Yu Yongfu: Upgrading UC Browser along the transformation path of Taobao Mobile

Starting today, UC will officially transform from a well-known browser to a new media platform under Alibaba.

On April 28, at the Alibaba Mobile Business Group's strategic launch conference, Yu Yongfu, president of Alibaba Mobile Business Group, pointed out that in the future, UC Browser will be upgraded along the transformation path of Taobao Mobile, leveraging Alibaba's big data advantages to create a new media platform that can serve thousands of people in different ways.

Like Taobao, let information find users actively

Nowadays, when users open Taobao on their mobile phones, they are accustomed to Taobao's personalized product recommendations on the first screen based on their personal search history and preferences. There are as many different Taobao display interfaces as there are users. Based on big data, Taobao has changed people's shopping habits of actively looking for products.

Taobao's transformation can be traced back to 2012, when Taobao Mobile launched the "Thousand Faces for Thousands of People" project, which used user attributes and historical visit records for algorithmic recommendations, achieving a personalized experience that was completely different from the Taobao PC version, and successfully helping Taobao make the leap from PC to mobile.

Yu Yongfu pointed out that behind the "Thousand Faces for Thousands of People" of mobile Taobao is a two-way transformation on the supply side and the consumer side. On the supply side, the concept of "omnipotent Taobao" is continuously promoted to enrich the types of goods and services; on the consumer side, the problem is solved through "Thousand Faces for Thousands of People".

Before the Internet appeared, there was very little information and few ways to obtain information. Users had to find information on their own, which was a "people looking for information" model. After the emergence of mobile Internet, information exploded, and the ideal model should be changed to "information looking for people."

"From 'people looking for information' to 'information looking for people', the logic of information service and e-commerce transformation is the same. UC should be a media platform like Taobao and Tmall!" Yu Yongfu pointed out that UC will upgrade the UC browser along the transformation path of mobile Taobao, focus on "all-powerful UC" on the supply side, and continuously improve the richness and high quality of content. At the same time, it will focus on "UC that understands you" on the consumer side, use Alibaba's big data advantages to make personalized content recommendations, and ultimately achieve user reputation for UC's information services that are "both abundant and accurate."

UC Headlines is not Toutiao

In August 2015, UC launched a browser-based personalized information flow product, UC Toutiao, and launched a new brand slogan, "No matter how much you give, it's better to understand me." According to mobile scenarios and browsing habits, it delivers selected information and services to users, initially realizing the goal of "one face for each person".

There are two mainstream information flow products at present: one is information flow based on social relationships, such as Weibo and WeChat Moments, and the other is information flow based on data, such as UC Headlines, Toutiao, Sohu News, etc. The competition among data information flow platforms is becoming increasingly fierce, and each company hopes to compete for more users and media resources.

Talking about the similarities and differences with other data-based information flow products such as Toutiao and Tencent News Client, He Xiaopeng, President of UC Browser of Alibaba Mobile Business Group, pointed out that the advantages of UC Browser are reflected in three aspects: First, the size of the basic user base. UC Browser currently has more than 400 million monthly active users, and figures from March 2016 show that UC Browser's daily exposure has exceeded 6 billion, with an average daily reading of more than 570 million and a total of more than 6.5 million user comments per day.

But in He Xiaopeng's opinion, the most important advantage of UC Toutiao is Alibaba's unique big data capabilities. First of all, it has multi-dimensional data resources. UC not only has browsing preference data shared by information flow products, but also has search data and application usage data through Shenma Search and PP Assistant. In addition, there are exclusive Alibaba e-commerce data, location data from AutoNavi Maps, social data from Weibo, entertainment data from Youku Tudou, etc. He Xiaopeng said that the integration and in-depth mining of more data will enable UC to better understand users and realize the true "UC that understands you" for thousands of people.

It is understood that after completing the upgrade from "people looking for information" to "information looking for people", UC Browser's domestic products may be officially renamed "UC".

Empowering the media and teaching people how to fish

With the popularization of mobile Internet, the way people obtain information has changed significantly. Tool-based information service platforms represented by WeChat, Weibo, and browsers have emerged. As their user base has grown, content demand has become prominent. WeChat, Weibo, and news clients have become channels for content services and a kind of pan-media, which has also created a wave of self-media.

In order to increase content supply, in the past two years, platforms such as Tencent, NetEase, and Toutiao have launched various support policies to attract self-media to join and help them monetize by providing subsidies. In this regard, Yu Yongfu said: "It is better to teach a man how to fish than to give him a fish. If it is a one-time subsidy, it can be subsidized for one or two years, but what about after that? The key is to promote the transformation of content providers into content service providers."

This time, UC officially launched the "Media Empowerment Plan" to promote the transformation of content providers into content service providers, allowing media to have their own "content stores" like Tmall brand merchants, and form a new media ecology with healthy and sustainable development.

"Content provider or content service provider, these two positions are completely different," Yu Yongfu pointed out. Alibaba has created a new model in e-commerce business, allowing merchants to own their own "private property", that is, stores. This is a big difference between Tmall and the models of Amazon and JD.com. Amazon's model is like Wal-Mart, an online supermarket, which actually displays shelves.

Yu Yongfu believes that in the traditional portal era, content providers have been operating for ten years without their own "content stores" and private property. UC aims to allow content creators to have their own "content stores" and use their own stores as their long-term business base. In this way, the business value of content providers is not a one-time traffic sale, but they can use content stores to accumulate their own brand value.

It is understood that the "Empowering Media Plan" that UC is about to implement includes two parts: precise traffic and diversified monetization. In terms of traffic, UC will use Alibaba's big data to intelligently recommend 6 billion exposure resources every day using precise algorithms combined with manual operations, and recommend highly compatible and highly matched users to media professionals. At the same time, it will strengthen copyright management and increase original protection. In terms of monetization methods, in addition to traditional internal page advertising and operation subsidies, it will also provide multiple forms such as paywalls, crowdfunding, and rewards to improve monetization efficiency; in addition, it supports external links and seamlessly connects to e-commerce and payment systems.

"UC has sufficient patience. We plan to use five years to complete the establishment of a new media ecology and achieve a long-term balance and win-win situation among content, platform and users." Yu Yongfu is full of confidence in the future regarding UC's transformation and reshaping.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.