Today's headlines are about to be "killed by heat"

On June 6, the first game of the NBA Finals, the Spurs vs. the Heat, officially kicked off. The game was very exciting. In the middle of the game, the air conditioning and refrigeration system of the Spurs' home stadium, the AT&T Center, unexpectedly malfunctioned, and the 20,000 fans at the scene were so hot that they were almost unable to take care of themselves. As the game progressed, the atmosphere at the scene became high, and the fans shouted in unison, "It's so hot (Heat)". The word "It's so hot (Heat)" is so great, I think it's also very suitable to use it on Toutiao, which is also "heated to death".

Recently, Toutiao raised $100 million in financing, with a valuation of $500 million. Once the news was released, it quickly grabbed the headlines of major media websites and triggered heated discussions on whether the valuation was too high. Then, an article about Toutiao's infringement was exposed, which also quickly grabbed the headlines of media websites and successfully dominated Weibo and WeChat Moments.

Is Toutiao's valuation too high, is it a serious bubble?

Now the entire Chinese Internet and mobile Internet industry is in a wave of investment and financing, and large investments are made from time to time. Especially for startups, Internet startups now regard making money as "shame", and only when they lose a lot can they have room for imagination. When a startup receives a huge investment, there will always be heated discussions in the market, such as overvaluation and industry bubble. Most startups that receive huge investments are in a state of loss, which is quite shocking. Without the reference of performance indicators, it is difficult to define their valuations. We can only refer to related companies and use our imagination. If the company rings the bell successfully in the future, the stock price rises sharply, and the investors make a lot of money, everyone will be happy, and the valuation will be no problem. Take Jumei as an example. After the successful ringing of the bell, everyone praised Xu Xiaoping for being forward-looking and the investment was really cost-effective. Before, there were all kinds of complaints, such as fakes, saying how Jumei could be worth so much money. Of course, there are many such complaints after the listing. Internet company investment has always been based on users as a reference, and investors don’t care whether you are making money now. Toutiao has 120 million download users and 40 million monthly active users, which are still good data. So, as bystanders, it is meaningless for us to discuss whether Toutiao's valuation is too high. They will not issue us stocks, so why worry so much?

Today, whose hair turned white due to the headlines?

The discussion about Toutiao’s overvaluation has not yet ended, and the discussion about Toutiao’s infringement has come up again. It is very lively. Yu Tuo is not a lawyer, and I don’t want to interpret Toutiao’s copyright issues too much here. Friends who are interested in further understanding of legal issues can read "Where are the legal problems of Toutiao?" written by lawyer You Yunting. Yu Tuo is considered an early user of Toutiao, and he is also one of the first self-media people to settle in Toutiao’s self-media platform. The major domestic portals basically have their own mobile news clients, and each has also launched self-media platforms one after another. The author has also tried them. At present, the author uses Toutiao’s client more, and the other platforms are gradually being deactivated because Toutiao has traffic. Whether it is self-media, traditional media, or large and small websites, what is lacking is traffic.

According to my experience, Toutiao's traffic diversion now seems to be mainly divided into three types. The first is to jump directly to the original web page display on the content provider's website on the PC, which is similar to the search engine inclusion; the second is to jump to the content provider's mobile page on the client app for diversion, and the content provider's original web page URL will also be displayed on the top of the app; the third is the model that is widely questioned by everyone, which requires clicking on the original text to divert to the content provider's website. In fact, it is the transcoded reading done by Toutiao to improve the user's reading experience. In my opinion, it is a free service for websites that do not have the ability to transcode and optimize mobile reading.

Toutiao and content providers have always maintained these three types of cooperation. Why did all parties get along peacefully before, but now they are scrambling to jump out and say that Toutiao infringes on copyright? As far as I know, Toutiao will only crawl website content after authorization. This attitude of traditional media is actually understandable. In the past year, there have been endless voices singing the pessimism of traditional media. Traditional media is like having lice all over the body, but don't know where to start. Nowadays, Toutiao, a mobile Internet information reading platform, has a strong rise again, and traditional media are anxious. But Toutiao is not BAT, and traditional media do not have a very strong sense of dependence on it for the time being, so they can speak out. Whether it is against Toutiao or other platforms, behind this voice is the fear and helplessness of traditional media, and the helplessness of new media, new trends, and new technologies.

As a client, Toutiao only provides channels and traffic but does not generate content. However, it can still cooperate well with traditional media to jointly build a content ecosystem platform. In the Internet age, users decide who lives and who dies.

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.