Chapter 2252 The more elite, the more marginalized

On the last day of May, Yahoo's case finally reached a basic agreement, completing the transaction with a total price of US$23.5 billion, of which the cash settlement amount reached US$11.5 billion.

The remaining US$12 billion will be exchanged for 10% of the shares of Ziweixing International.

In fact, the most difficult part of the negotiation is the stock exchange. Because Ziweixing International is not listed, it is difficult to accurately judge the level of the stock price.

If we go through the normal evaluation process, we may have to waste an additional 3-4 months.

Fortunately, Zhou Buqi is very courageous.

He said that he could sign a memorandum with Yahoo's shareholders. Once the market value of Ziweixing International is less than US$120 billion when it is listed, the original Yahoo shareholders who have suffered losses will be compensated in proportion.

As soon as this clause came out, it quickly changed the negotiation situation.

Greatly improve transaction speed.

The happiest person among them is of course Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson. If Boss Zhou hadn't fallen from the sky, he might have been ruined and left Yahoo sadly.

After the deal is negotiated, it will take another 2-3 days for finance and legal affairs to conduct a final round of review and review of the contract content. If there is no problem, it will be announced to the public.

Then, Yahoo suspended trading.

It will take a few more months to wait for approval from the relevant authorities.

Within this year, all procedures for Ziweixing International's acquisition of Yahoo will be completed.

Zhou Buqi was going back to China this time, so he invited Thompson to come with him, intending to let him go there to study and do some research, and he had to learn from Toutiao.

In the era of mobile Internet, the design concepts of various apps are different from the websites of the past.

In terms of products, domestic products have more advantages.

A very important reason is that domestic changes are happening faster.

Domestically, in 996, we are operating at high intensity and at full capacity, analyzing the market and product iterations at extremely fast speeds. The country can travel as far in one year as the United States can in three years.

This becomes the biggest advantage.

At its peak, four of the five most popular apps in the United States were developed by domestic companies, so they could only be suppressed by the administration.

The two chatted on the plane, and Zhou Buqi said: "If Yahoo wants to recover, it must choose a good direction. It doesn't make much sense to stick to the PC market anymore."

Thompson agrees, "I also think the same way, and we should focus on the mobile terminal. As far as information dissemination is concerned, mobile phones are better than computers. As the largest Internet media, Yahoo must keep up with the times. Otherwise it will Just like the Internet eliminated print media, it has been eliminated by mobile Internet media."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "That's the idea, but it's not enough."

"not enough?"

Thompson didn't dare to be careless in the slightest.

The man opposite him was not only his "savior", but he was also the leading boss in the Internet field.

Zhou Buqi said: "If you want to solve Yahoo's problems, you must find the root cause of Yahoo's problems. Yahoo reached its peak in 2004, and then got worse and worse. Why? In my opinion, this is related to the popularity of the Internet. At that time in 2004, it was the peak of computer sales, and also the peak of the three major PC manufacturers Dell, HP, and Lenovo. Even IBM couldn't survive and had to sell its PC business. Later, the situation worsened because computers were not fast-moving consumer goods. Once the product is popularized, it will enter a long iteration period."

Thompson understood what he meant, "In other words, in 2004-05, the number of Internet users in the United States had reached its peak."

Zhou Buqi said: "On the one hand, it is this factor, and on the other hand, Yahoo is too professional."

Thompson opened his eyes wide, "Is this a shortcoming?"

Zhou Buqi said: "From a communication perspective, this is indeed a shortcoming."

Thompson was stunned and speechless.

It feels like a challenge to values.

Yahoo is a media website that disseminates information. Of course, the more professional the better. But Boss Zhou is right. The more professional you are, the more difficult it is to spread the word.

Where should media people stand?

"Well……"

Thompson was a little embarrassed.

He is not a media person, nor is the boss Zhou next to him.

Zhou Buqi said: "The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have the most professional reports, so what? They have been existing in a niche circle for decades. Yahoo was so popular in the early years because of the popularity of the Internet in the early years. The threshold is very high, and only elites are surfing the Internet, so they like Yahoo's model very much. With the popularity of the Internet, more and more ordinary people are starting to go online, and the situation has changed."

Thompson took a deep breath and said, "There's Facebook."

"That's right." Zhou Buqi nodded, "Facebook's content is not very professional, and many of it is even rumors and slander, but its dissemination is much stronger than that of Yahoo. Therefore, in the competition of online advertising, Yahoo is surpassed by Facebook It would be too normal to stay far away. Not only Facebook, but also Twitter. If Yahoo cannot adjust its thinking, it will be surpassed by Twitter sooner or later."

He actually didn't do any research on Yahoo.

But this kind of thing is similar in China and the United States.

He is very familiar with the domestic situation.

Yahoo is just like Sohu and Sina.

Why can Toutiao defeat those traditional portals?

The truth is cruel.

Not because it's good, but because it's bad.

Serious portals such as Sohu, Sina, NetEase, Penguin, Xinhuanet, etc. These are all media, and they all have certain media bottom lines. When doing news reports, they will abide by certain media ethics and will not play games. Too much.

Today’s headlines are different.

This is not the media.

This is a media platform.

It integrates many news from other media and pushes it to users. This is the secret of success. If you push serious news, the attention will be very limited, and the traffic will not be too high; if you push some attention-grabbing, sensational, rumor-mongering, slander, smear, and conspiracy theory content, then It is very attractive and will make users feel curious and pay attention.

The content of Sohu and Sina is so good and professional that no one reads it.

Because there is a lot of low-quality junk content on Toutiao today, it has become a carnival site.

Ultimately, it's the market's choice.

If it were placed in the 1990s, Toutiao’s model would have no room for survival at all, because netizens at that time were elites, and elites only read high-quality content.

Now that we have entered the mobile Internet era, things are different. The threshold for accessing the Internet is getting lower and lower. Those elite netizens back then have become a marginalized minority group. This will inevitably lead to Yahoo and Sohu, which the elites like. Websites such as , NetEase and others are marginalized along with their users.

Instead, there is a larger mob who don’t care about the truth. They prefer to pursue sensory stimulation, psychological comfort and spiritual satisfaction. Junk news that caters to their minds has a huge living space.

Zhou Buqi has many purposes for acquiring Yahoo.

To get married, we need to get the Yahoo brand.

To get the remaining 20% ​​of Alibaba's shares, this share can be cashed out at least 100 billion US dollars in the future!

It is necessary to obtain Yahoo Japan's shares to stabilize Ziweixing's business in Japan.

However, now that Yahoo has been acquired, we have to come up with a way and try to save Yahoo... The traditional elite thinking will definitely not work anymore.

The experience of Yahoo in the previous life has shown everything, and it cannot be played at all.

Zhou Buqi found a tentative solution.

We need to transform Yahoo from a media to a media platform.

We want to make Yahoo into today’s headlines.