Fighting strangers to make friends: the last social feast

"Everyone used to think that there was no other social networking outside of WeChat, but the success of Momo proved everyone wrong." At an industry forum in Beijing, a social APP entrepreneur lamented.

Weak-relationship social networking is dominated by Weibo , while strong-relationship social networking is controlled by WeChat and QQ. In the past few years, in the mobile social networking field where people thought there was no room for startups to grow, Momo has grown strongly under the shadow of Tencent .

As of June 30 this year, Momo's total registered users exceeded 148 million, monthly active users exceeded 52.34 million, and the total number of Momo groups exceeded 3.56 million. Sources revealed that Momo completed its C round of financing in the first half of this year, with a valuation of US$2 billion, and has started its IPO in the United States.

The success of Momo has dealt a heavy blow to Chinese entrepreneurs. Stranger social networking may be the last feast in the entire mobile social landscape. Whoever can seize this last opportunity may become the next "WeChat".

Bring the show to your phone

Youjia is one of the earliest entrepreneurial teams in China to enter the stranger social field. The three founders, Hu Zhutao, Zou Ling, and Jiang Mingliang, all had entrepreneurial experience. Hu Zhutao founded Woqin Technology, which was acquired by MediaTek in 2009, while Jiang Mingliang founded the TV shopping company Jiyi Media, which was eventually sold to Changbai Group.

The third founder, Zou Ling, once founded Ruolin.com, a social platform for business people. However, due to the website's poor performance in China and lack of user demand, he eventually had to give up on this direction. At Zou Ling's suggestion, in 2011, the three of them co-founded Youjia to enter the stranger social networking field.

"At that time, the only product model that could be used as a reference in the market was 9158. As a typical representative of the show model, 9158 has achieved steady profitability." Looking back on the early days of the business, Hu Zhutao believes that the biggest advantage of the 9158 model is that it allows users to quickly find communication partners and immediately find the content they want to watch once they enter the page.

But the disadvantage is that this kind of show model can only be one-to-many, with one girl facing many boys. In the end, only those who spend more money can experience the greatest pleasure, while the loser is just a foil.

Drawing on the experience of 9158, Youjia positioned itself as a mobile dating platform for post-90s youth and grassroots users. When users open Youjia, the main interface is a "show" hosted by beautiful women, where users can chat and make friends in groups through voice.

"Through voice, we can understand each other more intimately. Compared with text, users will feel less pressured." Hu Zhutao introduced that users in Youjia mainly display their talents and express their feelings through voice group chats. Compared with video, voice is lighter and more likely to promote everyone to produce content.

In Hu Zhutao's view, mobile social tools can be divided into two categories. One is the social tools for acquaintances represented by WeChat, Laiwang, and YiXin. These tools require a strong accumulation of social relationships, and it is difficult for start-up companies to enter.

Another category is stranger dating tools represented by Momo, Youjia, Meipai, etc. In this category of tools, there are three major trends in the market: interest-based dating represented by Momo, which guides users to interest groups; content-based dating represented by Meipai and Miaopai, which connect users with a special content, such as pictures or videos.

The third category is apps like Youjia that form user social networks through interactive innovation. This category is also the area where most startups are concentrated. "To some extent, as long as you can find an innovative way to bring strangers together, you can carve out your own path." It seems that mobile social tools can be divided into two categories. One is acquaintance social tools represented by WeChat, Laiwang, and Yixin.

He revealed that Youjia currently has nearly 30 million registered users, 8.5 million monthly active users, and 3 million daily active users. It is expected that the number of registered users will reach 45 million by the end of 2014 and 80 million in 2015.

Everything is for the sake of bringing you together

When it comes to bringing users together to socialize, another social application, “WeiJu”, is more direct.

When users open Weiju, they can immediately see a series of dating opportunities, such as "Candlelight dinner for 2 people, AA system, location Chaoyang District", "Travel to Mount Tai together, 5 people, AA system, departure on August 25". Users only need to click to sign up, and the date will be established after the initiator approves it.

The two founders of Weiju, Jiao Yi and Xiao Jun, were once senior executives of YY . They left the company to start their own businesses after YY went public and cashed out.

"I found my wife online. Making friends is a human need. With the experience of YY, we naturally chose the direction of mobile social networking when starting our business," said Jiao Yi.

Before developing Weiju, Jiao Yi conducted an in-depth study of Momo users' usage habits. "Their standard usage process is to first browse through nearby users, then find a suitable person to talk to, and then immediately look for the next person to leave messages while waiting for a reply. It takes about 40 times of chatting before someone replies, and it is even more difficult to arrange a meeting in person, which takes at least an hour."

"Some people say Momo is a tool for hooking up, but in fact, hooking up is difficult to happen. If you are a loser, it is even more impossible." Jiao Yi said, "The efficiency of Momo's dating is very low. Since chatting is for dating, we simply put the dating link in front. Every user can directly initiate a date. If there are multiple people who sign up, the initiator can choose by himself."

In Jiao Yi's opinion, since most of the dating locations are public places, there is no need to worry about safety. Since the dating content and location are directly displayed, it also indirectly helps users screen dating partners. For example, if you are tall, handsome and rich, you are unlikely to sign up for a date at a very unpopular location.

Jiao Yi used the term "finding something to do and socializing" to describe the product form of Weiju. "First find something to do, eliminate most people, and finally achieve the goal of quickly matching and making friends. This is a step further than the interest-based social networking advocated by Momo and others." In terms of business model, since users directly make appointments with a restaurant or cinema, it is very easy to cooperate with merchants to establish a business model and form an O2O closed loop.

Game-centric

If Weiju wanted to pull people from online to offline from the beginning, then another stranger dating tool "Beibei" is just the opposite. They hope that users' social interaction can continue to be maintained online.

Beibei's founder, Li Zheng, was once a founding employee of Kongzhong.com . After the company went public, he joined Ku6.com and had been engaged in mobile video development before starting his own business. After several entrepreneurial experiences, in 2013, Li Zheng and his team developed Beibei, a social APP that uses games as a link to encourage strangers to make friends.

Similar to Youjia, Beibei also targets the Diaosi group. "In products like Momo, if you are a Diaosi, you have no chance. You have no money, no looks, and no literary talent. How can you attract others' attention?"

Li Zheng's solution is games. Beibei has built-in more than ten light games such as Lianliankan, Tank Battle, and Bride Robbery. The purpose of these games is not to let users play deeply, but just to establish a bond of social connection with others.

He used the "flip the card" game as an example, saying that this game can continuously display photos of the opposite sex. Users can choose "flip the card" and "change one". Through the algorithm, the pictures of both parties will be presented on each other's mobile phones. If both parties flip the cards of each other, it means that both parties are very interested in each other. Next, they will guide the two parties to establish contact and engage in deeper social interaction.

"The most important problem that social networking solves is the 0 to 1 problem. To put it bluntly, it is how to get both of you to hook up." Li Zheng explained that whether it is games or other social tools such as voice and pictures, they are just a form of content. The purpose is to enable strangers to quickly establish connections and generate social interactions.

In Li Zheng's opinion, apps like Momo are too dependent on geographic location. The ultimate goal of most Momo users is to establish offline connections, which does not apply to the loser group, who are poor and shy and prefer to hang out online. On the Beibei platform, users' friendships have nothing to do with geographic location, and the people who form social connections are directly geographically separated by thousands of miles.

Three major business models gradually become clear

At the same time, by choosing games, the most easily monetizable form of mobile Internet, as a social breakthrough, Beibei has found a way out for its future commercialization.

In stranger dating apps, the three business models of "games, value-added services and advertising" are very clear and have been repeatedly verified. On the WeChat game platform, a small game called "Everyday Cool Run" has generated over 100 million yuan in recharges within 12 days of its launch.

In terms of advertising model, Momo is the fastest. Last week, Momo launched the online advertising platform "Daodiantong" specifically for local offline merchants, taking an important step in commercial exploration.

The billing method of "Daodiantong" is a comprehensive calculation based on the number of Momo users covered by the delivery area and delivery time set by the merchant. If you place an ad in a busy area during peak hours, the flow of people will be relatively large, and the advertising fee will be higher; if you place an ad in the same area but at other times, the flow of people will be relatively small, and the advertising fee will be lower.

In general, the advertising mechanism of Daodiantong is a bit like the practice of "selling land" in real estate, which is linked to geographical location, traffic flow, and time period. In addition, the store details page not only shows the distance between the user's current location and the merchant, but also navigates consumers directly to the store through a map.

After merchants join "Daodiantong", they can place advertisements based on Momo's LBS function and set the geographic location range and delivery time according to their own needs. The location accuracy can be as low as 1 km and as high as 3 km. This is almost the most geographically targeted advertising platform on the market.

"The business model is not a problem at all for social products. The most important thing now is how to quickly and effectively find like-minded people and retain them. At present, sex and interest are still the two most effective ways." said an investor.

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.