A review of the "fights" in 2015: The right way to fight on the Internet

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As the saying goes, "There are no eternal friends, no eternal enemies, only eternal interests." This is especially true in the Internet industry, which is full of variables. From the beginning of 2015 to now, the quarrels between the Internet and technology circles have been dazzling but also full of fun.

It is worth noting that although there are many quarrels in the Internet industry, the purposes are different. Some companies fight to protect their own brands; some companies fight to "get on the headlines" to increase their presence; and some companies use the means of slandering their opponents to gain a higher position.

2015 is almost at the end of the year. DoNews reporters have sorted out and reviewed the quarrels in 2015 to see which ones are still fresh in people's memory.

1. Xiaomi and Huawei executives "fight" on Weibo: Is the 2K screen good?

In January 2015, Huawei's mobile phone chief Richard Yu made some comments on Weibo about 2K screen phones such as Xiaomi Note, Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and MX4 Pro. He believed that the user experience of these phones was very poor, and directly criticized Xiaomi Note, saying that its 3000mAh battery would make its battery life worrying.

Xiaomi co-founder Lin Bin responded quickly, saying that the Mate 7 was inferior to the Xiaomi Note in every aspect. In addition, Lin Bin also dug up Yu Chengdong's Weibo post complaining about the high power consumption of the 1080p screen, and hinted that Yu Chengdong might consider "upgrading" the Mate 7 to a 720p display, which would have better battery life.

Afterwards, the two sides started arguing over whether to adopt a 2K screen. Even Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun joined the melee and joined forces with Lin Bin to besiege Yu Chengdong.

2. When Shenzhou Private Car challenges Uber, is it the uncle or the people who are to blame?

Shenzhou Private Car launched a series of advertisements with the theme of "Beat U! I'm afraid of black private cars", and invited celebrities such as Wu Xiubo, Hai Qing, Sun Yingjie, and Su Cen to be spokespeople for the advertisements. However, this series of Shenzhou Private Car advertisements sparked widespread controversy on Weibo and social networks.

In this series of advertisements, Shenzhou Zhuanche directly pointed the finger at the taxi-hailing app Uber and even invented a new term "black car" for it, pointing out that it has problems such as "drug driving, drunk driving, driving under the influence of alcohol", "no security", "privacy being bought and sold", "uneven personnel", "vehicles of varying ages", "difficulty in claiming compensation for private cars", and "black cars changing their names".

However, the copywriting of Shenzhou mistakenly wrote "怪蜀軍" as "怪蜀黎", which was ridiculous and gave Uber a perfect opportunity to fight back. In the end, the marketing event of Shenzhou Private Car was hyped up, but the effect was counterproductive. This method of raising oneself by attacking the opponent caused netizens to boycott Shenzhou Private Car.

Regarding this incident, Xu Lei, senior vice president of JD.com, pointed out that China Auto Rental's black testimony advertisement received a lot of bad reviews. If the starting point of marketing was to cause controversy and attention, China Auto Rental would be successful. However, it caused indifference among consumers and was criticized by the industry. From this perspective, this round of marketing is meaningless.

3. Coolpad cheated on LeTV, and the original partner 360 demanded compensation

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In September 2015, Qihoo, on the grounds that Coolpad had violated its non-compete obligations, notified Coolpad in writing that it would purchase all of 360's 49.5% equity in the joint venture (Qihoo Technology) jointly established by the two parties in accordance with the shareholders' agreement, for a total price of approximately US$1.485 billion.

Qihoo 360 said that this move is to hope that Coolpad will immediately stop violating the joint venture agreement and stop the continuous damage it has brought to the joint venture company Qiku after cooperating with its competitor LeEco Capital. The joint venture was established in December 2014 to sell mobile terminal products mainly through the Internet.

Coolpad Vice Chairman Jiang Chao responded on Weibo, saying, "Without love, you are just a beast full of hatred," implying that Zhou Hongyi's actions were not decent, and called on employees "not to be afraid of the power of evil."

The incident ended with the settlement between Qihoo 360 and Coolpad. 360 took a step back and increased its stake in the joint venture Qihoo Technology from 49.5% to 75%. It is understood that the formal conclusion of the agreement still needs to be approved by the Coolpad Group shareholders meeting.

4. Internet TV is in a big fight, and competitors are very busy

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In 2015, Internet manufacturers such as Xiaomi, LeTV, and Coocaa were engaged in a constant public relations war, which not only brought tension to the industry, but was also actually increasing the entire market's awareness of Internet TV.

In May, a microblog post by Xiaomi about "No. 1 in sales in 30 days" sparked controversy, which eventually turned into a public relations war for the entire TV industry. The war between Xiaomi and LeTV over TV content lasted for nearly a month. The war started as a confrontation between the two companies and eventually turned into a melee between Xiaomi, LeTV, Coocaa, Hisense and other brands.

In October, LeEco attacked Coocaa for not understanding ecology, while Coocaa attacked LeEco for its “fake ecology.” After an ecological war, Wang Zhiguo also said that the number of domestic Internet TV brands will increase to 15 this year, and “next year there will only be 5 Internet TV brands left.”

In 2015, the Internet TV industry flourished. In addition to manufacturers such as Xiaomi, LeTV and Coocaa, manufacturers such as Whaley and Baofeng also entered the field.

5. Xiaomi and Meizu held a conference in the same hotel, a love-hate relationship 10 meters apart

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On the afternoon of September 22, the atmosphere in Beijing Wuzhou Crown International Hotel was full of gunpowder. In the middle of the hall, Xiaomi was on one side and Meizu was on the other. On the surface, it was a silent war, but underneath, it was undercurrents and tensions were rising. On this day, Xiaomi launched the Xiaomi 4c at Beijing Wuzhou Crown International Hotel, and Meizu arranged for the media attending the Pro5 launch conference to stay here, so there was a scene where the Xiaomi and Meizu sign-in desks were placed side by side, one black and one white.

There was a towering "human wall" next to the two check-in desks. It was employees from Xiaomi and Meizu, all wearing black tops. The representatives in the front row were tall and strong, with the aura of professional bodyguards and full of murderous intent.

A Xiaomi employee responded to the incident by saying that Meizu was trying to hype up its popularity by copying Xiaomi's press conference. "This is not the first time Xiaomi has been 'copycatted' by its competitors."

Some users at the event criticized Meizu's actions, saying that it deliberately ruined Xiaomi's market. In response, Li Nan, vice president of Meizu Technology, said, "We are stupid enough to use high-end products to compete with low-end products. In addition, it is common sense that media outside Beijing need to sign in one day in advance." This shows that Meizu did not deliberately arrange to compete with Xiaomi on the same stage.

Meizu staff also said that the company had chosen this hotel to receive media visiting Beijing before Xiaomi decided on the venue for the press conference, and that Meizu has a precedent of hosting foreign media in this hotel.

6. Suning’s new Double 11 trick: teasing JD.com’s boss lady

Every year on Double Eleven, e-commerce websites are bound to fight with each other. However, unlike previous years, this year has changed from a melee among a few countries to a competition between two strong countries.

During the Double Eleven period, the news that JD.com boss Liu Qiangdong's wife "Milk Tea Sister" was pregnant was confirmed. Some people accused her of creating topics for Double Eleven maternal and child products. Suning saw this and launched slogans such as "If the boss is really strong, why does the boss's wife need to be on the headlines?" Although the slogans were attractive, they contained too much personal attack and were accused of being shameless by netizens.

Since November 3, JD.com’s real-name report to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce on Alibaba has been all over WeChat Moments. However, Alibaba’s response also slapped JD.com hard in the face, “The chicken reported the duck by real name, saying that the duck monopolized the lake…” It said that the ultimate solution to the problem of competition is to let consumers choose, and the market will solve market problems, and it said that it will continue to maintain its price advantage to the end.

7. The fight between WeChat and Alipay, is it caused by the red envelope war?

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In February 2015, Alipay red envelopes added WeChat and QQ sharing interfaces. Eight hours after the launch, at around 10 p.m., after clicking "send to WeChat friends" on the Alipay red envelope, it showed "cannot be shared to WeChat". On the WeChat page, a prompt appeared saying "the content you are currently sharing has security risks and cannot be shared to WeChat", and was banned by WeChat again.

Tencent officially responded that WeChat does not allow malicious marketing in the name of red envelopes, and "when the Alibaba system is connected to WeChat Pay, we will discuss this issue again." Alibaba also admitted that the Alibaba system has indeed not been connected to WeChat Pay, "Alipay is enough."

After Tencent responded to the "red envelope war", the confrontation between Alibaba and Tencent has changed. Alipay said that some merchants reported today that they could not use Alipay to receive and pay in the stores opened on the WeChat public platform, and the page prompt was "Taobao blocked the browser request from WeChat."

8. The war of online audio is on the rise again. Ximalaya FM asks Qingting FM three questions

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In early January, an unnamed engineer posted a large-character poster on GITHUB (IT engineer professional sharing and communication community), a well-known domestic mobile Internet audio application, Qingting FM. He claimed that after using common decompilation tools to study and analyze its code in detail, he clearly pointed out that Qingting FM used programs with hidden and sophisticated designs such as codenames "Prometheus" and "Zeus" to implement large-scale user number and advertising click fraud.

Once the post was disclosed, it immediately caused a sensation in professional communities such as Zhihu, GITHUB, and Rare Earth Circle. Many professionals were involved in the fierce debate about the fake "magic technology" of Qingting. The old rival Himalaya FM officially wrote an article to express its hope that Qingting FM would respond to its "fake door" incident instead of hiding behind the public relations department to cover up the truth. However, after the article was published, Qingting FM did not respond and chose to remain silent.

The fraud incident alarmed Wang Sicong, the "husband of the nation" Weibo account, who reposted a technical post from the rare earth circle and added a comment that "the boss of Qingting FM should go to jail." Wang Sicong's tens of millions of fans responded to the "husband" call and joined the war of condemnation, which put Qingting FM in a situation of being besieged from all sides.

On November 8, Qingting FM released its first statement. It did not directly respond to the data fraud, but said it would reserve the right to take legal action against the defamers. At the same time, related articles on multiple websites and Zhihu were deleted.