and is short of talents. In order to survive, it has been selling itself for financing: 40% of its shares were sold to overseas investors in exchange for a salary of $2 million, while domestic investors were not willing to buy them at all.

In 2003, Tencent launched the enterprise version of QQTM, facing MSN head-on. Since then, through a series of technological innovations and perfect and meticulous user experience, the hearts of high-end users have been restored bit by bit:

UDP mode can transfer files faster, files can be continuously transmitted at breakpoints, files can be directly dragged and dropped into windows, folders can be shared, screen shots can be taken, friends can be grouped, chat records can be backed up and quickly queried, short messages can be exchanged, video conferences can be held, network hard disks can be protected by soft keyboard passwords, and personal business cards can be used.

This series of technological innovations were first introduced by QQ, and MSN either followed suit or didn't. Suddenly, one day, everyone found that the white-collar workers' work communication tools have been quietly changed back to QQ, and MSN has quietly become a walk-on that no one pays attention to.

4. How did 4.QQ game beat Lianzhong?

In 2003, Lianzhong was the largest casual game platform in the world, and its founder Bao Qiaoyue was the developer of UCDOS and the earliest technology giant in China software industry.

At its most brilliant moment, Lianzhong has 200 million registered users,150,000 monthly active users and 600,000 simultaneous online users, and set up servers in China, the United States, Japan and South Korea. This scale seems unshakable.

In 2003, the first edition of QQ game was launched, with three games: playing cards, Guoqi and Chess. Bao Qiaoyue went up to play for a while, but he didn't like it, so he decided to focus on the new project "Lianzhong New World", and the original system was not updated.

In 2004, Lianzhong married into a giant and became a subsidiary of NHN, the largest online game group in Korea. A large number of Korean online games resources can be transplanted, which is unmatched by Tencent in terms of products, funds and talents. Moreover, Tencent is not the only one who entered the casual game market at this time, but also big players who independently developed games such as Netease, Shanda and Jinshan.

But in this year, QQ games gradually came from behind, achieving the transcendence of the strong. The logic of transcendence lies in:

A. Lianzhong turned to the large-scale game market, casual chess games were no longer updated, and some bugs existed for a long time, resulting in the loss of old users.

B, Tencent quickly updated the iteration, winning with a more refined interface and more humanized operation details.

Let me give you an example. First, the interface.

In the 2005 version, QQ can customize the user's role image, and the sidebar shows the player's historical situation with a refreshing background.

There is a charge for the definition of Lianzhong's role image, otherwise it will be blank, ugly background and a pile of advertisements. The sidebar is irrelevant system news and has no aesthetic feeling at all.

Look at the humanization of operation.

There is a charge for Lianzhong's automatic seat finding function, otherwise we have to find it ourselves slowly. Sometimes it's hard to find a seat but can't sit down, and a prompt pops up saying that other members don't want to play with themselves (for many reasons, such as low level and slow internet speed ...), which is really speechless.

QQ can automatically join, customize and find like-minded netizens, and these are all free.

It is these micro-innovations that beat Lianzhong Games in details.

5. How did Tencent's online games beat Shanda?

In 200 1 year, the Korean online game legend was grandly launched, which swept the country and formally established the business model of online games.

In 2002, Netease's self-developed Journey to the West was successful, and in 2003, the dream journey to the West was once again popular, and it has since become a leader in the field of independent research and development of online games.

In 2003, Tencent also began to enter the game market, but until 2007, Tencent's large-scale games have been nothing.

What is the reason? Not only did Tencent fail, but Shanda, the founder of online games, introduced a large number of Korean masterpieces in the following years, almost all of which were unfinished.

This has to make people reflect.

I think the key reason is that Shanda's success is first brought about by the innovation of business model, but there is no improvement in products, and a large number of companies adopt "takenism". With the progress of domestic R&D and the intensification of competition, any enterprise lacking product innovation ability will be eliminated by the market. Shanda is like this, Jiucheng is like this, and so is Tencent in the early large-scale online game market, even though he has a popular social networking platform.

In 2006, gunfight games began to rise in the Korean online game market, and Amazing OL occupied a major market share. According to the network evaluation, this game is "real gun data, human physics conforms to cs, the map design is very beautiful and excellent, and every map of Assault OL has strong playability." This game was quickly introduced into the domestic market, but unfortunately it didn't last long.

In the shooting game market, CS, an old game, takes the lead. Its excellent operating experience and excellent balance can't be shaken by any random game.

In 2007, Tencent bought the game Crossing the Line of Fire from a small and dirty company in South Korea at a very low price.

Its developer Smile Gate is just a small company with 33 people. Only one CF game has been released so far, and the research and development strength is indeed limited. After its launch, it has been tepid in South Korea, and even stopped operating and withdrew from the market on 20 12.

In fact, this year Tencent has earned the first pot of gold through QQ show and chess games, not only buying CF, but also buying many online games such as League of Legends, Dungeons and Warriors.

But this time, Tencent has realized that traffic is not everything, and failed products are dead everywhere.

Tencent has transformed and polished a large number of kimchi games bought back. CF was launched after a year of in-depth development.

Please note that from March 2008 to February 20 10, CF launched 22 versions in two years, with an average of one new version every month, with diverse modes, roles and firearms, constantly optimized operating experience and the most reasonable and balanced system under the props charging mode, which finally won the recognition of the majority of players.

Since then, a large number of Korean online games independently developed or introduced by Tencent have been successful. It is through this replication of R&D micro-innovation that Tencent beat Shanda on 20 10 and topped the online game market.

Since then, great changes have taken place in China's online game market: those enterprises that can only introduce foreign masterpieces and have no innovation ability have declined one after another, QQ dazzle dance troupe, QQ flying car beat go-karting, and giants came.

On the other hand, Netease, Changyou, Giant and other self-developed online game companies with innovative ability are getting more and more moist. In 2009, Tencent launched QQ Journey to the West, which was badly beaten by Netease.

This fully illustrates the fact that the success of Tencent's online games is the success of product innovation, and those relatively mediocre works, even with the guidance of QQ platform, will still be mercilessly ridiculed by market rules.

This rule is actually repeated on Tencent:

QQ browser, QQ video, Soso search, online shopping, QQ antivirus, Tenpay, Soso map, because only imitation, lack of innovation, can always be a supporting role in the market;

QQ mailbox has been tepid in the early days, until Zhang Xiaolong, a technical genius, was captured.

Tencent is not invincible, but once he finds the innovation box, he will be reborn and put on a yellow robe.

6. Innovation and future of WeChat.

In 20 10, the mobile internet roared, and Tencent took the lead in turning over among all internet giants.

The elephant turns lightly and quickly.

From its launch in June of 20 1 1 year to the end of the year, wechat updated 11version in1year, and iterated one version every month on average. 1.0 version only has chat function, 1. 1 version increases the reading of mobile phone address book, 1.2 version opens Tencent Weibo, 1.3 version increases multi-person conversation, and 2.0 version increases voice intercom function. Until now, Tencent has completed the imitation and catch-up of its competitors and started the road of innovation.

Version 2.5 first introduced people nearby, and it was the launch of this function that realized the technological innovation and explosive growth of users of the main rival Mi Chat.

Version 3.0 is the first to add the function of drift bottle and shake, and version 3.5 has added the English interface to fully enter overseas markets. At this time, in the international market, Japan's line rose at the same time and began to occupy Southeast Asia earlier. FACEBOOK, the American social giant, is still in a dream, and WHAT'SAPP is still continuing the software thinking of ICQ in the past, charging users a service fee. Time waits for no one, and now is the time.

Version 4.0 is the first to introduce the functions of photo album and friends circle, version 4.2 adds video chat plug-in, version 4.3 adds voice search function, and version 4.5 adds the functions of multi-person real-time chat, voice reminder and navigation according to the location sent by the other party. Wechat's social platform function is becoming more and more perfect, and it is developing to the role of mobile intelligent assistant step by step. It must be noted that in video chat and smart voice search, WeChat is one step ahead of LINE, and the product experience begins to lead. (The success of LINE is more about the star marketing strategy and the construction of business ecosystem, and there is no advantage in product innovation experience. )

In version 5.0, an expression shop and a game center were added, and the sweeping function was fully upgraded, including street view scanning, barcode scanning, QR code scanning, text translation scanning and cover scanning. The WeChat payment system has been opened, and the framework of a mobile business empire has been basically established.

From a global perspective, the commercialization of LINE is undoubtedly earlier and the pace of internationalization is faster. But what Tencent is good at has always been catching up: as long as it is in the right direction and focuses on innovation, miracles will always happen.

20 13 In April, the number of overseas users exceeded 40 million, and in August, it exceeded100000, snowballing at a rate of more than150000 per month. At this rate, it will exceed 200 million by the end of the year, reach 400 million next year, and the number of global users will reach 10 billion.

If all goes well, Tencent will truly become the innovation leader of the global Internet. Next, let's witness the miracle.

7. Tencent's innovative way.

In my opinion, Tencent's innovation is mainly reflected in the following points:

First, Tencent is one of the earliest enterprises with Internet thinking in the world, which distinguishes it from ICQ and AOL, and makes it the only instant messaging enterprise in the world that has achieved large-scale commercial success.

Second, Tencent is the first successful real social networking platform in the world. Through the innovative seamless connection between QQ and QQ group in 2002, it changed from a stranger to a real social relationship, destroyed the traditional chat room business model, and made the first pot of gold on the QQ show, two years earlier than facebook.

Third, one of the earliest Internet companies to implement rapid iterative micro-innovation, it is this micro-innovation ability that enabled him to beat many Internet giants such as MSN, Lianzhong and Shanda and gain strong profitability. Platform diversion only allowed him to amplify this commercial success, otherwise it could not explain many by-products of Tencent's failure, such as Soso Search.

Fourth, Tencent is one of the most innovative enterprises among all elephant enterprises, which is reflected in the success of WeChat and the rapid transformation in the era of mobile Internet. Even on a global scale, Tencent turned earlier than facebook in the United States, only a little slower than Google.

By the first quarter of 20 13, Tencent had 25,000 employees, more than half of whom were R&D personnel, and applied for 7,000 patents, second only to Google and Yahoo among global Internet companies.

This is Tencent's innovation.