Chapter 473

Video traffic accounts for more than half of the traffic of the whole Internet industry. From the rise of the first batch of video websites such as Tudou, Youku and Ku6 in 2005 to the establishment of iqiyi, Tencent video and other video websites by internet giants such as Baidu and Tencent two or three years ago, the domestic online video industry has gradually matured.

With the popularity of mobile Internet and WiFi in recent years, video users and traffic from mobile terminals also began to have a significant growth and imagination space.

A few years ago, when Huizhong's core business still depended on the Zhongle page tour platform, the traffic has always been a key stuck in the neck of Zhongle and Huizhong. Therefore, Fang zhe had to visit Baidu in person to reach cooperation with Baidu and escort the traffic channel of Zhongle. At that time, Fang Zhe talked with google president Li about cooperation in establishing a video website.

But at that time, President Li of Baidu kept the other Zhe and Huizhong secret, and he didn't agree to Fang Zhe's request.

At that time, Fang zhe saw a great opportunity in the video industry, but with the strength and resources of Huizhong at that time, he could only give priority to the development of more important wechat.

Now two or three years have passed. Baidu, which said it would not be a video website, has not only established a wholly-owned subsidiary iqiyi, but also invested a lot of money to make iqiyi one of the four major video websites in China, which are tied with Tudou, Youku and Tencent video.

Fang Zhe, who is reborn, knows the future of the video website. Not to mention that iqiyi, which was listed on US stocks in 2018, is valued at more than 10 billion US dollars. After the merger of Tudou and Youku, Alibaba also spent nearly 5 billion US dollars to buy it!

If you look abroad again, Netflix, whose main business is online film rental, has a market value of hundreds of billions of dollars!

A few years later, the global mobile Internet industry has gradually entered a mature stage. Several major mobile video apps with a large group of paying users occupy the top places in the global mobile app revenue all the year round!

Fang zhe remembers that in the previous life in 2018, the number of paid member users in China, whether iqiyi or Tencent video, was more than 70 million. According to the monthly fee of 10 yuan per member, the monthly membership fee income of the two video websites alone was 7.8 billion!

Of course, the revenue of 7.8 billion a month is nothing compared with the revenue of Huizhong games and wechat advertising, but the huge traffic of video websites and the IP value derived from video content on the websites are a huge gold mine!

Pan entertainment! This is one of the core points of Huizhong's development and layout this year.

At present, wechat, one of Huizhong's core businesses, is constantly transforming from a social tool to a social platform. Another core business game also relies on wechat traffic, and the technical foundation of Huizhong cloud computing is booming.

The upstream of the game business, or the key source of the vigorous development of the game business, is IP.

The so-called IP is not the IP address in the concept of Internet technology, but refers to the source of intellectual property rights and the ownership of copyright. Generally speaking, the network novel breaking the sky, which is popular all over the network, is an IP, and the breaking the sky games, breaking the sky animation, breaking the Sky TV dramas and movies derived from this IP can be regarded as the pan entertainment process of this IP.

IP can be a novel, an animation, a movie or TV play, or even a story. In a word, as long as it has value, communication and commercial value, it can be regarded as an IP.

Every IP is a gold mine. Large and small IP not only supports the content consumption form in people's spare time life, but also produces unparalleled commercial value.

The video industry is the major traffic in the whole Internet industry, and it is also one of the important ways for IP to glow and generate content and economic value. In the Internet industry, whoever controls the traffic will have the right to speak and countless opportunities for realization, and whoever controls enough IP will have enough traffic!

Therefore, even if it is better than Baidu and Tencent, the two Internet giants have also started their own video websites. Although Alibaba did not occupy the top position later, Youku Tudou, which spent a lot of money to buy, also made up for the shortcomings in this regard.

Huizhong, which started with the game business, naturally understands the importance of traffic. Although there are hundreds of millions of wechat users now mastering huge mobile traffic, with the popularity of WiFi and the arrival of the 4G era, mobile video and other consumer content will gradually become a major consumer of mobile traffic and one of the applications that seize the most user time in mobile apps, Therefore, Fang Zhe's layout in this regard should not be left behind.

Under this premise, whether to start from scratch and develop Huizhong's own video website on its own, or to acquire or control the existing video websites in the market, has become a problem that Fang Zhe and Huizhong executives should think carefully.

Although the video website is a pastry with huge traffic, it is also a big spender. Whether it is the server, development, operation and maintenance costs required for the support of the website's huge online video traffic, or the costs required for the website to introduce movies, TV dramas and variety shows, it is a lot of money.

At present, in China, with the investment and involvement of Baidu and Tencent in the online video industry, this industry has become a sea of blood. Baidu and Tencent do not hesitate to spend money to introduce a lot of high-quality movies, TV dramas and variety shows, but also use ultra-low or even free prices to induce users to open members and cultivate users' payment habits, Tudou, Youku, Ku6 and other old video websites are miserable and hard to support.

Spell technology, spell, spell money, also spell, so, how should these old video websites live? Can only hold a group to keep warm or find a rich gold owner's father to hold his thigh!

In previous lives, Youku Tudou after the merger chose Alibaba, this life, Huizhong and Fang Zhe, and gave them this opportunity!

On March 15, on the third day after receiving the reply from valve company to Huizhong holdings, Fang zhe met with Gu Yongqiang, the current CEO of Youku, in a club near Huizhong company with a happy and confused mood.

Fang Zhe's pleasure is naturally due to Huizhong's holding of valve company, which means that Huizhong is about to make a big show in the field of global end game distribution.

Fang Zhe's doubts are because of the Youku network he is about to face.

According to Fang Zhe's memory, it seems that in his previous life, youku.com and tudou.com merged into one company in early March this year, which also opened the beginning of a comprehensive reshuffle in the domestic video website industry. After that, what cool 6.com and six rooms were either annexed and acquired, or gradually went out of stream and declined. Finally, only iqiyi supported by Baidu was left, Tencent video supported by Tencent and Youku Tudou, which still cannot escape the fate of selling after the merger!

What Fang zhe doubts and wonders is why he and Huizhong haven't heard the news that Youku and Tudou are going to merge in this life. Is it that the news of the two companies is blocked too well, or have they made up their mind whether to merge or not?

With such doubts, Fang zhegang met Gu Yongqiang who had been waiting for him for a long time in the club. Without greeting him, he directly asked, "President Gu, do you mind answering me a question first? Have you met President Wang of Tudou recently?"

President Wang, as Fang zhe said, is the founder of tudou.com, Wang Wei, and the current CEO of tudou.com. After the merger of Tudou and Youku in previous lives, Gu Yongqiang served as the CEO of the merged company, while Wang Wei chose to take money to retire. The two people also got their own way!