Exclusive interview with Tang Ke, CTO of Fengxing.com: Video open platform and marketing of small and medium-sized enterprises

On September 20, a salon event themed "Embrace Cloud Computing" was held by Ronglian Cloud Communication, SalesEasy, and SysCloud, three cloud computing-based IT service companies. The three companies provide three recognized cloud computing service models, namely PaaS, SaaS, and IaaS, providing users with one-stop solutions. The purpose of the salon event is to let more users truly understand cloud computing, help more companies transform from traditional IT to cloud computing service models through cloud computing, and let everyone experience the convenience, efficiency, and low cost of cloud computing.

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Tang Ke, founder and CTO of Fengxing.com

Mr. Tang Ke, founder and CTO of Fengxing.com, delivered a keynote speech at this salon event. I was fortunate enough to have some exchanges and discussions with Mr. Tang Ke after the meeting. Let us share some of Tang Ke’s unique views on the Internet online video industry.

Development Trends of Domestic Online Video Industry

Fengxing.com was founded in September 2005. Tang Ke said: "At that time, the company was mainly founded by me and another entrepreneurial partner. We started from an American company and wanted to establish a company comparable to Baidu and Alibaba, but now there is a big gap. Why did we establish Fengxing at that time? Because broadband was very popular, but people had no content to watch, so we found venture capital to establish Fengxing.com." In the past nine years, with more than 300 video websites dying, video websites have experienced a turbulent reshuffle. Youku, iQiyi, Caijing Video, Sohu Video, and LeTV have gradually secured the top five positions, and Fengxing.com followed closely behind in sixth place.

Talking about the development trend of the Internet video industry, Tang Ke first talked about Internet TV. He believes that video has gradually become saturated on the PC and mobile terminals, and the mobile terminal will still be hot for a few years. Although Internet TV is currently subject to some regulatory constraints, the demand is there, and it has great potential in the long run. Secondly, there are thousands of graphic websites, and only a few well-known video websites have entered the public's field of vision. There are also some other forms of video websites, such as media live broadcasts and short news videos. The overall situation is that the number of video websites is far less than that of graphic websites. Internet video is an extension of film and television animation. In the early days, it was mainly film and television dramas, variety shows, and animation. In the current state, these three types can no longer fully meet the needs of users, but exist as a long-tail demand. The public's demand and expectations for video websites should jump out of or not be limited to news, film and television entertainment. Online video also has great potential in education and other fields. If subcultural vertical video websites can find a business model that suits them, they will also have a certain development. Overall, the prospects for Internet video are still huge.

Fengxing.com has 40 million PC users every day. Its position in the entire video industry is different from that of Youku.com. It provides basic product technology services. It uses its cooperation with Shanghai Baitong SMG Group to continue to integrate TV and Internet into TV Internet, leaving the production of content to highly professional film and television producers. Fengxing.com can use its own open platform to help more traditional media complete the Internet transformation of new media, which is also the value of Fengxing.com.

Video open platform and marketing of small and medium-sized enterprises

Fengxing.com developed the first P2P on-demand software from 2005 to 2007. From 2008 to 2011, PC Internet video developed very rapidly. During this period, Fengxing.com developed P2P video across the entire network, which spanned PC clients, WEB, mobile terminals, and now a very hot industry, Internet TV. From 2012 to 2014, China's PC Internet has begun to slow down its development, but mobile development is very fast, so Fengxing.com made a mobile video APP. By 2014, it launched a new open platform service, and it will be officially released on the market by the end of the year. Since 2008, Xisiyun has provided Fengxing.com with many bandwidth, monitoring and other services. In addition to Xisiyun, Fengxing.com has also cooperated with Apple, Telecom, and Mobile.

This year, Fengxing.com launched a new strategic direction, namely the business of open platform. A very important reality for small and medium-sized enterprises is that they are all facing the pressure of survival. How to market to your customers? Some small and medium-sized enterprises are facing 2B customers, and some are facing 2C. How to establish brand influence and marketing capabilities is a very important topic for small and medium-sized enterprises. Fengxing.com's cloud service platform is a way of promotion. Fengxing.com's open platform provides free services to small and medium-sized enterprises. What does the service include? Provide customers with a video platform. Few small and medium-sized enterprises do video advertising. Generally, they are electronic advertisements. Only large fast-moving consumer goods, cleaning or automobile manufacturers invest in video advertising. Everyone knows that the communication method of video advertising has its own outstanding advantages, and the same sentence has different meanings when expressed in text, pictures and videos. The open platform provides video influence for small and medium-sized enterprises or large enterprises. The open platform is more suitable for providing in-depth marketing communication services and vertical channels to segment the population.

The value of content marketing requires the organization of content, the accuracy of the audience, the diversity of forms, and self-made joint marketing resources. Weibo and WeChat recommendations are very important sources of traffic. The industry can forward interesting WeChat videos by itself. The open platform creates a concept of content as advertising and provides video marketing for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Difficulties in the Internet Transformation of Traditional TV Media

There are many difficulties in transforming traditional television media into new media, and the key point is that its main value chain is still on the television side.

Tang Ke gave a typical example of a traditional industry. He wanted to buy a refrigerator. Considering that a traditional electrical appliance dealer of Fengxing.com had placed an advertisement on his website, he decided to take care of the customer's business. So Tang Ke placed an order on the dealer's website and ordered a refrigerator. It was originally agreed to be delivered the next day, but after four days and multiple phone calls, the refrigerator still had not been delivered and no delivery promise was received. Tang Ke canceled the order and placed an order with another Internet e-commerce company. The refrigerator was delivered the next day. From this example, it can be seen that the above-mentioned traditional electrical appliance dealers do not lack the ability of Internet e-commerce, but their main ability is invested in offline services, which cannot be improved after moving to online, because their main service support system and information system system are not developed for online services, and their own KPIs are also concentrated on offline customers. If you want to take care of both online and offline customers, there will inevitably be one light and one heavy. When the two resources conflict, you have to make a choice.

Traditional TV media is just like the example above. For example, if you make a TV program and transfer it to the Internet, you must change the way to do it. For example, the TV version of "The Voice of China" and the Internet version will definitely be different. The main purpose of the TV station is to increase the ratings. From the perspective of the TV station, is the Internet version of "The Voice of China" the main or auxiliary? It is definitely auxiliary, so the online version is definitely not as good as the live TV version of "The Voice of China". On the other hand, if you forcibly apply the content of Internet video websites to TV, the effect may not be good. Therefore, in the final analysis, the Internet transformation of traditional TV media still depends on the direction and goals of its main value chain.

"When running an online video website, an innovative spirit is essential, and talent cultivation is also of paramount importance," Tang Ke concluded.