#Zhang Yiming News

[rightnewshindi]

TikTok का मालिक बना चीन का सबसे अमीर आदमी, जानें कितनी है झांग यिमिंग की नेट वर्थ

China Richest Person: टिकटॉक… चीन का ऐसा सोशल मीडिया प्लेटफॉर्म जिसने भारत में रील क्रांति को जन्म दिया। इस प्लेटफॉर्म पर रील बनाकर कई लोग रातों-रात स्टार बन गए। टिकटॉक और इसकी पैरेंट कंपनी बाइटडांस (ByteDance) आज भारत में बेशक बैन है, लेकिन इसके फाउंडर ने अकूत दौलत कमा ली है। हुरुन चाइना रिच लिस्ट के अनुसार बाइटडांस के फाउंडर झांग यिमिंग (Zhang Yiming) चीन के सबसे अमीर इंसान बन गए हैं। इनकी…

[william-r-melich]

Tik Tok Bill/HR 7521 - 03/16/2024

Bill HR 7521 passed 3 days ago in the house of representatives by a vote of 352 - 65. If this bill passes in the Senate, which looks likely, Joe Biden said he will sign it, which will purportedly ban Tik Tok. It wouldn't really ban it, but what it will do is force Byte Dance, the Chinese company that owns Tik Tok, to divest by providing a description of what assets would need to be divested to execute a qualified divesture. In other words, they would have to sell it. They would also have to shut down their internet hosting service. Someone in the U.S. would buy it. I've been on the fence with this one as well with whether or not Biden will remain on the ticket. After reading a portion of the bill I saw a loophole regarding what can be done with a foreign person. Donald Trump, who back in 2020 wanted to ban Tik Tok, he's now against banning it. He said that banning Tik Tok would give the government too much power and would make Facebook more of a monopoly. I sure hope his 180-degree shift wasn't partly made because he has a big campaign donor from Tik Tok. Elon Musk is against it. He thinks it will lead to the government having too much control of wording and censorship on all media platforms. He argues that it doesn't just involve foreign adversaries. Republican Congressman Thomas Massie on X posted this: "The president will be given the power to ban WEB SITES, not just Apps.--"The person breaking the new law is deemed to be the U.S. (or offshore) INTERNET HOSTING SERVICE or App Store, not the 'foreign adversary.' " The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) controls what content is allowed on Tik Toc, and the version that is used in China is very different to what's allowed on it outside of China, like here in the U.S. In China they're teaching their children strict discipline and loyalty to the CCP without other harmful content, brainwashing them into their collectivist ideologies. Outside of China they are allowing and promoting content that encourages self-harm and suicide. The big concern in Congress is that the CCP is using the platform to collect as much personal data as they can to be later used against us for nefarious reasons.

Bytedance is the parent company running Tik Toc, and it's former CEO, Zhang Yiming, in 2018 wrote an open public letter of apology to the CCP's headquarters. He was in trouble for not directing his tech companies to push the party's communist agenda far enough, including for what they termed as Xi Jinping thought. Here's some of that letter translated in English:

"I sincerely apologize to regulators, our users and colleagues. I have been in a state of guilt and remorse since I received the notice from the regulatory authority yesterday afternoon and stayed up all night."

"Toutino will permanently shut down the app and the Wechat account of Neihan Duanzi. The product has gone astray, posting content that goes against socialist core values. It's all on me. I accept all the punishment since it failed to direct public opinion in the right way."

"I blame myself for failing to live up to the guidance and expectations of the authorities. In the past few years, the authorities have given us a lot of guidance and help, but I failed to understand properly and to correct properly in the past that resulted in the repercussions today."

"I blame myself for failing the support and trust of our users. We one-sidedly focused on growth and scale without paying timely attention to quality and responsibility of guiding users to obtain positive information. We have failed to undertake corporate social responsibility, and lack emphasis and understanding of our roles in carry forward the positive energy, and guide public opinion properly."

"I reflect that the deep-seated problems for the company are: a weak understanding of the 'four consciousness,' a lack of socialist core values, and a biased guidance of public opinion. 'In the past, we have placed too much emphasis on the role of technology, and failed to realize that socialist core values are the prerequisite to technology. We need to spread positive messages in line with the requirements of the times while respecting public order and good practice.' "

The "four consciousness," to which he referred is described in the following CCP directive as translated into English; CCP Central Committee Publishers Plan for Deepening the Reform of Party and State Agencies. March 18, 2021:

"To deepen reform of the Party and state agencies at this new historical turning point, we must comprehensively implement the Spirit of the 19th Party Congress and persist in taking Marxism -- Leninism, Ma Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Important Thinking of the 'Three Represents,' the Scientific Development Concept, and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as the guide. We must firmly establish political consciousness, consciousness of the big picture, consciousness of the core leadership, and consciousness of falling in line with party directives. We must resolutely maintain the authority and centralized unified leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core. We must adapt to the development requirements of socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era, persist in the general principle of seeking progress while maintaining stability, and adhere to the proper direction of reform. We must persist in being people-centered, and persist in comprehensively ruling the country according to law."

It seems clear to me that the CCP wants to dominate the world and control how everyone thinks. We can't let that happen. The harmful content on Tik Tok can be found on some of the other platforms, but apparently on Tik Tok it's been more harmful and addictive to kids. Amnesty International 2 reports: "Driven into the Darkness: How Tik Tok Encourages Self-harm and Suicidal Ideation and the I Feel Exposed: Caught in Tik Tok's Surveillance Web - highlight the abuses experienced by children and young people using Tik Tok Outside of China. Between 3 and 20 minutes into our manual research, more than half of the videos in the 'For You' feed were related to mental health struggles with multiple recommended videos in a single hour romanticizing, normalizing or encouraging suicide."

Here's how a portion of the Tik Tok bill reads - HR 7521:

(iii) a subsidiary of or a successor to an entity identified in clause (i) or (ii) that is controlled by a foreign adversary; or (iv) an entity owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by an entity identified in clause (i), (ii), or (iii); or (B) a covered company that -- (i) is controlled by a foreign adversary; and (ii) that is determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States following the issuance of -- (I) a public notice proposing such determination; and (II) a public report to Congress, submitted not less than 30 days before such determination, describing the specific national security concern involved and containing a classified annes and a description of what assets would need to be divested to execute a qualified divesture. (4) FOREIGN ADVERSARY COUNTRY, -- The term "foreign adversary country" means a country specified with respect to a covered company or other entity is -- (A) a foreign person that is domiciled in, is headquartered in, has its principal place of business in, or is organized under the laws of a foreign adversary country. (B) an entity with respect to which a foreign person or combination of foreign persons described in "subparagraph (A) directly or indirectly own at least a 20 percent stake; or (C) a person subject to the direction or control of a foreign person or entity described in subparagraph (A) (B). (2) Covered Company -- (A) IN GENERAL -- The term "covered company" means an entity that operates, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), a website, desktop application, or augmented or immersive technology application.

The loophole I see is that there are people here from China that are legal to work and live here (green card) and who have a residence in China. The President (Joe Biden) could divest any website or app operated by a company with such a person in its employ from China with a green card who happens to own at least 20% of that company. I haven't read through the entire bill, nor am I an expert on Congressional bills or policies, but there might be other loopholes to be found. Given all that I have considered on this, I think divesting Tik Tok is a good idea, but only with no loopholes or wiggle room. I don't trust the government, their too giddy about this and I suspect they may have something up their sleeves. Next to our own ability to destroy ourselves from within, I think China is our biggest threat. This is serious stuff and we're in some very dangerous situations. We've got to get this right and get the right leader in the White House, which, in my humble opinion, is Donald J. Trump.

[kholran]

Insect Totem || New trailer released ahead of it’s January 6th premiere.

Starring Zhang Mingen, Hu Bingqing, and Sun Yiming.

[hjellacott]

Tiktok

The international version of the Chinese product Douyin.

Owned by: ByteDance Limited (Zìjié Tiàodòng).

Content censorship: They ban and suppress criticism of leaders like Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, mahatma Gandhi, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Also they suppress content informing of what happens at the Xinjiang Internment Camps (basically modern Chinese concentration camps to brainwash muslims), and the Uyghur genocide. They also ban users deemed too ugly, poor or disabled for the platform, censor political speech, block positive LGBT content, and set country-specific censorship rules.

It has been revealed that TikTok's Chinese employees could spy on users from all over the world, including obtaining their fingerprints and biometric data, aside from facial, which the Chinese government also has access to.

BYTEDANCE LTD.

Headquarters: Beijing and incorporated in the Cayman Islands (tax haven).

Founded by: Zhang Yiming, Liang Rubo, and more.

In partnership with: The Chinese Ministry of Public Security.

Also owned by: several companies with shares in it. For example a Chinese state-owned company owned by the Cybespace Administration of China and China Media Group.

Financed by: Hillhouse Capital Group )largest privaty equity fund in Asia), General Atlantic (US growth equity firm), Sequoia Capital (American venture capital firm), SoftBank Group Corporation (Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company focused on investment management), KKR & Co. Inc. (American investment company that manages alternative assets).

They've also created: Toutiao, a Chinese news platform that has been subjected to criticism for showing advertisement of products that Toutiao doesn't care if they're good or not, or even certified, after Toutiao employees said the company will even fake product certifies and allow illegal advertisement.

There are surveillance and privacy concerns with Bytedance company, with suspicions of its work for the Chinese Communist Party to censor content about human rights abuses.

[sa7abnews]

Meet Zhang Yiming, the extremely private billionaire behind TikTok who is now China's richest person

New Post has been published on Sa7ab News

Meet Zhang Yiming, the extremely private billionaire behind TikTok who is now China's richest person

Zhang Yiming is the billionaire founder of ByteDance, the parent company behind TikTok. He’s now China’s richest man.

... read more !

[douxlen]

Meet Zhang Yiming, the extremely private billionaire behind TikTok who is now China's richest person

New Post has been published on Douxle News

Meet Zhang Yiming, the extremely private billionaire behind TikTok who is now China's richest person

Zhang Yiming is the billionaire founder of ByteDance, the parent company behind TikTok. He’s now China’s richest man.

... read more !

[scott1984fp2]

TikTok founder becomes China's richest man https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8dmql101dno

[news-buzz]

China's rich list: ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming places No. 1 News Buzz

HONG KONG – ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming tops the list of China’s richest people, according to the Hurun Research Institute, although many of them have seen their net worth plunge over the past year. The institute, which publishes the annual Hurun China Rich List, found that the total wealth of entrepreneurs on the list this year was US$3 trillion, down 10 per cent from the previous…

[williamchasterson]

TikTok founder becomes China's richest man

Zhang Yiming’s fortune has leapt to almost $50bn, according to a newly published rich list. from BBC News https://ift.tt/01IleaN via IFTTT

[employehub]

TikTok-Owner ByteDance Founder Zhang Yiming to Step Down as CEO, HR Chief Liang Rubo to Take Over

TikTok-Owner ByteDance Founder Zhang Yiming to Step Down as CEO, HR Chief Liang Rubo to Take Over

Transition in TikTok Leadership: Zhang Yiming Steps Down as CEO

In a significant development for the global social media landscape, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance announced that its founder, Zhang Yiming, is set to step down from his role as CEO. This transition marks a pivotal moment for one of the world’s most popular and influential social media platforms. Liang Rubo, the current Chief Human Resources Officer, will succeed Zhang as the new CEO. The move comes amidst increasing scrutiny and regulatory challenges faced by TikTok in various parts of the world.

Transition of Leadership

Firstly, Zhang Yiming’s decision to step down as CEO of TikTok-owner ByteDance underscores the dynamic nature of the technology sector. Transitioning from a founder-led leadership model to a new CEO brings both opportunities and challenges for the company. Liang Rubo’s elevation to the top position reflects ByteDance’s commitment to continuity and succession planning. With Rubo’s background in human resources, his leadership style and strategic vision may differ from Zhang’s, potentially influencing TikTok’s future direction.

Impact on TikTok’s Strategy

Secondly, the change in leadership could signal a shift in TikTok’s strategic priorities and corporate culture. Zhang Yiming’s leadership has been instrumental in shaping TikTok into a global phenomenon, known for its innovative content creation and algorithm-driven recommendations. However, as TikTok continues to navigate complex regulatory landscapes and competition in the social media space, Rubo’s leadership may prioritize issues such as compliance, corporate governance, and stakeholder engagement.

Challenges and Opportunities Ahead

Moreover, the transition in TikTok’s leadership comes at a crucial juncture when the platform faces mounting challenges, including concerns over data privacy, content moderation, and geopolitical tensions. However, it also presents an opportunity for ByteDance to reinforce its commitment to responsible corporate citizenship and sustainable growth. Rubo’s leadership will be closely watched as TikTok seeks to strike a balance between innovation and regulatory compliance in an increasingly interconnected world.

Continuity in Innovation

While Zhang Yiming’s departure marks the end of an era for ByteDance, it does not necessarily signal a departure from its core values of innovation and user-centric design. TikTok’s success has been driven by its ability to adapt to evolving user preferences and technological advancements. Rubo’s leadership will be critical in ensuring that TikTok continues to innovate and provide a compelling user experience while addressing concerns related to privacy, safety, and misinformation.

Stakeholder Relations

Furthermore, effective stakeholder management will be paramount for TikTok under Rubo’s leadership. As a globally operating platform, TikTok must navigate relationships with governments, regulators, advertisers, content creators, and users. Clear communication, transparency, and collaboration will be essential in building and maintaining trust among stakeholders. Rubo’s background in human resources may bring a unique perspective to stakeholder engagement, emphasizing the importance of nurturing talent and fostering a positive workplace culture.

Potential Challenges

However, the transition in leadership also poses potential challenges for TikTok. Zhang Yiming’s departure may lead to speculation and uncertainty among investors, partners, and employees. Maintaining morale and confidence amidst leadership changes requires effective communication and a clear roadmap for the company’s future. Rubo will need to demonstrate his ability to lead TikTok through this transition period with agility and resilience.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Zhang Yiming’s decision to step down as CEO of TikTok-owner ByteDance and Liang Rubo’s appointment as his successor mark a significant milestone in the evolution of one of the world’s most influential social media platforms. While the transition presents both opportunities and challenges, it underscores TikTok’s commitment to adapting to change and driving innovation in an ever-evolving digital landscape. As TikTok navigates this transition, effective leadership, stakeholder engagement, and a clear strategic vision will be crucial in shaping its future trajectory.

[forgottenbones]

Douyin was launched by ByteDance in September 2016, originally under the name A.me, before rebranding to Douyin (抖音) in December 2016. Douyin was developed in 200 days and within a year had 100 million users, with more than one billion videos viewed every day.

While TikTok and Douyin share a similar user interface, the platforms operate separately. Douyin includes an in-video search feature that can search by people's faces for more videos of them, along with other features such as buying, booking hotels, and making geo-tagged reviews.

ByteDance planned on Douyin expanding overseas. The founder of ByteDance, Zhang Yiming, stated that "China is home to only one-fifth of Internet users globally. If we don't expand on a global scale, we are bound to lose to peers eyeing the four-fifths. So, going global is a must."

The app was launched as TikTok in the international market in September 2017. On 23 January 2018, the TikTok app ranked first among free application downloads on app stores in Thailand and other countries. TikTok has been downloaded more than 130 million times in the United States and has reached 2 billion downloads worldwide, according to data from mobile research firm Sensor Tower (those numbers exclude Android users in China).

In the United States, celebrities, including Jimmy Fallon and Tony Hawk, began using the app in 2018. Other celebrities, including Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, Will Smith, and Justin Bieber joined TikTok as well as many others. In January 2019, TikTok allowed creators to embed merchandise sale links into their videos.

On 3 September 2019, TikTok and the U.S. National Football League (NFL) announced a multi-year partnership. The agreement occurred just two days before the NFL's 100th season kick-off at Soldier Field, where TikTok hosted activities for fans in honor of the deal. The partnership entails the launch of an official NFL TikTok account, which is to bring about new marketing opportunities such as sponsored videos and hashtag challenges. In July 2020, TikTok, excluding Douyin, reported close to 800 million monthly active users worldwide after less than four years of existence.

In May 2021, TikTok appointed Shou Zi Chew as their new CEO who assumed the position from interim CEO Vanessa Pappas, following the resignation of Kevin A. Mayer on 27 August 2020. In September 2021, TikTok reported that it had reached 1 billion users. In 2021, TikTok earned $4 billion in advertising revenue.

In October 2022, TikTok was reported to be planning an expansion into the e-commerce market in the US, following the launch of TikTok Shop in the United Kingdom. The company posted job listings for staff for a series of order fulfillment centers in the US and is reportedly planning to start the new live shopping business before the end of the year. The Financial Times reported that TikTok will launch a video gaming channel, but the report was denied in a statement to Digiday, with TikTok instead aiming to be a social hub for the gaming community.

According to data from app analytics group Sensor Tower, advertising on TikTok in the US grew by 11% in March 2023, with companies including Pepsi, DoorDash, Amazon and Apple among the top spenders. According to estimates from research group Insider Intelligence, TikTok is projected to generate $14.15 billion in revenue in 2023, up from $9.89 billion in 2022.

On March 8, 2024, President Joe Biden said he would sign into law a bill forcing ByteDance to divest TikTok within 180 days. The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted unanimously, 50-0, to advance the bill on March 7, 2024. ByteDance launched a congressional lobbying campaign mobilizing TikTok users in response.

On 9 November 2017, TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, spent nearly $1 billion to purchase musical.ly, a startup headquartered in Shanghai with an overseas office in Santa Monica, California, U.S. Musical.ly was a social media video platform that allowed users to create short lip-sync and comedy videos, initially released in August 2014. TikTok merged with musical.ly on 2 August 2018 with existing accounts and data consolidated into one app, keeping the title TikTok. This ended musical.ly and made TikTok a worldwide app, excluding China, since China already had Douyin.

TikTok

[josnashak69]

Blood transfusion

After 2019, ministers will enter a blood renewal period, which is called job rotation internally. The core essence is: employment strategy serves the company's strategy.

JD.com went public in 2014. B2C is the foundation of the company, so the HE Tuber general manager naturally holds a high position of authority. At that time, JD.com was also having the best luck, and was once ranked as BATJ. Liu Qiangdong’s goal is to hit a market value of 100 billion.

At that time, there was no Pinduoduo, and there was no craze for live streaming to bring goods. The important dimension for an e-commerce platform to be measured in the market was to invade all the scenarios where users purchase as much as possible. 

Now this indicator is still important, but it is difficult to directly reflect it in the capital market.

JD.com has taken two measures to achieve this goal. One is to learn from Tencent’s small-proportion investment ecological strategy. At that time, JD.com was also an important core member company of Tencent. The second is to expand its e-commerce territory to cover all categories. This is Responsibilities of Ministers.

For example, in the attack on fresh food, Wang Xiaosong was sent from 3C to fresh food. Even after three years of epidemic user habits, fresh food is still a difficult nut to crack for e-commerce.

Old people doing new things is a common strategy of big companies. They need to prove themselves again. When Wang Xiaosong came to JD.com in Beijing from Shenzhen Wal-Mart, he stayed at a relative's house. Sometimes he would sleep directly at the company after working too late. The company held its annual meeting, with 70 or 80 tables of employees, and Liu Qiangdong toasted one by one. Wang Xiaosong, who was present, was excited. He looked at Liu Qiangdong, who looked like Qiao Feng in Tian Long Ba Bu, so heroic. 

Looking back now, it all becomes a story.

After being transferred to the fresh food department, Wang Xiaosong built 7Fresh from 0 to 1, and also fell into the pit of fresh food e-commerce. At that time, he also said that he would continue to work in the field of fresh food. In fact, he stayed in this position for less than 4 years.

For another example, JD.com is trying to expand its territory through clothing battles and influence the e-commerce landscape. And the internal tone at that time was that clothing was JD.com’s last battle. This is also based on category expansion thinking.

Although there was a background of being sniped by Ali, the main theme of the era at that time was consumption upgrade. Liu Qiangdong’s own judgment at the time was that JD.com would become a platform for the middle class to purchase all categories. No matter from the perspective of repurchase, category expansion, or female users, clothing cannot be skipped.

Liu Qiangdong left the show in person and flew around the world to meet various brands. 

Because of her background in the fashion industry, Ding Xia took over from Xin Lijun and became the head of the fashion home business department. Later, this business unit was managed by Hu Shengli and Feng Yi, and it also swung between self-operated and POP models. It achieved results on a small scale, but none of the ministers could really open up Jingdong Apparel's situation during their tenure.

After "Choose One" was cracked by an irresistible force, it was not JD.com that benefited, but Douyin.

Even before Alibaba was punished by anti-monopoly, the brand used short video ads to place small yellow cars on Douyin to close the deal. Zhang Yiming had essentially solved the problem of choosing between two that once troubled Ma Huateng and Liu Qiangdong.

The category war did not help Liu Qiangdong achieve his goals. It was not until Xu Lei came to power that he refined JD.com's core capabilities, adjusted the front, middle and back office organizations, and strengthened the positioning of the supply chain. Finally, 

in mid-2020, JD.com's market value exceeded US$100 billion.

But this state did not last long. Pinduoduo's long-term advancement and the rise of live streaming e-commerce soon became a new destination for users to place orders, and it was unstoppable.

JD.com’s latest market value is US$44.6 billion, while Pinduoduo’s is US$157.7 billion, which is 3.5 times the size of JD.com. Based on this background, Liu Qiangdong’s goals have also changed.

Caixin reported that at the end of the June 18th War in 2023, Liu Qiangdong spoke personally at a meeting of 2,000 middle and senior executives of JD.com, and he was very detailed. Normally at such a meeting, he would talk about the general trend and strategy. The core idea of ​​this meeting is to maintain growth, and the essence is to stabilize the share and scale of e-commerce.

Maintaining growth and stabilizing scale is not a goal determined only at this year's meeting. Before the implementation of the low-price strategy, Liu Qiangdong must have seen the variables in the direction of the industry structure. To achieve low prices, according to JD.com’s official statement, it is still necessary to seek efficiency from the supply chain, while at the same time giving POP room for development and seeking incremental growth.

Naturally, the missions of ministers have also changed, and with them, personnel information has been updated.

At the end of 2022, Jingdong’s ministers were intensively adjusted. Liu Lizhen, head of Dashang Supermarket’s omni-channel business group, resigned and was replaced by Yao Yanzhong. The 3C business group he was originally responsible for was split into two, with Li Shuai in charge of the home appliances business group and Wu Shuangxi in charge of the computer communications business group. The fashion beauty business group was transformed from the fashion home business group, and the number one position also changed from Feng Yi to Kong Xiangying.

[zannatykhatun]

Can Meituan defeat magic with magic?

On the highway of local life, Meituan is running all the way with takeaways, restaurants, wine and hotels, etc. When it comes to the turning point of "live broadcast", it runs into Douyin, which has changed its direction from short video and e-commerce.

In the ancient business of catering, a new revolution is taking place.

Wang Xing and Zhang Yiming are the initiators of this change. One of them advocates "long-term patience" and the other claims "vigor can produce miracles." Live broadcast + local life is their new battlefield.

As Wang Xing said many years ago, this  HE Tuber is an era of never-ending peace. Some investors once asserted, "We must fight the war at other people's homes. Even if we lose, we will not lose. What we will break are other people's bottles and cans."

The intersection between the two business tycoons is no stranger to the outside world. Although the current situation is not the first time this pair of old acquaintances have crossed paths, it is the most "sparky" one.

According to "LatePost" previous reports, in 2022, Douyin's catering transaction volume has been close to half of Meituan's; in early February 2023, Douyin's local life's transaction volume contributed by the catering business has been higher than that of the hotel, tourism and comprehensive business Sum.

The latest data from QuestMobile shows that the number of overlapping users of Meituan and Douyin exceeds 300 million, accounting for 81.0% of Meituan’s users. As an old rival of Meituan’s food delivery business, Ele.me’s overlapping users account for less than 20% of Meituan’s users.

Douyin's magic to quickly seize the market is "live broadcasting". Although the entry of opponents will help make the pie bigger, who is the winner under the 28-20 rule is crucial. Meituan finally took up arms. Its live broadcast business has grown from two years ago. Start testing the waters and accelerate after building a live broadcast center this year.

And savvy catering businesses are also voting with their feet. Take Wallace, which has nearly 20,000 stores, as an example. During this year’s 618 period, it gained highlights in both Meituan and Douyin. At Meituan’s “618 Group Coupon Festival”, its sales of value-for-money packages exceeded 150 million yuan; while Douyin’s “618 Group Coupon Festival” ranked fifth on the best-selling brand list.

What’s interesting is that Wallace walked into Meituan’s takeout live broadcast room, while the one on Douyin was an in-store live broadcast with online group coupons and offline verification. To a certain extent, the choice of chain merchants also reflects the differences between Meituan and Douyin in local life live broadcasting.

Meituan, standing at the center of the whirlpool, can it use the magic of Douyin to fight back against Douyin this time?

1. How much patience does Meituan have during live streaming?

Meituan Runtong’s first live broadcast product is home delivery (takeaway).

The "Shenshou" live broadcast room is the first official live broadcast room of Meituan to break out of the circle. It focuses on "magic low prices and instant grabs." In fact, its earliest live broadcast attempt was in September 2022, and it did not start daily broadcast until March this year. Meituan’s attempts at live broadcasting date back to earlier, and food delivery is not the vanguard.

In December 2020, Meituan launched the "Meituan Mlive" mini program on WeChat, which was limited to medical beauty and education merchants and has not yet covered the huge takeout merchants. In April 2022, Meituan launched the "Meituan Live Assistant" APP and launched the "Food Live" channel in an attempt to open new sales channels for catering merchants.

In the past two years or so, multiple businesses within Meituan have tried live broadcasting, but they have all stopped. According to "Blue Hole Business", it was not until the first half of this year that Meituan's live broadcast business established an independent team and set up a live broadcast center at the technical level. Each business unit can use this capability.

The popular live broadcast room of Meituan’s food delivery god

A person related to Meituan told "Blue Hole Business": "Shenshou" can be said to be an officially built "model room". In order to set an example for catering merchants, subsequent merchant self-broadcasts will be the main body of Meituan's live broadcast. At the same time, the most popular live broadcast rooms are currently the platform’s traffic and subsidies, and merchants subsidize the cost of goods, which does not involve charging traffic fees for the time being.

Obviously, in the past period of time, Douyin’s local life pressure on Meituan has fallen more on the store rather than the home.

Meituan disclosed in its earnings call that it is currently piloting a new marketing model for its takeout and in-store hotel and travel businesses. For example, live broadcasts, short videos and limited-time sales have been launched to guide user traffic to the products that merchants want to promote and help merchants create popular products. This kind of exploration is defined as shelf + hot style.

Judging from the data in the official live broadcast room of Meituan Waimai, it has given the outside world a signal: Meituan may be able to do live broadcasts.

During Meituan’s two Coupon Festival live broadcasts in April and May, Wallace store sales increased by 4% to 10% month-on-month, and the commodity coupons directly brought more than 100,000 new customers to it.

From the perspective of Meituan’s external caliber, high sales and high conversion are their main promotion of live streaming. According to previously disclosed data, the write-off rate of some single products in Meituan’s takeaway live broadcast room can reach 75%. At the same time, the write-off of one commodity coupon will drive a 1.5-fold increase in order transaction volume. Data from Jiuqian Zhongtai estimates that the write-off rate of Douyin’s takeaway group purchases is only 61%.

From a merchant's perspective, the key factor in choosing to cooperate with Meituan Waimai for live streaming is not only high conversion, but also the ability to fulfill contracts.

As Wang Xing said at the financial report meeting in March this year: "Meituan is very confident in the quality of its riders, operating network and merchants. Some other platforms currently mainly provide scheduled delivery for the next day. This model The impact on us is limited, and consumers’ expectations are also different.”

Douyin, which launched Xindong takeout as early as 2021, has not expanded beyond the three cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu until the first half of this year. It currently sells group meals with weak timeliness and high unit price per customer. The unit price per customer is 110 yuan - 130 yuan. The reason is that Douyin does not build its own logistics, but relies on third-party instant delivery platforms such as SF Express and Dada.

There is also no self-built logistics. Why is Douyin e-commerce successful but local life is so difficult?

On the one hand, takeout delivery requires higher timeliness, multiple concurrency, and greater randomness; on the other hand, third-party logistics costs are higher, and it is difficult to improve efficiency through system deployment, and delivery personnel will give priority to orders from their own platforms. CITIC Securities predicts that the average delivery cost of Meituan’s food delivery orders in 2022 will be 7.1 yuan, which is lower than SF Express’s 10.2 yuan in the same city.

According to "Blue Hole Business", starting in July, Douyin Life Service has introduced "group purchase and distribution agents" in five cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Changsha to help willing merchants in the service area open group purchase and distribution services, and 33 selected agents have been announced. Just last month, according to a report by "LatePost", Douyin Waimai had given up its GMV target of 100 billion yuan this year.

It is not difficult to see that Douyin still intends to develop the food delivery business, but it has no intention to build its own fulfillment system in the short term.

In addition to the ability to fulfill contracts, another reason that has hindered the development of Douyin's takeout is that compared to in-store dining, takeout does not rely on traffic and is more biased towards search. This is the logic of "people looking for goods", while Douyin still prefers " The flow logic of "finding people for goods". Many merchants started group buying on Douyin and also opened takeout services. But when they found that it was not cost-effective, they closed them down.

"For catering merchants, both home delivery and in-store delivery are necessary products. In the short term, both platforms will be considered. In the future, the focus will still be on one platform for refined operations. If Douyin takeout cannot be implemented, merchants will It will flow back to Meituan." An industry insider said.

Zhang Yiming must fight in the takeout battle, but it is difficult to win by bypassing contract fulfillment. Wang Xing once said in 2019: "The failure of most companies is not that they fail to master difficult movements, but that there is a problem with the basic skills." "If we practice the basic skills solidly, we can win 99% of things."

2. When you go to the store, will Douyin do a miracle?

Completely opposite to Meituan. Douyin's first success in local life is to go to the store.

36Kr reports that Douyin’s local life services will complete approximately 77 billion yuan in GMV in 2022, equivalent to 48% of Meituan’s. According to a recent report by LatePost, the transaction volume of Douyin’s in-store and hotel and travel business before write-off remained at about 40% of Meituan’s. Six months ago, this number was close to 45%.

[mamun258]

Ma Huateng wants to make peace with Zhang Yiming, but where is Wang Xing?

Tencent has fully opened the live broadcast rights of "Honor of Kings" to Douyin, and may become the "successor" of Byte Games, which  HE Tuber  means that the process of China's Internet transformation has accelerated: the infinite war between giants is being replaced by a new competition and cooperation relationship.

On January 13, the official Weibo of "Honor of Kings" announced that Douyin live broadcast will be fully open from January 21. By then, anchors big and small will be able to live broadcast "Honor of Kings" on Douyin without having to worry about infringement issues. Zhang Daxian and other top anchors who have just started to shake up will be the first to benefit.

Tencent has always attached great importance to the live broadcast copyright of "

Honor of Kings". Previously, it only authorized it to "direct descendants" such as Douyu and Huya. It also launched a large number of lawsuits against pirated broadcasts on ByteDate platforms such as Douyin and Xigua Video, and achieved some victories.

However, these lawsuits failed to fundamentally put an end to piracy; until now, it is still very common for Douyin anchors to covertly broadcast "Honor of Kings".

Now, Tencent has granted the live broadcast rights of "Honor of Kings" to Douyin, and the two giants have taken a big step towards reconciliation.

Earlier, many of Tencent's games have resumed streaming on Douyin. Especially for the just-released party mobile game "Yuanmeng Star", nearly 40% of the advertising materials went to Byte's advertising platform "Pangolin" in the first month of its launch, while only 12% went to Tencent's own "Youlianghui". Douyin did not stop these actions.

In addition, Byte is considering selling many games, and Tencent is one of the potential buyers. Byte has previously invested tens of billions in the gaming sector, but has never achieved the desired results; if it is sold to Tencent, Byte will no longer directly pose a threat to Tencent Games.

Ma Huateng made peace with Zhang Yiming, where is Wang Xing?

During its rise, Byte once competed with almost all major domestic Internet companies. But today, giants such as Tencent and Alibaba have eased relations with Douyin and even reached cooperation; Meituan may be the only major company that still has a relatively rigid relationship with Byte. Meituan and Douyin had a brief honeymoon period.

In 2018, Douyin, which aims to become a "universal entrance", launched cooperation with Meituan, Ctrip, etc. in the area of ​​wine and travel to divert traffic for the latter. But soon after, Douyin began to directly contact wine and travel businesses, bypassing OTAs and starting a new business, constantly eroding the market of old players such as Meituan. The collaboration between Meituan and Douyin has come to an end.

Since 2022, Meituan and Douyin have been engaged in a fierce battle around local life, while simultaneously focusing on short videos and live broadcasts to penetrate into the hinterland of Douyin. In addition, Meituan continues to compete with companies such as Ele.me, Pinduoduo, JD.com, Didi, and Hello in sectors such as food delivery, instant retail, and travel. Meituan is not the largest, but now it has become the largest Internet company with the longest front line.

However, the external strategy of far more competition than cooperation is not the best choice for Meituan.

According to Wang Xing’s vision, Meituan needs to play an “infinite game” and continuously expand its business boundaries. To advance this game, Meituan needs to continuously add traffic fuel to drive the wheels of various businesses forward.

But as an aggregation trading platform, Meituan is not known for its traffic. According to data from market research organization QuestMobile, Meituan’s DAU (daily active users) was approximately 120 million in June 2023. Among other transaction-based apps, Taobao has more than 400 million DAU, Pinduoduo has more than 300 million, and even Amap has 130 million.

Meituan's internal traffic sources mainly come from high-frequency services such as food delivery, shared bicycles, and instant retail. In the third quarter of last year, Meituan's food delivery, instant delivery and other businesses still maintained rapid growth. However, since the industry structure of these businesses is basically stable and the user volume is already very large, subsequent growth will gradually slow down as the industry enters a mature stage.

Next, Meituan needs to find more traffic engines outside of the ecosystem.

Currently, Meituan’s external traffic pool is mainly WeChat.

Tencent took a stake in Meituan in 2014, and has since continued to invest more and opened multiple traffic scenarios on WeChat to Meituan. It also gave Meituan takeout and Meituan special price fixed display space on the WeChat service page. As a result, Meituan received a strong injection of traffic, defeating Ele.me in one fell swoop and firmly taking the top spot in local life.

But now, WeChat user penetration rate is extremely high, and the traffic pool has been basically stable. In addition to continuing to dig deep into the gold mine of WeChat, Meituan is also worthy of looking for user growth in Douyin, which has 700 million DAU. Byte's move to consider selling the game to Tencent reflects its change of mentality that it is willing to share benefits and jointly make the pie bigger; Meituan has no chance of turning an enemy into a friend.

At present, Meituan needs to spend huge sums of money every year to attract traffic from online and offline scenes. Many of the marketing expenses go to content communities such as Bilibili, Zhihu, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu, including advertising on the platform and making V videos with experts. Cooperation. In the third quarter of last year, Meituan’s sales and marketing expenses increased by 55% year-on-year to 16.9 billion yuan, and its revenue share increased from 17.4% to 22.1%. During the same period, Meituan’s revenue increased by 33% year-on-year to 76.5 billion yuan.

But compared with Douyin, these communities are much smaller; Meituan may wish to cooperate with Douyin to completely open the traffic valve outside its own system.

It is true that Douyin, which has launched an onslaught in the local life field, still threatens Meituan’s home base. However, judging from past history, Douyin has to not only sell traffic to other platforms, but also personally participate in the competition and have direct contact with merchants, consumers and other market entities. This has become an irresistible practice for partners.

Faced with Douyin, which has the second largest traffic pool in the entire network, most companies have to accept Douyin’s “need and want”. If Meituan wants Douyin’s traffic, it can only abide by Douyin’s rules. .

The competitive landscape of the Internet has undergone profound changes. The partial settlement between Byte and Tencent once again proves that no matter how fierce the fight between big companies is, there is always huge room for cooperation.

Before 2023, large companies such as Byte, Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, and Meituan are trying their best to expand their business scope and start fierce battles at the intersection. In the same track, multiple companies often appear at the same time. From information and search to live streaming and short videos, from games and e-commerce to entertainment, travel and real-time retail, large companies are fighting hand-to-hand at all costs. Competition far outweighs cooperation. Even if they are far behind the leaders, the input-output ratio is not cost-effective. , but also to keep a chess piece that can charge into battle at any time.

But with Byte and Tencent frequently joining hands, the all-round confrontation that has lasted for many years is passing into history. The ice-breaking between Byte and Tencent is a symbolic event that accelerates the process of this historical turning point. Of course, users still cannot share Douyin videos directly on WeChat, which means that there is still a long way to go before the two parties are completely "interconnected."

New BAT took the initiative to extend an olive branch, and the scope of cooperation became larger and larger. Competition and cooperation have replaced zero-sum game and become the new development tone of the Internet industry.

As early as 2017, Wang Xing publicly announced to Didi Cheng Wei, "Everyone must accept that competition and cooperation are the new normal in the future." But since then, Meituan has focused its main energy on "competition" and "cooperation". Quite lacking. Today, local life and even China’s Internet environment have undergone fundamental changes; Meituan might as well pick up its original aspirations, follow in the footsteps of Tencent and Alibaba, and shift from confrontation to cooperation with Douyin, or both competition and cooperation.

Wang Xing and Zhang Yiming are fellow villagers and former colleagues. After they each grew up to be Internet giants, they once cherished each other. Nowadays, the two cannot really defeat each other in the local life circuit; it is in the long-term interests of both companies to make peace when the battle reaches a stalemate.

01

At present, Meituan's two major traffic sources - high-frequency services such as food delivery and bicycle sharing, as well as the WeChat ecosystem - are facing the challenge of slowing growth and approaching the ceiling.

How to open a new traffic faucet is related to the upper limit of Meituan.

Internally, Meituan is trying to copy Day's path and open the traffic valve by cultivating the content ecosystem.

Meituan started out as a community group buying company and is not known for its content.

At the end of 2015, Meituan acquired Dianping. It originally had the opportunity to enter the short video era based on the graphic and text ecology, and use the graphic and text + video content ecology to build barriers for users' minds and usage habits, but it failed to fully grasp it. Seize the opportunity and shift strategic focus elsewhere.

According to China Business News, after the merger with Meituan, Dianping received less attention within the company. After several revisions, it has not found an effective content direction, and its daily active users have remained at around 15 million. At the beginning of 2023, Dianping proposed to achieve 25 million daily active users by the end of the year.

This shows from the side that in the eight years since it was merged with Meituan, Dianping’s user base has not improved significantly, and it has not been able to become the content traffic pool of the entire Meituan.

Meituan is trying to start a new business.

In the past few years, its live broadcast and short video sectors have achieved some results, with Meituan Live’s single-month GMV exceeding 2 billion yuan. However, these businesses are still in the early stages of development and are mainly traffic receivers rather than creators; Meituan still has a long way to go before it can develop a prosperous content production and consumption ecosystem.

Externally, in addition to purchasing traffic from multiple content communities, Meituan is also trying to join hands with Kuaishou to obtain content traffic from the latter.

At the end of 2021, Meituan announced a strategic cooperation with Kuaishou on interconnection. Users can purchase coupons and more through the Meituan Kuaishou mini program. But Kuaishou not only has a smaller traffic pool than Douyin, but its users are also concentrated in lower-tier cities, while Meituan is better at operating in high-tier cities. There is a certain degree of mismatch between the two.

In the past two years, the marriage between Meituan and Kuaishou has not brought about eye-catching results, but Douyin has been pressing harder.

In this case, obtaining traffic from Douyin is a more reasonable choice for Meituan.

After the Internet demographic dividend disappears, how to achieve user growth at a reasonable cost is a difficult problem for all Internet companies.

Douyin, which holds one of the two largest traffic pools in the entire network, has become a rich mine for all companies trying to find gold, and it has also become the "banker" of Internet mahjong games.

Neither Alibaba nor Tencent are willing to leave Douyin's traffic game and will not hesitate to make concessions. However, Meituan seems to be a bit maverick. After briefly joining hands with Douyin, it fell into a long-term tit-for-tat confrontation.

Under the influence of various factors, Meituan used a series of tactical actions to contain Douyin's attack, but it did not achieve a decisive strategic victory. In early January, Zhang Chuan, president of Meituan’s in-store business group, admitted in an internal letter that “it is difficult to summarize 2023 in terms of success and failure”; Meituan is facing a long-term battle.

Douyin carries its traffic with great success and is invincible; other giants, no matter whether they are willing to do so or not, are worthy of establishing a competitive and cooperative relationship with Douyin in the face of surging traffic. As a trading platform, Meituan should follow the example of Alibaba and Tencent and establish an interest exchange mechanism with Douyin; it may not be wise to actively isolate itself from the second largest traffic pool in the entire network.

In addition, the cooperation between Meituan and Douyin will also help prevent Douyin from completely "falling" into Ele.me.

Since Douyin and Ele.me reached a strategic cooperation in 2021, rumors that Ele.me will be acquired have often surfaced, but they have never come to fruition. But every time the news comes out, Meituan’s stock price always plummets, which is enough to reflect the value of Ele.me to Douyin.

So far, Douyin has always denied that it will acquire Ele.me. But Douyin needs to find a changing scenario for local life traffic, and the possibility of taking over Ele.me still exists. But if Meituan, which is much larger than Ele.me, offers an olive branch, it will be much less necessary for Douyin to end its own business, and naturally it will not buy Ele.me.

In the secondary market, Douyin’s acquisition of Ele.me has always been one of Meituan’s biggest negatives. If this black swan can be completely eliminated, Meituan will benefit in the long term even if it temporarily bows to Douyin.

[mamunur51]

In the era of fragmented information, "difficult to refresh" is a virtue

Various "factory settings" illustrate Artifact's niche.

Users who like to use Artifact should have the following characteristics - heavy news readers, hate headlines, don't want to see ads, and are HE Tuber too lazy to dig up useful information in the gaps between social media quarrels...

It seems that Artifact is a smarter RSS reader that can better guess what you like, providing professional articles from high-quality sources.

RSS is also an old Internet term. It belongs to a classical and elite Internet era. At that time, people found RSS links on target websites and then added them to readers.

But new news distribution channels and social media have revolutionized the life of RSS. If RSS is an artificial aggregation of information, they are a more automatic and more humane information aggregation. The continuous downward movement makes people taste the effects of dopamine. addictive feeling.

After the RSS reader Google Reader announced its service shutdown in 2013, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming wrote an article pointing out that traditional RSS is no longer suitable for the times and is destined not to go far because the requirements for users are too high - both information organization capabilities You must be strong enough to know where the information you need is; you must also have strong self-control to organize and control the number of feeds regularly.

At that time, he believed that smart reading products more suitable for the public should be personalized recommendations based on algorithms.

In 2012, ByteDance’s main product Toutiao was launched. It not only gained a large number of users, but also made the public understand the concept of “recommendation algorithm”. Then the algorithm was used in more information, e-commerce, and short video platforms, allowing you to watch to content you like from people you follow, your friends, and yourself.

Now it seems that what Zhang Yiming said is still correct. Artifact is a new product in 2023, and it may also be a "throwback" that echoes the 2000s.

On the one hand, it is rooted in text in the era of short videos, and on the other hand, with the help of the most popular machine learning and algorithms, Artifact compares itself to the "text version of TikTok", which is very illustrative of the problem, creating a perverse feeling like time travel.

Personalized news apps are actually not uncommon, and some are much older than TikTok. However, TikTok and the short videos it represents have now surpassed reading products such as Toutiao and become synonymous with "Guess You Like It".

"U.S. version of public account" Substack, the founder, is also an RSS enthusiast.

Artifact actually doesn't have many new ideas. Except for some decorations of AI functions, its existence is more like "old wine in new bottles."

But the short-lived appearance of Artifact also shows that in an era with more information, when texts, pictures, and short videos emerge endlessly, it becomes more difficult to filter information.

The most interesting thing is that Artifact can't find its own position.

In just one year, Artifact did not just stay in place as a reader, but also added many social functions. In September 2023, Artifact launched a separate "Links" page next to the news information flow.

Any content that can be shared as a link, such as a video or a recipe, is welcomed by Artifact. It can let AI guess what you like like the news stream, or you can only view content posted by people you follow.

It sounds novel, but if you think about it,

 isn’t this back to social media? Users continue to consume, publish, and comment on content, but high-quality information sources cannot be guaranteed.

However, if you want to make the transition to social media, it’s not just information and algorithms that matter, but also a sense of community and people willing to contribute content.

Musk values ​​the public square value of X because it gathers active technological elites. The comment section of Douyin is sometimes more interesting than the video itself, and the ability of people on Douyin to make jokes is at its peak.

But Artifact, which is mixed between news and social networking, is neither that cool nor that interesting. The number of users is always very small. It can be seen from the number of articles read in the hundreds and dozens. It is very difficult to do social networking even if it is a cold start. .

Returning to the original intention of Artifact is actually to solve a problem - how to control the number of subscriptions and how to aggregate useful information. But commercially speaking, such a product is thankless. Adding ads is not "small but beautiful" enough, and sharing media subscriptions cannot be achieved because the number of users is too small.

Although Artifact, blessed by the halo of Instagram, is gone, we still need to try this way.

When it comes to topics such as the fragmentation of information consumption and information cocoons, we always bring up the "evil" Douyin.

You may not know that Douyin has a medium-length video version that wants to compete with Station B - "Douyin Selected". This is an independent app. It was originally called "Qingtao" and was changed to its current name in September 2023. It is not only different from Douyin, but also can be remembered by people in the light of Douyin.

With the slogan "Every time you open it, you will gain something new", the "Douyin Selected" videos are longer and contain more information. In addition to selected videos on digital, art, popular science, etc., there are also many documentaries. look.

The "recommendation" interface of "Douyin Selection" is more like the pictures and texts of Xiaohongshu. You can only see the video after clicking in. Unlike Douyin, which opens with a vertical screen short video, "Douyin Selections" allows me to scroll down and indifferently ignore content that I am not interested in.

Picture from: Douyin Selected Home Page

However, after scrolling through "Douyin Selection", I found that from travel tutorials to cryptocurrency scams, from self-media experience to teaching how to make money in Hangzhou, from must-see high-scoring Korean dramas to making traditional Chinese colors, I didn't feel it. The video quality has improved significantly, but there are less nonsensical funny content.

But what’s interesting is that when it comes to “Douyin Selection”, which even few people in the editorial department know about, my colleagues commented that it’s “very difficult to use”. This is actually a compliment, just like how people with light tastes regard desserts. Top Rating – Not So Sweet.

"Douyin Selection" gave me a feeling: I seem to be able to learn something, but in fact I can't remember anything. It's just the fact that I put food in my mouth, which is packaged more obscurely.

Returning to Artifact, which has yet to achieve its ambitions, it is hard to imagine that when short videos are in the spotlight, there is still such a product with "reading articles" as its core, allowing us to repeatedly read the title, click on the article, and then return. The experience is not as good as Weibo. It’s fun with Instagram, not to mention Douyin and TikTok.

It gives your brain time to control impulses instead of habitually brushing it off. The algorithm helps us filter information, and at the same time we are consciously reading the information instead of being led by the algorithm.

As a product itself, Artifact is immature, and users’ eulogies about it are roughly “I appreciate the concept, but it’s not easy to use.”

But actually, the information has always been there, right? It is not difficult to return to RSS and Newsletter and browse social media according to the timeline.

It is precisely the scarcity and short-lived life of products like Artifact that show that it is increasingly difficult to actively find your own reliable information sources. There is sea everywhere, but it is difficult to find water to drink.