Why did map manufacturers’ O2O dreams all fall apart?

Recently, Yu Yongfu, the new chairman of UC, wrote an article saying that AutoNavi will remove advertisements and focus on map navigation, which also means that AutoNavi’s O2O dream has been completely shattered.

Did Gaode do anything wrong?

Looking back to a year ago, the Internet map navigation industry was at its most prosperous. At that time, Baidu and AutoNavi announced that they would be free, starting a vigorous free navigation war, with fierce advertising and public relations offensives from both sides. However, today, the halo of Baidu Maps in Baidu's LBS division is no longer so dazzling, and AutoNavi has undergone a team reshuffle and strategic changes since it was acquired, while other map manufacturers have been low-key and lurking. The map industry is now in a mess, which is a pity.

For a period of time, AutoNavi aggressively recruited Internet talents, and many talents from Baidu, Sogou, Renren, Meituan and other companies were poached. AutoNavi once resolutely entered the mobile Internet and announced that navigation would be free to "revolutionize itself" to carry out a great leap forward transformation. However, the transformation brought about a sharp drop in revenue. The continuous investment in the O2O battlefield forced AutoNavi, as a listed company, to seek strategic financing to obtain more cash flow to continue this war of attrition. Committing itself to Alibaba was originally a stopgap measure, but it was unexpected that it would be "annihilated" in the end.

After all, AutoNavi did nothing wrong? Under the impact of free navigation software, AutoNavi's transformation is in line with the trend. However, in the field of map navigation, from the PC era to the mobile Internet era, it has always been looking for a profit model but failed. To be fair, it is not just AutoNavi that has shattered its O2O dream. The entire map manufacturer has almost "retreat" in the O2O battlefield. Map manufacturers such as Baidu and Sogou are also difficult to be successful in the O2O field. Baidu's LBS division is now wavering. Baidu Maps is no longer as motivated this year. Baidu Nuomi has begun to step to the foreground, and Sogou Maps has never really stepped into the O2O battlefield. It has always been in a state of watching the fire from the other side of the river and concentrating on making products. Others such as Navigation Dog, Tuba, Tiger Maps, etc. have been silent for a long time, either facing transformation or struggling to survive.

Donglou analyzed that the reason why map manufacturers’ collective dreams of O2O were shattered was mainly due to the following three factors.

1. Map products are too powerful as tools

First of all, the tool attribute of map products is too strong, so strong that we only use it as a simple tool like a calculator. For users, using map navigation software is nothing more than finding a place, checking routes and navigating. Once the above purposes are achieved, users will not have the slightest nostalgia and will close the software without hesitation.

Few users are willing to stay on maps and navigation software for a long time, except for finding places and routes, because it is neither a game nor a video, and has no entertainment attributes. This leads to very poor activity of map products. Compared with other rigid-demand apps, the user activity is so low that it can only be counted as monthly activity, and the secondary pages for adding hotels and food group purchases are rarely visited.

2. Map products are difficult to break the user's mindset

On the other hand, despite the O2O battle between Baidu and AutoNavi last year, they cultivated users’ habit of using life services by embedding taxi-hailing software and housekeeping services. Although, like other group-buying software, map software also puts in a wide variety of services, and can even provide one-stop services such as travel, accommodation, and food, in the minds of users, maps are just maps, and their biggest function is to find places and check routes. So far, people still directly open Didi and Kuaidi to take a taxi, go to Dianping to find food, and go to Meituan to book movie tickets. No matter how hard they try, map navigation software still has difficulty breaking the mindset in users’ minds.

This mindset may come from where we live, and it may be the fate of map products. After all, it is called a map. When people talk about maps, they divide its functions, and this is also determined by the attributes of the product. Maps are meant to serve users' travel, and forcibly extending the breadth of other life services seems to be futile.

3. Maps add O2O services, but lose sight of the big picture

The important thing is that providing O2O services is really too expensive. If you want to change the user's mindset, you must advertise lavishly and constantly educate users to get used to booking hotels and finding food on the map. In addition, if you want to beat Dianping and Meituan, you need to constantly improve your services, build a local sales team, and provide more favorable services. This means entering an unfamiliar field and directly competing with group buying websites, and there is no chance of winning.

To put it bluntly, the map product is both honey and poison. It is honey because it can provide basic services for many businesses of giants and is of great benefit to the layout of giants, but it is poison because there is no hope of profit in the short term, but it is necessary to continuously improve services and product experience, like a bottomless pit.

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.