Category: Computer/Network gt; gt; Internet

Problem description:

Why are there QQ chat, QQ sugar, Chery QQ car, why do they all use QQ Woolen cloth?

Analysis:

In the summer of 1996, three young Israelis, Visig, Vardy and Goldfinger, got together and decided to develop a software to make full use of the Internet for instant communication. characteristics to achieve fast and direct communication between people, which gave rise to the design idea of ??ICQ. At that time, it was used for them to communicate with each other online in time. It can be said to be almost a personal "toy", and a small company called Mirabilis was established to provide ICQ services to all registered users.

Later, AOL acquired ICQ for US$287 million. In May this year, its number of users exceeded the 100 million mark, with an average of 10 million users online every day, and each user's average online time is three hours.

In 1999, a large number of online instant messaging software imitating ICQ emerged in China, such as the earliest Picq, Oicq, OMMO, etc. Sina, NetEase, Sohu, etc. also developed similar software, such as Sina's Sina Pager. OICQ, the predecessor of QQ, was also first launched in February 1999.

The reason why QQ was able to stand out among so many online instant messaging software, eventually burying all other competitors and occupying more than 95% of China's online instant messaging software market, was partly due to its strength. The other half is luck.

Tencent was created by chance

On November 11, 1998, Ma Huateng and his college classmate Zhang Zhidong officially registered and established "Shenzhen Tencent Computer Systems Co., Ltd.". The company's main business at that time was the expansion of wireless network paging systems. When the company was founded, its main business was to build an online paging system for paging stations. This kind of software development project for enterprises or units can be said to be the best choice for almost all small and medium-sized network service companies.

In 1997, Ma Huateng came into contact with ICQ and became its user. He personally felt the charm of ICQ and also saw its limitations: first, the English interface; second, there were considerable difficulties in using it. Difficulty, which makes ICQ widely used in China, but it is not particularly popular and is mostly limited to "net bug" level experts.

Ma Huateng and his partners initially wanted to develop a Chinese ICQ software and then sell it to powerful companies. Tencent did not think at the time that it would need to invest huge amounts of money to operate its business while still earning a profit. Chinese ICQ for no money. At that time, it was because a large company intended to invest a large amount of money in the field of Chinese ICQ. Tencent also wrote a project construction document and had begun to develop and design OICQ. When it came time to bid, Tencent did not win the bid. As a result, Tencent decided to make OICQ on its own.

You must know that the price Tencent gave OICQ at that time was only more than 300,000.

Later, when Tencent began to develop rapidly, Ma Huateng said very appropriately, "We need our own Chinese network software, we need our own ICQ!" But in fact, Tencent's launch of OICQ was purely By chance, if that large company had not planned to invest in the field of Chinese ICQ, there would be no OICQ. If Tencent won the bid, there would not be Tencent's OICQ. To a certain extent, half of Tencent's success is Luck is half strength.

Win among the rivals

Many people have been questioning why QQ, which does not have particularly good functions, can dominate the crowd and finally come close to monopolizing China's online instant messaging software market? Yes, functionally speaking, there has always been nothing special about QQ, but in comparison, there is nothing special about other online instant messaging software. Everyone is imitating ICQ.

But the reason why QQ is successful is not because of how powerful its functions are, but because its interface design is very reasonable and the user operation is simple. Compared with other online instant messaging software of the same era as QQ, , such as Sina pager, OMMO, etc., their initial functions are not weaker than QQ, especially OMMO, which launched much more powerful functions than QQ when it was first launched, such as email and network hard drive. Too many functions are actually It makes users feel that the operation is very cumbersome, which is an important reason for its failure.

In February 1999, Tencent launched the first test version of OICQ on the Internet. The functions included were very simple, including only simple online instant messaging functions, but its interface design was commendable. In fact Although Tencent has launched more than ten versions of QQ software so far, its interface has not changed at all, which shows that from the beginning, the interface design of Tencent OICQ software was very reasonable.

This brought the number of Tencent’s OICQ registered users to more than 200,000 in just two months. Although this is less than the number of new registered users Tencent adds in a day now, at the time, it was quite a large number. number.

In the following months, Tencent launched OICQ 99a, which successively added public chat rooms, file transfers, wireless paging, mobile text messages, voice chat, etc. The launch of OICQ 99a laid the foundation for Tencent dominates China's online instant messaging market. By the end of 1999, OICQ's registered users had reached an unprecedented 1.3 million, with an average of more than 15,000 online users, occupying more than 80% of China's online instant messaging market at that time.

What is surprising is that after Tencent added so many new features, the interface of OICQ still has not changed at all.

In fact, OICQ has already won at this time. The characteristics of online real-time software determine the occurrence of the Matthew Effect in this market. It is like two cities. People are willing to go to the more prosperous city, and the result is prosperity. Cities that are rich are more prosperous, while poor cities are even poorer.

Shuda began to attract attention, and QQ staged a big change

By 2000, Tencent's OICQ had basically occupied more than 90% of China's online instant messaging market, and had basically locked in the victory. , then trouble comes. AOL sent a lawyer's letter to Tencent. ICQ is a registered trademark of AOL, so any similar software that uses the word ICQ in its name risks infringing AOL's trademark rights. Request Tencent to change the name of OICQ, otherwise it will go to court.

So in OICQ2000 Build 0325, OICQ made another change to protect itself in advance. However, version 0325 calls itself "QQ2000" from the beginning of the installation file to avoid legal conflicts with ICQ. This QQ It was originally a nickname given to OICQ by netizens, but unexpectedly it became the official new name of OICQ overnight.

And in this version, Tencent has also made another big move, which is to include Donald Duck, Garfield, Kitty Cat, Pikachu, Popeye, Tom Cat, Smurfs, Snoopy, and Sony the Hedgehog. The well-known cartoon portraits of Ke and others were replaced by cartoon portraits designed and produced by Tencent itself. Because Tencent has been using these well-known cartoon portraits for free without authorization from the owners of these cartoon portraits. If these owners sue Tencent and demand huge compensation, QQ's fate will be unimaginable.

A chubby penguin said proudly: "Don't call me, QQ me!" This is a picture of a fashion poster, dancing lightly in the Internet world. Various brand derivatives featuring this penguin are being sold prominently on Sina and other well-known websites. This penguin is also the holder of the most domestic Internet records: the most registered users - 80 million; the highest number of simultaneous online users - 1.8 million; and the highest number of daily ad displays - 1 billion. You curled your lips and said: Isn't that Tencent's OICQ? Just a follower.

---But it was this follower that caused such a headache for its followers, ICQ (abbreviation for I seek you, Internet pager), that it even filed an international lawsuit. Because this follower has occupied 95% of the Chinese market and has ranked third in the world among ICQ products. Not to mention, by the end of this year, domestic shopping malls will have VCDs, DVDs, TVs with OICQ embedded in them, and even new mobile phones from foreign mobile phone giants.

---In the cold winter of the Internet, Tencent’s penguin is getting fatter and fatter. Today, the channels through which Tencent makes money are directly proportional to the popularity of Penguin. Starting from July, Tencent's cash flow has also "turned positive" ahead of schedule. On October 6, an OICQ penguin image store opened on Beijing Road, the busiest commercial street in Guangzhou. Toys, clothing, accessories, and daily necessities are all themed with two cute penguins. This time, Tencent is imitating Disney.

---Accidental

---If we insist on saying that the founder of Tencent is a genius, it is better to say that it is a series of accidental ***.

---OICQ is actually one of the instant messaging products. The earliest founders of the instant messaging product were three Israeli youths. They made it in 1996 and named it ICQ. In 1998, when the number of registered users of ICQ reached 12 million, it was spotted by AOL and bought for a sky-high price of US$287 million. Currently, ICQ has more than 100 million users, with its main markets in America and Europe, and has become the world's largest instant messaging system. In 1998, Tencent was just a small company doing value-added service software and system integration, owned by five or six young people full of entrepreneurial enthusiasm. All business profits were meager, and he lived an embarrassing life without enough food. In 1999, they built an instant messaging system and submitted a bid to Guangdong Telecom. Later, they sent it to several other places, but none of them were interested. Frustrated, several people looked at the ugly ducklings they had worked so hard to hatch and were reluctant to throw them away. After thinking about it, I put it on my website as a free service for users. This is the prototype of OICQ. ---When one day, several people discovered that 100 people were online at the same time in this system, they were surprised and happy. However, as the number of users

increases, the company needs to invest more and more in this system, which actually accounts for half of the company's costs, but cannot bring any profit. Life is already tight, so how can I have spare money to invest in such a luxurious gadget? Some people advocated giving up, but in the end they didn't.

---There were many similar products at that time. PICQ, TICQ, CICQ, and GICQ were all actually followers of ICQ. Shortly after the launch of Tencent, Sina also launched Sina Paging, and Sohu, NetEase, and Yahoo have all launched similar services in the domestic market. The biggest rival ICQ did not have a Chinese version at the time. Surrounded by many competitors, Tencent never thought that one day the company would survive on this product.

--- Zhang Zhihao, general manager of Tencent Beijing Company, was originally at the headquarters of Zhongbei Paging Group. In 1999, Tencent Chairman and CEO Ma Huateng came to Zhongbei pretending to be an engineer to debug equipment because Tencent could not afford engineers at the time. In the computer room, Ma Huateng taught Zhang Zhihao how to use OICQ. Zhang Zhihao, who studied computer applications, felt sensitively that this might be a huge market opportunity, and afterwards encouraged the boss of Zhongbei to buy Tencent. It's a pity that people in Zhongbei only thought he told a joke that was not funny. But just a few months later, Tencent began to feel lucky that no one was willing to buy it, because the number of OICQ users was growing at an incredible rate, and the user growth curve had almost become a steep straight line. They don't even know what happened!

---But the number of users cannot be enough for a living, so 28-year-old Ma Huateng found a bank. But banks have never heard that the number of registered users can apply for mortgage loans; domestic investors are concerned about how many computers and fixed assets Tencent has. Ma Huateng took a breath and said: Sir, my value is not Tencent's present, but Tencent's future.

Finally, IDG and Hong Kong PCCW Digital took over Tencent's 6 versions of the business plan, each investing US$1.1 million, on the condition that Tencent's number of registered users grows to 4 million by the end of the year. In the first half of 2000, Tencent predicted that the number of users would reach 15 million by the end of the year. Then it revised its estimate to 20 million, and soon again predicted 40 million. Then it stopped predicting because there was no way to predict it.

--- Later facts showed that ICQ regretted giving up the huge Chinese market. Therefore, ICQ sued OICQ for infringement. Tencent is registered with the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, so don’t be afraid! This lawsuit has been protracted and it seems that it will not be completed in three to five years. However, in order to avoid its sharpness, Tencent secretly changed OICQ to QQ, which is also the nickname given to Tencent OICQ by netizens in private. Changing the name won't really change anything. As long as Tencent doesn't make fatal mistakes, it will be very difficult to win over Tencent.

---Today, most of Tencent’s rivals that were difficult to match at the time no longer exist. Only Tencent is left to professionally operate ICQ. Many companies such as Sina, NetEase, Sohu, and Yahoo are dividing Tencent’s leftovers. of 5 market. As for how the victory was achieved, the reasons given were all very subtle. For example: Tencent has designed colorful avatars with different personalities for users, which are colorful and moving when alive, but turn gray when dead; Tencent stores users' friend information on the server, no matter what machine the user changes, You can easily find your friends, instead of changing places and finding that the kingdom you worked so hard to build becomes empty. These details are like the essence of life: subtle, ordinary but in need of careful care.

---Make money

---Technically, Tencent is a follower. But ICQ does not have any business model for Tencent to refer to. Because ICQ, which was sold to AOL, is very wealthy, there is no need to use ICQ to make money. ICQ is just a free service provided by AOL to users. But Tencent is different, they are poor.

---Making money by advertising on OICQ was the first way Tencent came up with. Tencent is the first in the world to advertise on ICQ. AOL's ICQ followed suit a few months after Tencent launched advertising. Tencent's advertisements are displayed 1 billion times a day and clicked 1 million times a day, which is unimaginable for any website. Advertisers advertise on Tencent on a monthly basis. If they are based on the number of impressions or clicks, no one can afford it. If measured in terms of daily clicks and daily impressions, media reports indicate that Tencent has become the largest carrier of online advertising in the country.

---Taking advantage of operators is Tencent’s second approach. Tencent is the first .COM that has the courage to propose operating jointly with telecom operators. ***Cooperation means sharing money. Paging Station is the first operator to share money with Tencent. Unfortunately, it is one-way. How can communication between people be one-way? So Tencent found China Mobile again, and mobile companies in various provinces had different attitudes. To put it bluntly, several provincial mobile companies reluctantly agreed to allow Tencent to put the OICQ system into their computer rooms and let them try it out for free, but Tencent was required to pay a hosting fee, which is similar to luggage storage at a train station. Up to now, almost half of China Mobile's Monternet business revenue has been monopolized by Mobile QQ. The information fees collected by China Mobile and China Unicom for Tencent have naturally become Tencent's main source of income.

---The transfer of agency rights for brand derivatives is Tencent’s third idea. Nearly a year ago, Tencent sold its chubby penguin to a private clothing company in Guangzhou at a rare high price. The agency rights are signed once a year. In addition to the agency rights transfer fee, Tencent also needs to take a commission from the excess sales. I like penguins more out of emotional experience. Many people open OICQ as soon as they enter the office. While working, they take the time to chat with their online friends. After chatting a lot of stories, this penguin who faces each other every day has been endowed with a lot of emotions. Soon, Tencent Penguin stores with unified CI will appear across the country. There may also be cartoons starring penguins on television in the future.

---Right now, the profits of mobile phones and home appliances are so slim. Both foreign and domestic manufacturers hope to be able to perform well in value-added services and are coming to cooperate with Tencent. The extension of these terminals beyond PC is also the new battlefield that Tencent dreams of. On the Internet, except for a few paid membership users, Tencent's OICQ services are basically free. And businesses with huge incomes such as "QQ Very Men and Women" (similar to Rose Date, which matches the owner of the mobile phone through mobile QQ search) and "QQ Messenger", which are currently charging by the item, need to use new terminal forms. . You can imagine what would happen if OICQ was embedded in mobile phones and home appliances in advance. With the popularity of QQ and the diversity of communication methods, Tencent's future leaves too much room for people's imagination.

---Fear

---Tencent is not short of money now, unless they want to expand massively. Currently they have 86 people, and it is said that they are no longer as efficient as when they had more than 20 people. So far, they have only absorbed the two venture capital investments mentioned above, totaling US$2.2 million each. Money is not free, but Tencent stubbornly adheres to one principle: it cannot hold a controlling stake or intervene in operations. Therefore, they can't just ask for other people's money, they have to figure it out step by step, and then slowly grow up on their own.

---But Tencent needs to expand its scale, and expanding its scale certainly requires money. Tencent has always been very restrained in spending money. Whether it was when the .COM competition was burning money, or now when Internet money is tightening, Tencent almost never does paid advertising; all fee applications must be made with the promise of 10 times the return. Premise: Tencent employees hang on OICQ when they go to work; because the business contacts between the headquarters and branches in various places rely on OICQ, Tencent's phone calls cannot make long distance calls.

---But to maintain a system with 1.8 million people online at the same time, Tencent actually has to undertake carrier-level operations. There are 800,000 new registered users every day. This crazy number requires Tencent to invest in a dual-CPU, 1G memory server every week, worth more than 70,000 yuan. Coupled with the cost of renting bandwidth and other hardware, it requires a monthly investment of several million yuan. This huge cost has forced Tencent to refuse free registration on the Internet. Since the launch of Mobile QQ with China Mobile at the beginning of this year, Tencent took the opportunity to change user registration to registration through mobile phones and 168 Voice Channel, charging 0.5 yuan/minute and 0.8 yuan/minute respectively.

---Tencent is currently facing a sea full of reefs. The most terrifying opponent is not AOL's ICQ, but Microsoft's MSN and later Windows Messenger bundled in Windows. The two are not the same thing, the latter contains greater ambition and murderous intent. MSN is very similar to OICQ and is a pure instant messaging system. Windows Messenger is a unified platform built by Microsoft for various instant messaging technologies. Any other company can use this platform to develop its own products and applications. This generous software is a comprehensive communication center that can transmit text, sound, and video. The function of OICQ is just one of them. Microsoft just isn't willing to wave it around just yet. But experts analyze that Microsoft is looking for ways to change the instant messaging market structure, and what it really wants is not just the territory occupied by OICQ. Microsoft's .NET strategy is to develop an Internet operating system so that all electronic information exchanges in the world will be supported by Microsoft systems.

---Now, Tencent still has the capital to refuse free user registration amidst the crusade. However, if Tencent cannot differentiate its products from its competitors and maintain its freshness, affinity, and creativity, then it is entirely possible that MSN will have the last laugh in the field of Chinese instant messaging. Although the cost of user migration is very high, if the opponent is Microsoft, which is well versed in the bundling sales strategy, plus Tencent's omissions and a little desire for profit, anything can happen.

Maybe all this will change as quickly and inexplicably as when Tencent defeated its opponents.

Tencent Company Profile

Tencent is China's earliest Internet instant messaging software developer and China's leading Internet technology company. It has been committed to the service operation of instant messaging and related value-added services. .

Tencent was established in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province in November 1998. After its establishment, it launched "wireless Internet solutions". In February 1999, Tencent officially launched Tencent's first instant messaging software---Tencent Instant messaging (Tencent Instant Messenger, referred to as TIM or Tencent QQ).

In the five years since its establishment, Tencent has been guided by the pursuit of technological excellence and is in a state of steady and rapid development. The huge number of users of Tencent QQ reflects Tencent's technical strength in heavy-load and large-traffic network applications and various SMS communication applications. Currently, Tencent has the largest registered Internet user base in China and is the largest Internet instant messaging service provider in Asia and the third largest in the world.

At the same time, as China's leading Internet technology company and China's most influential service provider (SP), Tencent is oriented to meet the needs of users, continues to innovate, relies on its huge user resources, and utilizes local Taking advantage of globalization, it integrates instant messaging into a variety of communication platforms and provides a variety of value-added services such as online entertainment information.

Based on the three strategic directions of personal instant messaging, enterprise instant messaging and entertainment information, Tencent has formed basic business, wireless value-added business, basic value-added business, enterprise services, advertising business and brand licensing. With six major business systems, the company is gradually realizing its long-term goal of "creating a first-class Internet enterprise".

Introduction to Tencent Telecommunications Division

Tencent Telecommunications Division is a division of Tencent that specializes in telecommunications value-added services. Its business closely revolves around the relevant value-added business areas of telecommunications operators. With the help of Based on QQ's good promotion capabilities and large user base, it provides QQ friends with various exciting and fun value-added services: QQ coin recharge, QQ show, QQ membership, QQ friends, QQ games, QQ greeting cards, etc.

In addition to online value-added services, Tencent Telecom Division has also successfully implemented the use of Mobile QQ on PHS. It has been opened in Guangdong, Jiangsu, Sichuan and other regions, and its convenient and fast use It has been welcomed by PHS users everywhere.

In the development process of Tencent Telecom Division, it has always maintained a close cooperative relationship with China Telecom. From the early Q coin recharge business of 168 Voice Telephone to the current cooperation based on Internet Star, Tencent Telecom Division The department always maximizes the use of operators' network resources to create a more convenient and fun telecommunications value-added service experience for users.

QQ Development History

On December 18, 2000, Tencent officially launched its paid service "QQ Club" [later QQ Membership]. For a time, there was a rumor in the industry that oicq would charge fees. .

Since February 2001. Tencent began to impose restrictions on user registration, which were reduced month by month until it was almost impossible for users to register.

In June and July 2001, with the vigorous promotion of QQ voice application and mobile phone number application services, QQ registration fees began to attract widespread attention from netizens. A report titled "Learn to Charge for Email Registration, Tencent Impersonates Others" triggered a war of words between Tencent and the media. Another article "Tencent QQ, you are doing amazing" was widely reprinted because it expressed the voice of users.

In December 2001, the news that foreign shares in QQ exceeded the number of entrepreneurs was accidentally discovered by netizens. "QQ is being sold?" Will QQ charge all employees? "The report appeared in the media and was widely reproduced.

In March 2002, Tencent officially launched the "QQ Number Zone" business and began its business of selling the right to use QQ numbers (not ownership).

In May 2002, there were rumors on the Internet that QQ was about to charge all users. In July, Tencent CEO ****** said in a telephone interview that new users would be charged. The specific charging price should be 2 yuan per month, which is the "QQ line" that QQ is promoting. Toll-free numbers and disposable numbers will gradually be in short supply.

In September, the QQ line number was officially launched, charging 2 yuan per month, and applications for free numbers and one-time numbers were gradually stopped. The "full member" fee finally appeared in the form of "additional member" fee

In November, QQ issued a legal warning letter to block the Hanmai electronic website from engaging in the purchase and sale of QQ numbers.

At the end of 2002, free numbers and one-time application (paid) long-term use numbers basically stopped being issued. QQ mainly focused on QQ numbers with a monthly rental fee of 2 yuan.

In June 2003, Tencent took advantage of the opportunity to celebrate the third birthday of Mobile QQ and announced that new users of Mobile QQ can get a free long-term QQ number (without paying any monthly fees); open it again The door to the issuance of long-term numbers,

QQ will reopen for free registration in August, but it is stipulated that it will be withdrawn if you do not log in for 7 consecutive days. After a week, it was changed to withdrawing the number if you don’t log in for one month. Later, it was changed to three months without logging in for recycling. Later, it was changed to only target QQ numbers that were maliciously registered or did not log in for a long time.

In September, a lifetime free 9-digit number of 1 yuan will be released. You can apply for it through a number card [for example, you can buy it on the Internet Star website] or a mobile phone text message.

In May 2004, the QQ pretty account zone was upgraded, and the Q coins required to apply for some short-term pretty accounts were changed from the 10 yuan membership fee to the 20 yuan membership email fee.

The web page numbers released by Tencent in December included some 8-digit numbers and 9-digit numbers starting with 1, but the recycling of 8-digit numbers is generally strict.

*QQ once made a mistake in its number policy, that is, it tried to charge for newly registered user numbers. This was the fundamental reason for the increase in the number of users of IM software such as UC.

*QQ numbers have been severely registered, mainly as follows:

Starting in September 2003, QQ Games will give away 10,000 game coins to all QQ users. These include some of the Triumph numbers. Even in the later period, the bonus of 10,000 game coins for new registration numbers has been stopped, but for a period of time, newly registered YAMQQ numbers still have 10,000 game coins.

Starting in the spring of 2004, QQ Show will give away 2 quotas to all users. This includes a portion of [20 million numbers starting with 9 digits 239 and 318] giving away ten [later changed to 4] quota YAMQQ numbers.

For a period of time in December 2004, Tencent released some 8-digit numbers in the web numbers, and the QQ web number application software QQ Number Issuing Machine was widely used.

*There are currently about 400 million numbers released by Tencent.