Resurrecting "LaiHou", Ali's Social Knot

Editor's note: This article is from WeChat public number "AI blue media convergence" (ID: lanmeih001), the author Ye Er,.
Ali, still refuses to let go of its obsession with Laixiang. According to a late LatePost report, Ali's Nail Division recently restarted the "Laixiang" project, internally known as the "new Laixiang", by the former head of the Laixiang product, the current CEO of the Nail Chen Hang (fancy name of no trick) is responsible for. At present, its product "Real as I" has been launched. It is understood that "Real as I" focuses on campus socialization. The app store information shows that the APP focuses on Real life, Real you! Calling on users to share and discover the real people, real things, real feelings around them in "Real like me". The APP developer information shows for zhejiang catch urgent network limited company, the latter legal representative is Chen Hang. Qixinbao data show that the company is suspected of actual control of Alibaba eighteen Luohan, and one of the partners Jiang Fang. "Real as I" version of the original record, can be traced back to nearly a year ago. This also means that Ali as well as Chen Hang have never given up trying to social business, but also signals Ali's determination to occupy a place in the social business. Ali's knot
One of the reasons why Ali is so obsessed with Come and Go is because of Jack Ma.
As we all know, Ma Yun once wanted to win the battle of socialization, but also failed to win, so that at the time of its retirement, become its creation of Ali all the way to the brilliant journey in no small regret.
Seven or eight years ago, the mobile Internet tide came, social industry is generally considered to be the most reliable mobile Internet tickets and entrances. the rise of microblogging in the field of SNS, mobile IM WeChat, have profoundly proved this.
In order to seize the mobile Internet dividend, almost all the Internet giant companies are deeply involved in the entrance of the competition.
Ali, likewise. "When WeChat was up, I was scratching my hair every day." Jack Ma foresaw the great destructive power of social and had already begun the layout of social around 2013.
In addition to investing in strangers with subsidiaries, in late April 2013 Ali first to 586 million dollars to buy Sina microblogging 18% shares, and in September of the same year launched a social APP "LaiHui" against WeChat, trying to slow down the pace of WeChat's expansion, and build Ali's own social platform. Jack Ma himself is also on the front line, not only internal chicken blood to burn the South Pole, to hit the penguin home, but also
He personally supervised the battle with the "Fung Ching Yeung".
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Active on the come-on.
However, one month after the launch of LaiHuo, the user growth is not strong, probably only 1 million. Ma Yun at this time also mobilized, to the staff under the hard target, if you can pull 100 external users, will reward red packets.
But even with such a big effort to promote, LaiHuo user data is still ugly, a few months later, Ali had to change LaiHuo positioning, and gradually transform.
In early 2015, Jack Ma bowed his head and admitted defeat in a speech, "I would have wanted to make something to compete with WeChat, but now I will applaud WeChat. This kind of competition is a kind of fun, we will be competing here and there."
In addition to Jack Ma, this is also related to Chen Hang. Back then, the person in charge of the Come and Go program was none other than Chen Hang.
It is also the failure of the project to come and go, as a hand of the project, Chen Hang has inevitably become the outside world in the eyes of the disillusioned.
Although Chen Hang ultimately led the team in Ali's entrepreneurial mecca Lakeside Garden closed to make the nail, in the enterprise social attack a large piece of market share, but for a product team's pursuit of speaking, this result is not perfect.
Chen Hang once said that the Laixun team invested a lot of energy to hatch a chicken, but came up with a duck.
Nail's success is the success of another new path, the social field that Laiwang intended to attack remains unanswered. Whether it is Chen Hang on behalf of the nail team, or Ali itself is bound to gnaw down this difficult pass. Tencent for micro-vision does not give up, is also the same. Social not to the end game Ali internal knot, and in the external market, social is still a breakthrough space, which means that Ali is still a great opportunity. Because social is not to the end game.
Unlike the mobile IM war when LaiHou and YiXin fronted against WeChat, nowadays, whether it's the user side, or the market, or even WeChat itself, the situation has changed, and the users have been iterative.
Socialization, in essence, is to serve users. The needs of users directly determine the social form. With the new generation of young users touching the Internet, they have different needs in social networking, the pursuit of more personalization, interest and so on, which is the solid foundation for new social entrants to break the game.
WeChat has also become a behemoth, every move involves 1 billion + users, which is Zhang Xiaolong restrained the basic disk, but also makes in some specific needs, WeChat is indeed difficult to meet part of the user group.
At this year's WeChat Night, Zhang Xiaolong also made a statement. "The circle of friends is more like a square, a square full of people you know. Every interaction here is like speaking up in the square, and the social benefits of this expression will increase with the number of your friends, but at the same time the pressure will multiply because more and more people will hear your voice. This is why many people will be less and less cautious about posting to their friends." "When your circle of friends is diluted by more and more friends to become the 'work circle', 'career circle', and 'micro-business circle', some emotions such as pretentiousness, grief, touchy-feely, and self-emotional are afraid and unwilling to be posted in your circle of friends, and this restraint is exacerbated by the constant influx of new friends and changes in the relationships of old friends."
Zhang's implication is that the circle of friends of many users is no longer a true expression.
This is a problem that WeChat-style social networking is facing directly, and it is also the key to the "New Come and Go" project, "Real Like Me", which is committed to solving users' needs by taking real expression as a breakthrough.
The market also encourages social challengers and proves that there is room for social to leave the market cake.
Social entrepreneurship is still a hot spot, even if the death of many, but there is no lack of can kill out, such as tan tan, soul, small red book, etc., are capital hot unicorn.
Users are still enthusiastic. When a new social challenger, users will be willing to try, willing to download and share, but of course, whether they can ultimately stay depends on whether the socializer itself is hard enough. This is also true for "Real Like Me". Even if there are funds and traffic behind Ali, it still has to be tested by the market. Of course, Ali's relaunch of the "LaiHou" program also means that the competition between Internet giants has no boundaries.
Once the gene said, has not been able to keep up with the volume of the company's expansion, a fact is that Ali and Tencent have been in each other's hinterland are buried in the heavy troops, will be in the future for a long time are the norm of head-to-head. The difference lies only in the retirement of Jack Ma, is no longer literally a two-horse race.