Volume 3: Taking Roots 2016 Chapter 754 You finish your performance and I will take the stage
The next day, once the news was published, it quickly spread across the Internet and even appeared on the hot search list during the morning rush hour on weekdays.
Almost immediately, most people were enduring the huge crowds on their way to work, and could only take out their mobile phones in the cracks to find a moment of comfort on the Internet.
Therefore, the morning rush hour period can almost be regarded as the first Internet surfing peak of the day.
Even if there is a group of "night watchmen" competing with each other at night to see who is the night watch champion, it does not affect the fact that the morning rush hour is the first surfing peak of the Internet.
After all, even in the company, there are still many people who surf the Internet early in the morning, and obviously, they are the main players surfing the Internet.
And when they open their mobile phones and enter the relevant software, it is hard not to notice the topic that is high on the hot search list.
"TikTok sues Ame, founder denounces the latter's poor imitation!"
For Douyin, which now has more than 100 million users, it is already a very well-known software even in China, which has a population of 1.4 billion.
After all, this means that one in every 14 people has used this software. However, if we exclude the two large groups of elderly people and children, this proportion will actually be higher, not lower.
Especially in cities with higher population density, the music short video software Douyin has already demonstrated the magic of its product features in advance, and has quickly occupied the market with an almost exaggerated speed of social fission.
At the same time, relying on the head effect of short video creators in various fields formed after the Golden Second Award, there are not only [Papi Jiang], but also [Muziqi], [Big Stomach Prince Mi] and other outstanding creators as content weather vanes.
It leads the development and iteration of the platform's content, not to mention that a large number of popular game anchors have settled in and use Douyin as their first platform to communicate with fans.
In this way, Douyin has almost monopolized all the preferences of young people today and will carry out the task of building a community for young people to the end.
Therefore, among these 100 million users, the core group of young people accounts for more than 80%. Having a basic user base composed mainly of young people can be said to be Douyin’s biggest advantage, without a doubt.
After all, as a connecting generation between the past and the future, the young group represents the future to some extent. Controlling them is equivalent to controlling the future.
This can be seen from the development of the Internet era.
Tik Tok has gone through the evolution from musical.ly to muse after it was introduced into China, and then to its current name of "recording a beautiful life", although it has only been a little over a year.
But this trendy gameplay, the cross-dressing challenge brought back from overseas markets, or the local food exploration and other content, coupled with the mature UI model of swiping and pulling...
They have already formed their own unique user habits imperceptibly.
Only user habits are the real foundation of a product. After all, once habits are formed, they are often deeply rooted and difficult to change.
Users who are used to using Douyin often find it difficult to adapt to Kuaishou and Meipai. After all, Douyin has indeed achieved perfection in terms of mechanism.
Otherwise, there would be no way to carve out a path in this overseas European and American cultural heartland.
It will not become an object of imitation by Toutiao.
After all, compared to starting from scratch, it is easier to explore a model that can be accepted by the market and liked by users.
It is better to directly use this model that has been recognized by the market and is effective. "Standing on the shoulders of giants" is always the simplest and most brutal truth.
It’s just that in the previous life, Toutiao was able to take advantage of the information gap in the market and, while musical.ly was galloping in the overseas market, sneak in and occupy the Chinese domestic market first.
Then, they acquired it in turn, completing the feat of "overcoming the strong with the weak" and completely eliminating the source of the plagiarism scandal.
But this script obviously won't work in this lifetime.
This piece of news was able to become a hot search during the morning rush hour and attracted a lot of attention in the first place. Naturally, there must be someone behind the scenes fanning the flames.
Today's Dongsheng Group has long been adept at "adding fuel to the flames" and has its own traffic system, so it is naturally easy for it to achieve this.
Nowadays, even the smallest things on the Internet can stir up overwhelming public opinion, such as "Which is better, Coca-Cola or Pepsi?" and "Should you eat zongzi sweet or salty?"
These topics can be debated endlessly on the Internet, let alone such a hot topic?
For a moment, regardless of whether they were Tik Tok users or not, they all gathered together like badger smelling the fragrance in the melon field, wanting to see what was going on.
When you open this hot search, the first thing that comes to mind is naturally the personal testimony of the founder Yang Luyu.
This is also the first time that Yang Luyu chose to show up in front of the public, except for a very few well-known founders.
The vast majority of users know almost nothing about the founders behind their favorite software.
Therefore, Yang Luyu's appearance this time also let most users know for the first time that this trendy and popular software Douyin was actually developed by such an ordinary programmer.
Originally, Yang Luyu naturally didn't want to be in the limelight, but after Zhou Dongsheng's lobbying, Yang Luyu also realized that no one was more suitable to do this than him.
And since he chose to stand up, Yang Luyu naturally had no intention of letting it go. The business world is like a battlefield, and being kind to the enemy would be cruel to oneself.
Therefore, Yang Luyu in the video showed no mercy at all, and analyzed from a comprehensive technical perspective how the Ame software plagiarized TikTok in all aspects.
From UI design to gameplay mechanics, the video directly compares the two software applications together, and the similarities are obvious at a glance.
Although the music + short video gameplay has a long history, and is not uncommon even on Kuaishou and Meipai, and there are even players like Xiaokaxiu who are constantly innovating, there is still an essential difference between reference and plagiarism.
As for Ame and Tik Tok, their UI designs are very similar, both in terms of interface and functions. Both are short video social software, and they are exactly like Li Kui and Li Gui.
Perhaps from a technical perspective, the concept of "plagiarism" is like a Rashomon, and it is difficult to have an accurate definition.
But some things do not necessarily have to be defined at the legal level. It is enough to form a preconceived notion in the minds of the public.
Just like Tenda, even though it is now one of the largest Internet companies in China, it is still difficult to eliminate the public's inherent impression that it started out as a "borrowing" company.
Whether it is Zhou Dongsheng or Yang Luyu, this is the effect they want. As long as they can put this label on the Toutiao system, it is enough to put them on the moral high ground.
For the general public, if there is no essential difference in experience between the two, and the choice is simply between supporting "genuine" and "pirated"...
The vast majority of users will inevitably tend to choose the former, especially under the premise that both are free. Choosing the former can at least get moral positive feedback...
Why not?
What's more, Douyin now has hundreds of millions of users and has already taken the lead in building a community for young people.
Whether it is the quality of content output or the number of users, it has an overwhelming advantage, and its attractiveness to users is naturally self-evident.
Regardless of whether it is driven by the social fission effect or coming for the content, users obviously have no chance of choosing the latter.
As this news became a hot topic and spread quickly on the Internet, even some Ame users suddenly realized the truth after seeing this news.
It seems that I downloaded a pirated software. No wonder I can’t find the short videos I saw on my friend’s website here, and I can’t even follow the friends I know…
So they chose to turn against the dark and join the light. For a time, Ame's user data, which had been steadily increasing, began to show signs of user loss.
Although it is only a small part at present, once public opinion is allowed to ferment, it will inevitably have an extremely adverse impact on the development of Ame.
After all, to put it bluntly, the market is so big, and there is no impenetrable wall in the world, not to mention the Internet where information spreads extremely quickly?
As the news spread, it naturally soon alarmed the people at Toutiao. They had obviously anticipated this situation.
What they didn't expect was that the other party's reaction would be so intense that they even wanted to nail them to the pillar of shame for plagiarism.
For a moment, not only were the people from Toutiao confused, but even the people from Kuaishou and Meipai were also a little bewildered.
Is it necessary to make such a big fuss?
Isn’t it just a small Ame? Even with the support of Toutiao, Ame is still a little bit underdog in the short video field.
Whether it is Kuaishou, which has long claimed to have 300 million users, or Meipai, which also has over 100 million users, they are the undisputed leaders in the short video field.
Even Weishi, which was backed by Tencent, failed to achieve anything, let alone a small Toutiao system?
The development of Douyin and these two companies has always been quite non-interfering and clear-cut, which has led to the current three-way competition.
They had never made such a big scene against the other two competitors, but unexpectedly they turned around and got angry at a small minion , and even the founder himself got involved...
Could it be that he finally found a soft persimmon to squeeze and was so excited?
Although they are confused, both Kuaishou and Meipai are naturally happy to sit back and watch the fight between the two tigers. It would be best if both sides suffer losses, which means they will have one less competitor.
The Toutiao group is naturally not a good person to deal with, especially since they have already attacked us. How can we tolerate this? We can even eat shit.
Toutiao responded quickly, flatly denying the accusation of plagiarism, and even turned the tables, saying that the music short video format has a long history and was not invented by Douyin, and that everyone is just an apprentice of Dubsmash.
If we have to say it is plagiarism, then TikTok is the first one to plagiarize.
The implication is that TikTok was the whore first and then it is trying to be a saint.
At the same time, it used its core business, Toutiao, to push news, putting this response on hold and consolidating its own base first.
This explosive response also greatly boosted morale. For Toutiao users, it was so exciting that they used it as a manifesto to refute the groundless accusations.
For a time, the user groups of both sides were at loggerheads with each other, arguing fiercely, and with the addition of a group of users who liked to watch the fun and add fuel to the fire, public opinion continued to ferment.
Unknowingly, the Ame software even showed signs of being a blessing in disguise. Originally, except for the users of Toutiao, the general public almost didn't know that such a short video software existed.
Now, with the help of this wave of public opinion that continues to ferment, it has become famous all of a sudden. Advertising effects of this magnitude may not be able to achieve the same effect even if tens of millions of dollars are spent on marketing.
Black and red are both red, and traffic is traffic, there is no distinction between good and bad.
Especially for Toutiao, which wants to build a short video platform, it will naturally accept everyone who comes.
Even after they have tasted the sweetness, they are ready to strike while the iron is hot.
Originally, I was planning to develop it quietly for a while and then reveal my cards when the time was right, but I didn't expect that TikTok would take the lead and tear off the fig leaf.
Now that the relationship has fallen out, there is naturally no need for Toutiao to worry about face.
If you want to fight, just fight. I’m not afraid of it.
Especially for Toutiao, which just received US$1 billion in financing, it is worried that it has no place to vent its abundant ammunition reserves.
There are advantages to striking first , and there are also advantages for those who strike second.
At least the goal is clear, and the opponent can be better studied. As two highly similar software, if the latecomers want to develop, the most direct and clear way is naturally to follow the path of their predecessors.
If you want to snatch the cake from the other party, the simplest and most brutal way is to poach them.
Things that can be solved with money are often not a problem. If there is a problem, it is often just that you don’t have enough money.
Therefore, taking this opportunity, Toutiao released the plan that had been brewing for a long time, and fired a sugar-coated bullet directly at Douyin!
"In order to better develop the industry and encourage more short video creators to create high-quality content, we at Toutiao plan to invest 1 billion yuan to subsidize short video creation and make a small contribution to the entire short video industry..."
Once this news was released, it caused a huge uproar, showing the wealth and power of "Pattern".
This lavish act of spending huge sums of money fully demonstrates the fact that "money can make everything possible".
In an instant, it almost reversed its disadvantage in the public opinion field, and forced its competitor Tik Tok into a dilemma.
It has to be said that in this first round of confrontation, Zhou Dongsheng was slightly inferior.
But obviously, this is just the beginning.
