Now that Bilibili is profitable, many bosses have started to think.
Is the reason the company can't be profitable not because of its inability to make money, but because there are too many corrupt individuals?
And after Bilibili's profitability this time, among the main domestic platforms, only Little Red Book hasn't found a path to profitability.
Yes, although in terms of volume and influence, Little Red Book clearly belongs to the best category.
And it has also nurtured a lot of excellent content and content creators.
But Little Red Book's own profitability has never been high.
The current problem with Little Red Book is that it has traffic, but this traffic is typical private domain traffic.
Little Red Book's users have spending power, but they are absolutely unwilling to spend for the platform.
At least Bilibili has a bunch of users who purchase video memberships just to support the platform.
But on Little Red Book, private transfers are the most common way of spending.
The managers of Little Red Book previously thought that the platform users liked private transfers because the platform didn't have e-commerce functions.
It turned out that having e-commerce made no difference.
The money Little Red Book makes from e-commerce is probably not even as much as Bilibili makes from side-gig live streams.
And Little Red Book's biggest advantage is its good data on ad conversion efficiency.
This also makes Little Red Book's fan numbers the most valuable among major platforms.
But most of these ad profits are being eaten up by influencers, with the platform only getting a small share, and not daring to take too much.
Because the platform can't determine which content posted by creators is purely sharing and which is advertising.
Thus, recently Little Red Book has only been able to increase the number of splash-screen ads, homepage ads, and search ads to increase revenue.
But this frequent ad placement only increases users' dislike of the platform, which is not friendly for long-term development.
After Chen Yiyang took over Bilibili, it was revived by directly cutting staff in half.
Little Red Book's boss, Mao Wencao, was also tempted, so he commissioned someone to invite Chen Yiyang to a meal.
However, Chen Yiyang had already gone to the Imperial Capital, so he could only call Mao Wencao back to say that they could meet when he returned to Lin'an.
Once in the Imperial Capital, Chen Yiyang stayed at Zhang Yuling's house as usual.
But Zhang Yuling had already gone back to Africa to work on her e-commerce, so Chen Yiyang was the only one at home.
Fortunately, Chen Yiyang wasn't bored, because Wu Changxun, who happened to be doing business in the Imperial Capital, heard about Chen Yiyang's visit and came over directly.
"We two can be considered friends." Wu Changxun said while pouring Coke for Chen Yiyang, "What's up with you stabbing me in the back?"
"What are you talking about?" Chen Yiyang hurriedly said after hearing Wu Changxun's words, "I've never done anything to betray you."
"The Li Tiaotiao incident!" Wu Changxun asked directly.
"A software with no profitability, why invest in it?"
"That's what you said." Chen Yiyang asked directly, "A software with no profitability, which won't affect Tengxu's position, why did you sue it?"
"I'm in charge of Tengxu's ad division. Do you know how much ad revenue splash-screen and popup ads bring to Tengxu's traffic platform?"
Wu Changxun said seriously, "A free software, I wouldn't mind if it was making money, but it's not making any, and it's stopping us from making money."
"I think Tengxu should change its approach to advertising. The brainwashing and in-your-face methods are useless now.
Popup and splash-screen ads only increase users' dislike for ads. Why not go back to normal advertising methods like before? This can also counter internal competition.
If Tengxu takes the lead, maybe other platforms will follow. In the future, ads squeezed into the corners of content, charged according to a unified standard, will be good for everyone."
"That's easy to say." Wu Changxun spread his hands, "If you can create an ad alliance like abroad, Tengxu will immediately stop using pop-up ads."
With Wu Changxun's explanation, Chen Yiyang gradually understood why there aren't frequent pop-up and splash ads abroad like there are domestically.
It's not because foreign practitioners are more conscientious.
In fact, when it comes to the ability to do evil, the strongest domestic firm, Qian Du, is child's play compared to North America's Facebook.
According to Reuters, meta, the renamed Facebook company, had as much as 10% of its operating income from scam ads and criminal activities last year.
Qian Du at most recommends Putian-style hospitals to you. But Facebook is more formidable. As long as you pay, even drug trafficking ads can be placed.
Many ads on Facebook pushing delivery services, viewing luxury homes, or growing cash crops are actually related to drugs.
If you believe the ad and accept employment, you might end up getting caught and directly jailed one day.
Besides that, there's the common half-price Amazon product scam ad on Facebook.
Users who believe this pay for goods, and the seller is quite trustworthy, sending the goods home as soon as you pay.
Though it looks like the buyer's got a great deal, in reality, all these products are ordered and paid for with stolen credit cards, with your address recorded.
As long as nothing goes wrong, the unlucky ones are the credit card owners. But if something does, and the police come knocking, you've become a part of the money-laundering chain.
There's also a courier scam, promising half-price delivery. But in reality, they will wrap your parcel again and slip in all sorts of contraband.
These parcels are intercepted halfway, and the contraband is taken out.
But if you're unlucky and the parcel gets intercepted by the police first, exposing the contraband inside, the first person the police will investigate is you, the final delivery address holder.
And Facebook's senior management is fully aware of these ads.
Because the source of Reuters' reports is the discussion of these issues at Facebook's senior management meetings.
The result of Facebook's senior management discussions was to charge high fees for these scam ads.
And if these scam gangs have conflicts due to business competition, Facebook charges a fee to help these gangs remove their rival's ads.
So, when it comes to ad content, domestic platforms are actually relatively restrained.
But why do these foreign platforms prefer to advertise for scammers and criminals instead of using pop-up ads?
It's because of the presence of ad alliances.
Because foreign apps are mainly monopolized by some large European and American companies, these platforms have all joined a unified ad alliance.
The ad alliance helps the companies within fix ad laws, form a united front, and oppose internal competition.
The benefit of doing this is that the platform doesn't need to compete over ad formats by creating pop-up ads, but just needs to run normal ads to sit back and share profits.
And this kind of alliance has strong resistance against foreign platforms outside the alliance.
Because companies wanting to advertise must go to the ad alliance, which then promotes the ads to each platform.
Foreign companies, such as the overseas versions of several domestic video apps.
Although they have good traffic abroad, they can't get any ads.
Yes, the reason why there are no ads on overseas versions of various domestic apps isn't that companies want to generate goodwill abroad by not making money.
It's because of the existence of this ad alliance. They simply can't get any ads and can only make a name for themselves for free.
So, Wu Changxun's message is clear.
Tengxu doesn't want to use splash-screen and pop-up ads either.
But unless you, Chen Yiyang, make it clear from above that there are rules, or take the lead to create an ad alliance that unifies all domestic traffic platforms and stipulates the method of advertising.
By the time that happens, traffic platforms will be strong, not needing to rack their brains to improve ad click-through and conversion rates.
But creating an ad alliance domestically, letting a few platforms dominate the ad business...
Chen Yiyang thinks he's not at the stage of seeking death yet.
