2018 Technology Company Atlas: The Birth and Fall of the Top Ten "Internet Celebrity" Apps

2018 was the year when mobile Internet fell from the altar.

This year, the old giants struggled to turn around, and it has become a consensus that the Internet has entered the second half;

This year, startups went public at a loss, and after the grand opening bell, they were embarrassed by the price drop.

This year, the industry is in a cold winter, capital is retreating, and the term "hot spot" has rarely been mentioned.

In 2018, all Internet people truly felt that the traffic dividend has faded and the golden age of "planting a carrying pole will make it bloom" has passed.

In this year, the life cycle of an Internet product was shortened to half a year, or even a month or half a month. On New Year's Day 2018, people were still crazy about the "million-dollar bonus" for live quiz shows. Just after the Spring Festival, the Buddhist way of raising frogs had quietly become popular in the circle of friends. In August, investors were still hoping that Bullet Messenger could "compete" with WeChat. In November, suppliers were already shouting "Don't let Luo Yonghao run away."

"A flash in the pan" became the main theme of mobile Internet in 2018.

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At the beginning of 2019, Sina Technology counted the top ten "short-lived" mobile applications (Apps) in 2018. Let's review how these apps, which were once wildly pursued by users and investors, suddenly became popular? And how did they quickly fade out of sight?

Live quiz (top contest)

• Influence index: ★★★★★
• Top ranking period: January 3rd - January 28th

(“Top ranking” refers to the period of time when the software ranks in the top 20 of the App Store free list, the same below.)

Live answering of questions was the first trend in 2018 and the only one that has been widely discussed this year.

On January 3, a Weibo post by Wang Sicong made an app called "Chongding Conference" a hot topic and brought attention to the live quiz model.

Following closely, Toutiao, Yingke Live, and Huajiao Live responded one after another, and "throwing money" became a hot word in the New Year. Wang Sicong, Zhou Hongyi, Zhang Yiming, Feng Yousheng and other bigwigs competed to be the "big spender".

According to statistics from Hedgehog Community, on January 21 alone, there were 51 live quiz shows on major platforms, with a total prize of 37.49 million yuan and a maximum number of participants in a single show exceeding 4 million. Live quiz shows were extremely popular.

However, just as everyone rolled up their sleeves and prepared to take advantage of the enthusiasm of the Spring Festival to work hard, unexpected events occurred one after another.

On January 13, Huajiao Live's "Millionaire Winner" event included Hong Kong and Taiwan as countries in the answer sheet. This serious error immediately led to a talk with the Cyberspace Administration of China, and Huajiao Live was ordered to make comprehensive rectifications.

In addition, when live quiz games were popular all over the Internet, some disruptors appeared in the market. First, Sogou and Baidu launched "quiz plug-ins" to break through the question bank with the power of technology, and then some Taobao merchants sold unlimited resurrection cards in a pretentious manner. The chaos in the market led to the live quiz games, which were originally for the purpose of intelligence and leisure, eventually evolving into a routine money game.

The industry is full of chaos, which not only dampens the enthusiasm of some netizens to answer questions, but also attracts the attention of regulatory authorities.

On February 14, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued a notice requiring live quiz platforms to have the qualifications to broadcast audio-visual programs, to strictly comply with the filing and review procedures, and to meet the corresponding conditions of radio and television program hosts. This notice sentenced most live quiz platforms to "death penalty", and programs such as Million Heroes had no choice but to announce the early end of the first season.

After the Spring Festival, live quiz shows such as Sohu's "Knowledge Heroes" and Baidu's "Speed ​​Challenge" have been revived one after another. However, after missing the "Spring Festival opportunity", users' freshness index plummeted, and live quiz shows never regained their former glory. Moreover, due to the high policy risks, all companies are reluctant to participate in live quiz shows. As time goes by, "the first hot spot in 2018" has gradually disappeared.

Bullet SMS

• Influence index: ★★★★★
• Top chart period: August 23 - September 5

At Smartisan Technology's summer press conference, Bullet Messenger was launched. This social software, which supports "voice input and text output", has been regarded by the public as a challenger and disruptor of WeChat since its debut.

Driven by Luo Yonghao's celebrity effect and netizens' curiosity, Bullet Messenger quickly topped the App Store social charts, even triggering the App Store's anti-ranking mechanism. According to Qimai data, Bullet Messenger topped the App Store social charts for 13 days and the total number of users exceeded 7.5 million in just 20 days.

The sudden popularity of Bullet Messenger has washed away the embarrassment that Luo Yonghao encountered at the press conference at the Bird's Nest more than four months ago. On platforms such as Weibo, Luo Yonghao has been actively promoting Bullet Messenger and has become the "spokesperson" of Bullet Messenger.

According to Luo Yonghao’s personal Weibo, Bullet Messenger “attracted 54 investment institutions within 7 days of its launch, completed financing of 150 million yuan within 3 days, and its overall valuation was 600 million yuan.”

However, no matter how good the start is, there is no guarantee of 100% success. The "speedy" Bullet SMS was soon questioned, and was frequently criticized for its ugly interface, many bugs, lack of novelty, and serious crash problems.

These problems caused Bullet Messenger to lose its first batch of promoters and "tap water", and the user growth rate slowed down rapidly. For a social software, more than 7 million users are far from enough to build a social ecosystem. Without friends, there is no social interaction. Imagine if an instant messaging app cannot be social, then how far is it from "death"?

Bullet Messenger was also Luo Yonghao’s last glory. In November 2018, Smartisan Technology was exposed to negative news such as broken capital chain, arrears of payment to suppliers, and failure to pay employees’ wages. Luo Yonghao ushered in the “darkest moment”.

However, at the critical juncture of Smartisan Technology, Luo Yonghao still placed his hopes on "Bullet SMS". In late December, netizens photographed Luo Yonghao and his group of five at China Mobile's southern base. Soon after, news broke that Bullet SMS would cooperate with Fetion, the former QQ challenger. On December 29, Fetion wished Luo Yonghao and Smartisan Technology all the best in 2019 on its official Weibo account, and the questioning behavior further confirmed the rumors of cooperation.

What kind of power will be created if Fetion and Bullet Messenger, two generations of Tencent challengers, combine? Let's look forward to it together in 2019.

Jump Jump (WeChat)

• Influence index: ★★★★★

As a pioneer of WeChat mini-games, "Jump Jump" has been popular since its birth. Around the Spring Festival of 2018, Jump Jump became popular all over the country. The magical "Jump Jump" game music was everywhere, in the subway, in front of the elevator, and in the toilet.

According to Zhang Xiaolong, the founder of WeChat, at the 2018 WeChat Open Class, the DAU of Tiaoyitiao exceeded 100 million. At the same time, Tiaoyitiao also began to try to accept advertisements. At that time, it was reported that NIKE invested 20 million yuan in a square box of Tiaoyitiao. In addition, McDonald's and other brands also ran sky-high-priced advertisements on Tiaoyitiao.

Everything seemed so perfect, but after the Chinese New Year, "Jump Jump" suddenly lost its popularity, with fewer and fewer people playing it until it completely disappeared a few months later. Some people said that "Jump Jump" was a game that required little skill and did not have many factors of change, so its appeal could not last long. Others said that "Jump Jump" lacked social attributes and could only be played by one person, which was too boring (although a multiplayer function was later developed, the experience was too poor).

Although "Jump Jump" has withdrawn from the arena, the WeChat mini-game market has been opened up after this battle, and countless developers have begun to pay attention to mini-games. So, from this perspective, "Jump Jump" has gloriously completed its mission.

Travel Frog

• Influence index: ★★★★★
• Top ranking period: January 20th - February 9th

Suddenly, a group of "empty-nest young people" who called themselves "fathers" and "mothers" became obsessed with raising frogs, and "showing off frogs" on WeChat Moments became a new fashion.

This is a very "weird" game. It does not require too much operation, nor does it require crazy krypton gold. You only need to collect grass in the garden in your spare time, and use the collected grass to buy food and luggage for the frog to travel, and then... you can only stare at the phone in a daze.

It is such a "nutritious" idle game that topped the App Store charts without an official Chinese version and dominated the charts for many days. Data shows that in January 2018, the game's iOS downloads in China exceeded 30 million; among the global players, Chinese players accounted for 95%.

However, after the Spring Festival, the presence of this "Buddhist game" has been greatly reduced. As of the end of February, the Baidu search index of "Travel Frog" was only around 20,000, and this Japanese game was not seen in the App Store free game rankings.

Some people say that this game is both a success and failure because of its "Buddhism". Users may download it to play out of a temporary trend or for the excitement of novelty, but players do not have much patience for a monotonous and boring game.

However, in April 2018, Alibaba Games announced that it had won the exclusive agency rights for Travel Frog in China. However, even with Alibaba's support, this outdated game only had a glimmer of life two days before the announcement, and then it fell into obscurity and no news was heard.

Meituan Taxi

• Influence index: ★★★★
• Top ranking period: March 22 - April 8
• Meituan has long been eyeing the big fat piece of meat of "taking a taxi".

In the first half of 2017, Meituan began testing its taxi-hailing business in Nanjing. However, due to licensing issues, the expansion of Meituan's taxi-hailing business was once stagnant.

In early March 2018, after 10 months of testing in Nanjing, Meituan Taxi finally sounded the clarion call and announced that it would be launched in seven cities including Beijing and Shanghai. On March 21, Meituan Taxi officially recruited drivers in Shanghai and put up a poster in Beijing that read "Starting immediately when 200,000 people sign up."

In addition, in order to attract more drivers and passengers to join, Meituan Taxi launched benefits such as "zero commission for the first three months for registered drivers" and "1 cent for new users to take a taxi". Such a large-scale rebate naturally made users who have tasted the sweetness of the "subsidy war" excited. The number of downloads of Meituan Taxi App increased exponentially. On the second day of entering the Shanghai station, Meituan Taxi rushed into the top ten of the App store free list, and the total number of orders on the first day in Shanghai exceeded 150,000.

Meituan Taxi has been making great strides in the travel sector, so Didi will naturally not sit idly by and has announced its entry into the food delivery sector.

On April 1, Didi Waimai announced its trial operation in Wuxi. As a new player, Didi also adopted the method of "subsidy" to expand the market. In the rider recruitment order, Didi Waimai claimed that the monthly salary of full-time riders could reach 10,000 yuan. In terms of attracting new users, Didi launched activities such as 20 yuan discount for the first order and large proportion of discounts. The effect of the "subsidy war" was immediate. After 3 days of trial operation in Wuxi, Didi claimed that its local market share had reached 1/3.

The duel between the two super unicorns set off a crazy food delivery war in Wuxi, which quickly attracted the attention of regulatory authorities. On April 11, the Wuxi Municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce and the Wuxi Municipal Public Security Bureau held a symposium, demanding that Meituan, Didi and others stop suspected illegal activities of unfair competition and monopoly.

After the symposium, subsidies from each company gradually decreased, and the battle came to an abrupt end. One day in late April 2018, Wang Xing updated a post on Fanfou, "Brothers climb the mountain, each with his own efforts", which indicated that the battle between the two giants was gradually slowing down. In the following months, Meituan also focused its main energy on the IPO. In the prospectus, Meituan stated that it would gradually stop investing in the taxi business.

According to the Aurora Big Data report, after the subsidies were stopped, many indicators of Meituan Taxi App continued to decline. Its daily active data on the passenger side fell by more than 41% compared to the peak, and its daily active data on the driver side fell by more than 50%.

Just when Meituan Taxi was gradually being forgotten by everyone, the Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission suddenly announced that Meituan Taxi and three other online ride-hailing platform companies had obtained Beijing's online ride-hailing operating licenses.

After a half-year truce, Meituan Taxi quietly won the Beijing license. This news also gave netizens a glimmer of hope: Will the price war of online car-hailing start again?

Love and Producer

• Influence index: ★★★★
• Dominated the charts from December 27, 2017 to January 6, 2018

At the end of 2107, a love-development game became popular. It seemed that overnight, everyone’s circle of friends was left with only five types of people: Li Zeyan’s wife, Xu Mo’s wife, Zhou Qiluo’s wife, Bai Qi’s wife, and those who did not play "Love and Producer".

Blushing! Screaming! Spending money! Countless girls went crazy. On New Year's Day 2018, due to the sudden increase in the number of players, "Love and Producer" was paralyzed and the game could not be accessed. Related topics also appeared on Weibo's hot search. The popularity was no less than that of "Chicken Game".

Love and Producer is a Mary Sue mobile game for women. The four male protagonists in the game are: overbearing president Li Zeyan, professional policeman Bai Qi, intellectual professor Xu Mo and superstar Zhou Qiluo. Since the personalities of these four male protagonists perfectly make up for all the shortcomings of real love, they naturally captured a large number of female players.

Love and Producer is a krypton gold game. In the game, if players want to unlock more skills and upgrade faster, they must recharge. It is reported that a female player spent nearly 40,000 yuan in krypton gold in order to date "Bai Qi" in the game.

No money, no husband! This makes many rational women start to think: Is it worth spending so much money on a "paper man"? In addition, "Love and Producer" has also been complained by a large number of users, such as not receiving diamonds after charging money, childish offline plot settings, servers that cannot be connected to the Internet, and meaningless levels... Not long after, "Love and Producer" encountered the "Spring Festival Advertising Gate Incident". The producer's misunderstanding, exaggeration, and even distortion of the player's attributes directly led to the game producer Paper Network becoming the target of public criticism. After that, the popularity of "Love and Producer" began to drop off a cliff.

On May 4, 2018, the "Dream Heart Lake Incident" occurred again in Love and Producer. The official selfishly adjusted the winning probability. A large number of top players and RMB players began to protest and even applied for a refund of the recharge fee. This incident became the last straw that broke the camel's back. Love and Producer was completely abandoned by the angry "wives group" and the game was completely "cool".

Zepeto (Face Pinching)

• Influence index: ★★★
• Top chart period: December 1st - December 18th

Zepeto is called "the upgraded version of QQ Show". It was launched by South Korea's SNOW company in March 2018 and entered the Chinese market in September. The operation is handled by the "B612 Camera" team. Zepeto first became popular in the Xiaohongshu community.

How to play: Users need to provide a photo or directly take a facial image. Through facial recognition and expression reading, Zepeto will generate a 3D virtual image that "looks like" the user. In addition to the "face pinching" game itself, Zepeto has added two major functions: social and krypton gold (recharge).

In terms of social interaction, Zepeto provides a left-right sliding function similar to Tantan, where users can see the virtual images and rooms of strangers, and choose whether to follow or chat with them privately, so as to socialize with strangers. In addition, each Zepeto user will have an identification code, and friends can follow their friends through the identification code to form acquaintance social interaction.

In terms of krypton gold, Zepeto launched a shopping mall. If users want a "cool" outfit, they need to recharge gold coins to purchase it.

From QQ Show, Face Meng, to Moman Camera, predecessors’ experience has proved that tool apps that focus on “dressing up” cannot fight a long-term battle. When the user’s novelty fades, the attention of the app will drop rapidly until it is finally forgotten. Therefore, Zepeto adds social and krypton gold functions. On the one hand, it is to ensure retention rate, and on the other hand, it is to realize cash as soon as possible.

As the saying goes, "Fame brings trouble." After Zepeto became popular, it has been plagued by negative comments. First, some netizens reported that Zepeto frequently crashed and lags, and the user experience was extremely poor. Not long after, another netizen broke the news that Zepeto is actually a kind of eavesdropping software, which can track and record the user's privacy when the software is turned on. Zepeto only responded to the "lag", saying that the server is not in China and will be optimized later. As for the "suspected eavesdropping", Zepeto ignored it.

In the App store, Zepeto is classified in the social field. However, in this field, there is the huge mountain of Tencent blocking the way. It is extremely difficult for any social product to break through.

It has only been a month since Zepeto became popular. Although its popularity has dropped sharply now, it is too early to say that it has "cooled down". So let's wait and see what the future of Zepeto will be like.

Physics Pinball

• Influence index: ★★★
• Top chart period: April 14 - May 8

In February 2018, a large number of anchors on TikTok were playing "Physics Pinball". Under the recommendation of the anchors, ordinary netizens also became fascinated by this casual game with simple operation and distinctive style, which set off a "pinball fever". In mid-April, "Physics Pinball" once ranked among the top three free apps on the App Store.

In addition to being a popular mobile game, "Physics Pinball" was also officially developed into a mini-game by Tencent. This mini-game quickly occupied the top position on the hot play list shortly after it was launched.

After the explosion of Physics Pinball, several “copycat Pinball” games appeared on the market, causing the legitimate game to be diverted. In addition, the gameplay of Pinball is very simple, and a large number of players put it aside after “trying it out”, and the popularity of the game gradually cooled down.

Magic Crystal App

• Influence index: ★★
• Dominant time period: October 22 - October 28 (top ten on the social chart)
• In October 2018, the first Internet business TV series "Entrepreneurial Era" was aired, and the "protagonist" Magic Crystal App in the play also made its debut in reality.

Taking advantage of the popularity of the TV series, the Magic Crystal App ranked second on the App Store social list two days after its launch, and media reports and venture capital invitations followed one after another.

Magic Crystal App is a chat software based on the email protocol. To be precise, this software is actually "MailTime" which has been re-launched under a different name. The founder Huang He also said that this was originally an unintentional act, but he did not expect it to be so popular.

Due to insufficient preparation by the development team, when a large number of users poured in, the Magic Crystal server was unable to bear the load and was paralyzed for two consecutive days. A large number of new users were "turned away" and unable to log in to experience the game.

In addition, since domestic users have not formed the habit of using email for daily communication, the Magic Crystal App's positioning as a social networking app using email is bound to fail in the mainland market. Many fans who came for "Entrepreneurial Age" soon became indifferent after downloading it to try it out.

As the popularity of "Entrepreneurship Era" faded, no one was interested in the Magic Crystal App anymore.

Sweet customization

• Influence index: ★★
• Top ranking period: May 21st - May 24th
• It only took 96 hours from topping the charts to being taken off the shelves.

In late May 2018, a social software called "Sweet Customization" was suddenly bombarded by the media on the grounds that it was a "pornographic app that promotes the objectification of women" and a "dating software disguised as a social app"...

Pornography, compensated dating... these "obscene" words stimulated the ignorant masses to open the door to a new world and tried to download and experience it. On May 21, Sweet Custom squeezed out WeChat, QQ, Tantan, and Weibo, and rose 765 places to the top of the Chinese App Store social application rankings.

Sweet Custom was first established in the United States in 2006. Its main function is to conduct "money and sex transactions". The platform divides users into two categories: charming sweethearts and successful people. When users register, they must choose one of these two roles. If the user chooses "charming sweetheart", they need to fill in age, body shape, race, height, education level, occupation, etc.; if they choose "successful person", they need to fill in net assets and annual net income, with the starting amounts of 600,000 and 300,000 RMB respectively.

This kind of software that blatantly promotes "sexual dating" is doomed to fail in China. On the afternoon of May 21, the official WeChat account of Tianmi Customization was blocked due to violations, and the main company of the WeChat account, "Yufa Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.", was also listed in the list of abnormal operations by the Municipal Supervision Bureau. On the afternoon of May 25, "Tianmi Customization" was officially removed from the App Store.

summary

Looking back at 2018, it was a year full of changes and challenges. Regulatory authorities cracked down on the issue, the review of game licenses was suspended, and the demographic dividend gradually disappeared... Many "bad news" led to fewer and fewer new business opportunities and new models in the mobile Internet field.

In the context of the industry's downward trend, why do the above 10 apps stand out?

Sina Technology found that these apps all have the ability to attract attention instantly, either driven by the celebrity effect, or in line with current hot topics, or just happen to catch the hearts of young people. It can be said that these apps have been "hot spots" since they were born.

On the other hand, these apps are rooted in social, entertainment, and e-commerce, which have large traffic and quick results. Among the 10 apps, 5 are games and 4 are social.

However, the App industry has always been a battlefield without the smoke of gunpowder. Even if you have a superior background, there is no guarantee that you will have a worry-free future.

The target users of the above 10 apps are mostly young people, who have a strong curiosity, which drives them to try new things and pursue hot topics, so "Internet celebrity" apps can become popular in a very short time. However, curiosity can also make people dislike the old and love the new. When young users are familiar with the product, the initial "fun" will be greatly reduced. If the product has not really entered the user's daily life at this time, it may become a "monthly" software.

2018 is a thing of the past, but 2019 is worth looking forward to. New technologies such as 5G, AR/VR, artificial intelligence, face recognition, and full-screen are becoming more mature. Driven by new productivity, batches of "new seeds" will take root and sprout. How many of them will grow into towering trees? And how many will be short-lived?