The Tencent ship is turning its helm.

Early in the morning of September 30, Tencent announced the launch of strategic upgrading: rooted consumer Internet, but also to embrace industrial Internet.

One month later, on November 1, the eighth Tencent Global Partner Conference was officially held with the theme of “Openness and symbiosis”. The day before, Ma huateng issued a customary open letter, stating his determination to “help the real industry grow more world champions”.

One thing that no one can deny about the ship that is turning its helm is that Tencent has created things that are relevant to us in the Internet age. QQ first and then wechat, let Tencent from instant messaging trendsetter to lead the way, and games to the expansion of the pan-entertainment ecosystem, let Tencent become a content empire.

Tencent, which came from the instant messaging era, is now going to the industrial Internet era. For Tencent, it is about creating a new self, and for the Internet, it is also waiting for the new genes brought by Tencent’s creation and innovation. Tencent’s change, in a sense is also the change of the Internet.

From “consumer Internet” to “industrial Internet” : The connectivity stays the same, but the tools change

In Tencent’s structural adjustment, the newly added Cloud and intelligent industry business Group (CSIG) is actually serving the direction of industrial Internet. The so-called industrial Internet is 2B in the eyes of the outside world, simply speaking, it is enterprise services.

The difference is that in the era of consumer Internet, Tencent’s social networking and content mostly serve c-end consumers, and the billions of demographic dividend since the birth of the Internet has also become the best springboard for Tencent, so Tencent, the founder of QQ and wechat, has become the best spokesperson in the era of consumer Internet.

However, the situation is different now. The maturity of Internet coverage announces the fading of demographic dividend, which means that consumer Internet, previously driven by demographic dividend, has come to a very stable point, but has reached the ceiling.

From consumer Internet to industrial Internet, no matter from the service object, or from the service content, this trend change is extremely profound.

Tencent’s change, on the one hand, is to see that such direction adjustment is full of new opportunities, on the other hand, for Tencent itself, the experience accumulated in the era of consumer Internet, can be appropriately transformed into industrial Internet farming experience.

But now this stage, is still in the consumer Internet to industrial Internet transition, the outbreak of industrial Internet signal, or capital and enterprises may step in step to the middle of the foot will be released. According to the current situation, although AI, big data, cloud computing and other fields are on the cusp, but there are still some consumer Internet marks.

But the timing of Tencent’s turn at the helm is also largely of its own making. Because the growth of Tencent and the growth of the consumer Internet is synchronous, they influence each other, extremely sensitive, so Tencent will see the trend at the same time the natural trend.

This homeopathy is even perfectly natural. Consumer Internet and industrial Internet serve different objects, but the service logic is the same, relying on products and technologies. Tencent, which plays a leading role in the era of consumer Internet, will not change its function in the era of industrial Internet, but as a service tool.

As ma referred to in the open letter “next, we must complete the connector, for all walks of life into the” digital world “one of the most abundant ‘digital interface”, only in the Internet age, consumption tool connection with social and content is given priority to, and in the age of the Internet industry, connecting tool is AI, cloud computing and big data technology to give priority to.

So, consumer Internet to industrial Internet direction change, in essence can also be considered to create the change of the tools of the era. Because in the era of consumer Internet and industrial Internet, Tencent has to do the same thing: connect.

The convergence of social and content: from mutual assistance to interdependence

In addition to CSIG, Tencent’s other newly established business group is platform and Content Business Group (PCG).

When talking about content, we have to talk about the current Internet ecology around content. The integration of social and content has become deeper and more diversified.

Simple combing the change of the form under the age of the Internet related content, to start with, the contents of main show in the form of text, the evolution of 3 g to 4 g promoted the rise of the medium between the images and video content, with the evolution of technology and the mature infrastructure, the mobile Internet era, short live video content presented in the form of a rookie.

This is also the evolution of social media and ecology. In the early days of instant messaging, communication on QQ was mainly based on text. Later, after the emergence of wechat, pictures and videos gradually became important social media. Now, popular live broadcasts and short videos have become new channels for social communication, and new vitality of social communication has been explored.

It can be argued that the relationship between social and content is going from being mutually complementary to mutually dependent, to the point where neither can live without the other. For the relationship between social and content changes, Tencent this social hegemony actually see very clearly. In recent years, Tencent has made great efforts in video, news, short video, music, live broadcasting and other aspects.

Considering the importance of the content ecosystem in the social ecosystem, Tencent has made another extremely important move, embedding diverse content forms in its two social platforms, wechat and QQ. It is not difficult to see that Tencent wants to further drive the activity and diversity of social ecology with the explosive power of short videos and other emerging content media.

So are the big trends. In recent years, there are many platforms that rely on content, whether short videos or news. In addition to the appeal of the medium itself, the social momentum behind it is a key reason.

On the whole, the integration of social and content is the mutual penetration of social ecology and content ecology. On the one hand, new content and new presentation forms can drive social activity in multiple dimensions; on the other hand, social interaction instill more vitality into new content and new presentation forms.

In fact, as early as 2016, Tencent announced the four directions of AI landing: content, games, social and platform. What Tencent has done in social networking and content is simply to stimulate the social attributes of the content ecology, such as using the content recommendation function in Tiantian Express; At the same time, increase the content richness in the social ecology, such as the evolution of QQ hotspot.

It can be seen that the integration of social and content started long ago, and the initial focus was on the enhancement of simple relevance, but later we find that this integration tends to be comprehensive. Up to now, social can not be separated from the nourishment of content, and content can not be separated from the vitality of social.

The integration of social and content is far from over. With the gradual maturity and popularity of AI, 5G and other technologies, there will be more chemical reactions between social and content products.

The transformation of user value to Partner and social value: From coexistence to symbiosis

In his open letter, Ma huateng used such terms as “ecological co-builder”, “connector” and “digital assistant” to define his relationship with users.

It has to be said that even three or five years ago, the majority of Internet companies thought more about user relationship based on active versus passive thinking, rather than the “intimacy” embodied by these words.

This is a perfectly normal stage feature. In the Internet and is one of the product is not yet ripe, ecological user is confused, what’s the use of what has become a very common phenomenon, and even if the user has the opinion, nor in a reasonable way to communicate to the enterprise, this has resulted in a seemingly is direct service relationship between enterprises and users, but it is less a “mouthpiece”.

From the point of view of business purpose, users also play a role in business results, capturing more users in a shorter time has once become a supreme law of competition for Internet enterprises.

But that relationship is beginning to be fundamentally upended. For example, we can see Tencent’s actions in the new retail industry in recent years. In cooperation with Wal-Mart and Yonghui, Tencent has positioned itself as an “enabler” and only provides tools for retail reform, such as traffic and digitalization. From Tencent’s point of view, it is not by itself but by both sides to accomplish the empowerment, so it is more practical to treat it from the perspective of partners rather than users.

Grasp the degree, is the basic criterion of cooperative relationship, is also the key to turn user relationship into partnership. In the critical period of the transformation of traditional industries, such changes in the underlying logic of business are more important. The reason is simple: in the same collaborative context, user relationships do not create as much value as partnerships, because the former work alone, while the latter work together.

Tencent adhere to the “partner” to face all users, is also derived from this truth. In the future, thanks to the greatly improved connectivity tools and efficiency, the relationship between users and enterprises will develop to a higher level. The cooperation between users and enterprises can not only serve the product ecology jointly built by them, but also radiate to the whole industry and even the whole society through such internal ecological improvement.

The letter also said Tencent would “work with partners from all walks of life to build a ‘digital ecological community.'” This is the best model of future business ecology. The joint construction results of users and enterprises can be used by an industry or the society.

In short, the transformation from user value to partner value and social value is an irreversible process under the continuous evolution of technology and demand, and also a process from coexistence to symbiosis. For example, Tencent is now participating in the new retail and digitalization process as an “enabler”. In five or ten years, I believe that such thinking will flow in the blood of every enterprise.

Finally, Tencent, born in response to the Internet, has always been on the road to change the Internet. The three trends of consumer Internet to industrial Internet, continuous integration of social and content, and user value to partner value and social value are not only the direction of Tencent’s transformation, but also the inevitable development trajectory of the Internet.

Article/Liu Kuang public number, ID: Liukuang110, this article first kuang Venture capital network