He that will sow flowers will not blossom.
On August 20, a very dramatic scene happened after smartisan held a new product release. The nut Pro 2S, which was originally the leading role of Smartisan, had been lukewarm after the release.
Bullet SMS has been growing as fast as its name since its release, ranking no. 1 on the Social list of Apple App Store for a week and hitting no. 1 on the Free list of Apple App Store, which is impressive. Most media believe that bullet messages pose a threat to wechat, which can break the traditional pattern of Chinese social networking and even threaten wechat’s dominance in the social networking field.
Social platforms are mature, but lacking in detail
The pattern of China’s social networking field can be summarized as “one, two and three”. “One” means Tencent is the dominant company in China’s social networking field. “Er Hegemony” represents the existence of QQ and wechat two hegemony in China’s social networking field. There are also three social platforms in China, namely Sina Weibo, Baidu Tieba and Momo. After more than ten years of development, Social software in China is now relatively mature. However, the popularity of bullet messages shows that China’s social software sector is relatively mature on the surface and still faces many problems in its development.
First, information exchange is difficult. The purpose of social platform is to connect people with the Internet and transfer information between people. However, the current social software on the market is generally difficult to exchange information, because information transmission is restricted by network and platform.
For example, QQ and wechat can only send messages to friends on the same platform and cannot communicate with each other across platforms. In terms of network limitations, both parties must be online when sending and receiving information, so as to complete the transmission of information. Although the network is more developed now, it is not ruled out that special situations such as poor network signal, traffic exhaustion and no WiFi will affect the immediacy of information transmission.
Second, the user experience is inadequate. It has been 19 years since China’s social software started in 1999 and has become fully mature after generation after generation of upgrades. However, the improvement in user experience has failed to keep up with the needs of users, resulting in inadequate user experience.
The core attribute of social software is information transmission. However, most social software is now a bit of a backwater, adding too many functions that are not commonly used, and users cannot customize the functions, resulting in bloated software and affecting user experience. Successful social software in the market all have this problem.
Social software currently on the market, moreover, click on at least three times to send a information, and information may be more trouble, such as sending files in addition to the needs of different scenarios to send information is not a good solution, currently only for typing and language input in two ways, in some scenarios operation has great limitation, For example, it is very inconvenient for the receiver to send voice messages to wechat friends in offices and libraries, leading to a decline in user experience.
Three fires lit bullets text messages
Bullet text message fire like a bullet, without any warning, perhaps even Lao Luo himself at the time of the head. In the public are discussing the bullet SMS achievements, might as well calm down to analyze the bullet SMS why can suddenly fire up. Bullet SMS class for the above problems have done a lot of work, it can be said that to a large extent to solve the appeal problem, so there is a bullet SMS suddenly “misfire”.
First, the user experience is good. Users are the center of all business activities, user experience is an important factor affecting users to choose products, bullet SMS success is the first fire is good user experience. First, the interface is clean and simple, no longer appear so bloated; Second, remove redundant functions, highlight the core function of social communication — information transmission, no longer overwhelming; Third, the operation is convenient and quick. By adding the global suspension button, the information sending steps are simplified. In addition, the first voice and text can be sent at the same time, and the real-time line change and other functions greatly enrich the use of bullet SMS.
Secondly, information exchange restrictions. The first software to solve the limitation of information exchange in the social field was Feisoft, but feisoft has disappeared in the long river of history, bullet SMS as the successor to continue to try to solve this pain point.
Bullet SMS can realize unilateral real-time communication with non-bullet SMS registered users, solving the problem of cross-platform communication between non-bullet SMS users and bullet SMS users, and the information is sent in the form of SMS, not limited by the network, there is a signal. Although it is still one-sided real-time communication, non-bullet SMS users can not send cross-platform messages to bullet SMS users, but it actually reduces the network and platform to social software information transmission restrictions, which becomes the second fire ignited bullet SMS.
Finally, clever marketing. Lit the bullet SMS has three fires, the last fire is the bullet SMS clever marketing means. Marketing mastermind because the bullet message began to fire, no operations team, but after fire operations team also solve problems on the bullet SMS, reduce the distance and users, and Mr. Luo on weibo continuously updated about SMS problems and advantages of bullets, continuously produce topic, finally let the bullets SMS fire let nature take its course.
Bullet message although is a sudden fire, but can stay on top of the social software for a week, which is inseparable from these three strong fire.
Bullet message is born with a halo, but there are still congenital shortcomings
The horizontal view of the ridge side into a peak, near and far high and low are different. From a horizontal view, bullet messages are impeccable and beautiful at present, but from another perspective, it will be found that bullet messages are not perfect, there are still many deficiencies. Unlike the media, which are generally optimistic about bullet SMS and think it has the ability to adjust wechat’s social status, these views are exaggerated in my opinion.
Function is not perfect. Bullet message because only released three months, online only 10 days, the function is still relatively lacking. “Moments of friends” is one of the most important social functions, but bullet message does not have this function module. In addition, bullet messages also have many bugs, affecting the user experience.
Social + messaging is controversial. Bullets message because of its relaxed and concise interface, content is no longer a bloated by the user consistent high praise, but the bullet text messages on the front page to join the information of individual function module, may be to extend the time duration of the user and bring part of advertising revenue for the company, although some users think this function can be more convenient to see information, but the majority of users have held a denial attitude to this function, Think out of the initial heart of social software, so it seems that bullet SMS social + information model is a bit gild the lily.
Difficult to acquire large numbers of users. The main body of social software is still users, and bullet SMS faces the problem of acquiring a large number of users. Bullet SMS users have two ways, one is smartisan mobile phone system upgrade forced to join, the other is the user spontaneous download. However, smartisan accounted for only 0.17% of China’s mobile phone market share in 2017, indicating that the number of users acquired by this way is not large.
Phone spontaneous ways to download the bullet message seems to be good, because as of June 2018, the Chinese mobile phone users scale up to 788 million people, but because the bullet SMS users scarce, at present stage experience after successful download in bullet message of friends too little, lack of chat fun, will leave by oneself, lead bullets SMS users, less turnover rate is high.
Bullet text message where this “bullet” will fly in the future
The bullet message seems to have a bright future with the current results, but it may not be smooth sailing, so how will the future of the bullet message develop?
Bullet SMS is unlikely to challenge wechat status. All say that bullet SMS hit wechat like a bullet, threatening the supremacy of wechat, although bullet SMS has advantages in many aspects, but wechat has been bullying in the social field for nearly 8 years, users have long been accustomed to using wechat, high viscosity; And wechat is a social, payment, entertainment in one of the ecology, has become a part of People’s Daily life; In addition, wechat also has capital advantages, which are incomparable to bullet messages. Wechat’s dominant position in the social field can not be shaken by bullet messages.
Bullet SMS project has two options: acquisition and alliance, and cannot operate independently. Flow + capital is the normal state of the Internet in the 21st century. According to Lao Luo’s Microblog, 51 VC and 7 investment departments of technology giants found bullet SMS within 6 days of its launch, which means bullet SMS has the risk of being acquired; At the same time, Luo also said that Alipay will soon enter Bullet message, which means bullet message may be an alliance with Alibaba, against the invasion of other capital. But no matter which choice, bullet SMS cannot escape the control of capital and cannot operate independently.
Bullet texting may have a foothold in social niches. As Luo Yonghao himself said, bullet SMS is only in the segmentation of people who care about efficiency, and can not challenge wechat. At present the mainstream in the field of social structure is quite stable, want to share in the field of social choice pay attention to the efficiency of the population niche is a wise choice, because now the niche in the emphasis on efficiency population has no other social software, so the bullets SMS, not to challenge WeChat but can also root in social niche.
summary
Bullet message is a real bullet, it inadvertently opened a shot at wechat, do not know how the power of the bullet. However, it is certain that bullet SMS cannot subvert the traditional social model, nor shake the status of wechat in the social platform. However, bullet SMS may break the traditional social pattern and find its own living space in the social segmentation field.
Article/Liu Kuang public account, ID: Liukuang110