Netease is gradually consciously moving closer to the core spiritual level.
"If a person doesn't know the wharf he is heading for, then any wind direction is unfavorable." 1998, when Ding Lei wrote in his contribution to Internet Weekly.
Netease (1999) was founded only two years ago. At that time, Ding Lei was just a little-known teenager who waved the flag for the Internet. However, after 10 years, looking back at the road that Netease has traveled, we can't deny that this company has been deeply branded with the personal temperament that belongs to Ding Lei. As revealed in the submission of that year, Ding Lei and Netease, which he led, obviously always knew what the goal was, despite hesitation and confusion.
So, what is pushing Netease forward and becoming the spiritual core? Compared with Sina and Hewlett-Packard, what is Netease's "Tao"? Abnormal way
At the beginning of September, the climate in Guangzhou was still hot, and a light rain just ended washed the tropical plants in the courtyard of Netease headquarters building extraordinarily green and bright. Broad-leaved plants everywhere, quaint and elegant log cloisters, tables and chairs make this building decorated with tropical customs in the south of the Yangtze River look more like a place for leisure and vacation.
Netease will be headquartered in the south, so that the company has deeply laid the unique smart and pragmatic style of Guangzhou people. "1 1 year, Netease's biggest feature is pragmatism." Dong Ruibao, chief operating officer of Netease, summed up Internet Weekly. He believes that Netease's "reality" is reflected in three aspects: first, its strategy is pragmatic and steady, second, it pursues the "reality" of advanced technology application, and third, it serves netizens.
This pragmatic style is particularly obvious whenever Netease experiences a turning point in its development. Netease has never taken the "normal path":
In 200 1 year, when Sina and Sohu were still fighting each other in the field of portal news and information, and Tencent was gradually catching up, Netease began to seek transformation and quietly turned its attention to the wireless business and game business that was not valued by other portals at that time: Netease was the first portal to join the SMS and MMS business, and it was also the first portal in China to independently develop and successfully operate domestic online games and achieve platinum status. In 200 1 year, Netease acquired Guangzhou Tianxia, entered the online game market, acquired a strong R&D team, and spent a lot of money to find game talents. In February of 65438+, Netease launched the first self-developed large-scale Online role-playing game "A Chinese Odyssey Online". As a result, Netease has excavated its unique competitiveness and embarked on a completely different road from its competitors.
This transformation has become the most talked about example in Netease history. However, Netease's pragmatism is not only reflected in its unique vision, but also in Netease's "way to give up"-from around 2004, Netease gradually reduced its investment in wireless services and began to shift its focus to online game services, which happened to be the time when domestic wireless operators poured in in in large numbers and the competition tended to be homogeneous. Netease has a unique vision.
However, this is also a highly competitive market. Why did Netease give up wireless first and choose to launch a search engine in 2006? What is the starting point of Netease, with Baidu inside and Google outside? Netease is well aware of its advantages and disadvantages. In the case of a single source of game revenue growth, Netease needs new strong products to bring new growth space. Netease sees its own strong technical advantages, which is the foothold brought by the differentiation of search products. For this reason, Netease regards the "smooth search tour" as one of the breakthrough points to enhance the user experience.
"Netease is less and less like a portal." Someone made such a sigh. Li Yong, vice president of Netease, was calm and objective when the media commented on the gains and losses of major portals, which made him look more like a third party than a participant in the competition. It is more appropriate to summarize Netease's "extraordinary road" with "people without me, people without me, and people without me". Perhaps because of this, Netease seems to be far away from the portal dispute in business model and product strategy.
"very" way
"I play games in the hope that every competitor and even practitioners will have a good value, which can reflect the aesthetics, Zen, philosophy and education of life in the game products." Ding Lei once said in a public speech. This is more than once that he mentioned these four meaningful concepts on different occasions.
This can't help but remind people of the games developed by Netease, from "A Chinese Odyssey" to "World Two", the embodiment of traditional cultural elements. Ding Lei has put these four ideas into strategic thinking. "We hope the products can reflect the temperament of China culture. We just want to combine the elements of China, continue to deepen, and finally establish our own competitive barriers. " In an interview with Internet Weekly the other day, he said-you may have found that Netease is gradually consciously moving closer to the core spiritual things.
When Netease launched the beta version of search engine in 2006, Netease chose the rich but simple Chinese character "Dao" as the core of a new round of brand naming. Recently, Netease launched a brand-new LOGO and domain name, and further integrated the brand-new logo with the distinctive China cultural symbols such as Xiangyun, the world view of "a round place", China Taiji and folk paper-cutting.
In the search department of Netease, an interesting phenomenon is that all meeting rooms are named after the theme of Compendium of Materia Medica, such as "Gentiana, Amber, Cinnabar, Ophiopogon japonicus and Pinellia ternata". There is a saying that the room for talent interview is named "amber", because it is believed that finding talents is to find the most valuable amber; The conference room was named "Ganoderma lucidum" because it is a place where product meetings are held regularly, and many product inspirations were born here. The "cinnabar" meeting room is often the crowning touch for the marketing department to determine the promotion of creativity; The largest conference room is called "Gentiana". According to Netease's explanation, it was during the Olympic Games that everyone was here to cheer for China athletes. ...
Reminiscent of the bright red Netease LOGO with Chinese knot elements and the word "Yi" with China traditional culture, we can't help asking: What does Netease want to convey to the outside world from the slogan of "gathering people online" in game products, to the concept of "life aesthetics, life Zen, life philosophy and life education", and then to the further expression of China traditional cultural concept by search products?
"As an Internet company that grew up in China, Netease has always advocated the concept of' gathering the world with China wisdom'." Dong Ruibao said. This may be the brand impression that Netease tries to convey to the outside world through products, and the core word is "Tao". According to Dong Ruibao's explanation, Tao can be interpreted as "Tao and Law". For example, Netease's abnormal business model can also be understood as Netease's belief, such as Netease's brand concept and corporate culture. From the traditional culture of Netease's game "A Chinese Odyssey" to the integration of China elements in "Youdao Search", Netease has embodied its own "Tao" in every detail of its products.
Weilai avenue
There are many angles to interpret Netease, and every angle seems to find some passwords for Netease's success: perhaps it can be attributed to Ding Lei's leadership temperament and behavior password, perhaps it is a keen grasp and strong pursuit of technology, perhaps it depends on careful strategic planning and strong management implementation, or perhaps it just stems from the silent and dedicated pursuit of ideals. Perhaps the above all boils down to one word, that is, "Tao", and this is exactly where Netease's future "Tao" lies.
Dong Ruibao: Actually, it is the power of gathering people online.
Dong Ruibao, Chief Operating Officer of Netease
Internet Weekly: From the perspective of operation mode, what is the biggest feature that distinguishes Netease from other portals by reviewing the 1 1 year that Netease has gone through since its establishment?
Dong Ruibao: Netease embodies three "realities". The biggest feature of Netease is pragmatism. Specifically, it is a pragmatic and steady strategy, which is realized through the application of advanced network technology and serves the actual interests of netizens.
The first "reality" is to always pursue the maximization of users' actual interests. Netease always believes that no matter what kind of concept or model, it should take the interests of users and the actual value embodied by users as the core.
The second "reality" is to pursue the application and realization of advanced technology forever. Netease is the earliest portal in China to develop and provide free email service, the first free email system in China and the first portal with unlimited capacity and free online photo album. In addition, Netease is the first portal in China to independently develop and successfully operate domestic online games and obtain platinum status. There is also a brand-new Chinese search engine independently developed by Netease and so on.
The third "reality" is to always pursue a steady and steady development strategy. Netease has been striving to gain a foothold in the domestic market since its establishment. Committed to the development and construction of Internet in China, including the development of products based on serving China netizens.
Internet Weekly: Can you briefly summarize Netease's corporate culture and brand culture?
Dong Ruibao: The power of gathering people online. It is Netease's historical mission to aggregate the strength of all people with network technology. In fact, our English translation of the sentence "the power of gathering people online" is "Power to People". In other words, first of all, we should popularize the application of Internet technology and let more people master the power of the Internet. Then, we should build a broader platform so that everyone can rely on this platform to give full play to their own strength; Finally, gather everyone's strength
As an Internet company growing up in China, Netease has been advocating the concept of "gathering the world and gathering the wisdom of China". Netease's brand culture shows more elements of China, and the most intuitive thing you can see is Netease's LOGO, and the word "Yi" also profoundly reflects the vision of pursuing beautiful goals in China's traditional culture.
Netease has been committed to the Internet technology research and development of China people's independent intellectual property rights. Whether it is "Youdao" or other products of Netease, it is the fruitful result of Netease's gathering China's wisdom. Mr. Ding Lei previously emphasized that Netease's products should highlight the Zen of life, the philosophy of life, the art of life and the education of life. This strategic thinking is the concrete embodiment of "China Wisdom" that Netease has been pursuing.
Internet Weekly: Netease has developed many good products and made many product integrations in recent years. Can you summarize the effect?
Dong Ruibao: Through years of accumulation, we have many superior products to support the development of the portal. For example, Netease blog has been deeply integrated with Netease mailbox, photo album, bubble, Youdao search, news, wireless and other products.
From the user's point of view, these products and contents have got the best user experience; As far as our customers are concerned, Netease integration provides a platform with a high-value user group; From Netease itself, our product integration is to continue to build a win-win network platform. This win-win situation is a win-win situation for users and Netease.
Internet Weekly: What are the considerations for integrating the thoughts of China traditional culture into products with Taoism (Taoism search, games, etc.)? )?
Dong Ruibao: The name "Tao" also highlights Netease's belief and the fundamentals of doing things. This "Tao" is also the Tao of Netease, and Tao is the road, method and belief. Netease itself is a national enterprise in China, dedicated to providing services for Internet users in China. Many important ideas and wisdom in China's traditional culture are worth learning and inheriting. Our online game Journey to the West series is based on China's fairy tales, and incorporates traditional culture, using modern and advanced Internet technology, so players will feel very China and have national characteristics when playing our games.
Internet Weekly: Netease put forward the strategy of "walking on two legs" for online games and portals, so how will Netease work hard on portal content and turn it into advertising revenue?
Dong Ruibao: Since the revision of Netease's homepage in 2006, we have introduced the concepts of fine content, deep processing and concise network content layout, and it has been two years since then. During this period, the influence of our content construction has been continuously strengthened, such as the South China Tiger incident reported last year. In the just-concluded Olympic report, we integrated various contents based on the user experience, which was also recognized by the majority of netizens. In Q2 2008, Netease's advertising revenue exceeded 654.38 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.9%.
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