Editor's Introduction: In the development of the Internet, the history of search is worth mentioning. From the traditional search engine to the search function in the current application, Internet companies have made a lot of investment in search. So how is "search" in Internet applications developing today? What kind of development prospects will scenario-based search have in the future?
Zhang Xiaolong did not appear at the scene of the 2022 WeChat Open Class on WeChat home. But in the venues, live broadcasts and news that day, someone always mentioned his name. His team of open class instructors appeared one by one, wearing eco-friendly cultural shirts made of 23 discarded plastic bottles.
The 2022 WeChat Open Class, by far the most simple annual conference in the industry, is full of traces of provinces and provinces. There are only advertising slips in the information bag, no product booklets, provincial paper; the venue drinks water from the sidelines, no longer shops to the seat, save water; off-site garbage, consumables environmental protection recycling, full support for carbon neutrality, energy saving; the meeting just ended, seeing that the booth has not been dismantled, the venue quickly turned off a large part of the lights, saving electricity.
The expression style of the lecturers throughout the open class is very simple and peaceful. But outside of style, some products are destined to cause discussion as long as they publish data. Take WeChat search, for example, last year 500 million MAU, this year 700 million MAU. This data is significantly higher than the 607 million announced by Baidu APP and the 550 million scale announced by Douyin at the beginning of last year.
Is weChat search this to become the first place in the search? It's growing fast, but track rankings can't be defined by a single number. And the data of the three companies are from February last year, September last year and January this year, on the timeline, not aligned.
It's just that last year we still have to discuss whether WeChat is going to do a big search, and this year there is really no need to guess. Search is also very frank, on January 6, WeChat open class PRO, Tencent vice president, WeChat search application department head Zhou Hao's sharing theme is "use WeChat, search all", once the search can search anything, it will stamp the "big search".
Once WeChat is deeply rooted in the field of big search, Zhang Xiaolong will definitely meet Robin Li and Zhang Yiming. Baidu has accumulated more than 20 years in the search field, and it has core cognition and technology accumulation; although byte is not doing a big search now, app such as Byte's douyin + headline + watermelon, like WeChat, will derive an enthusiastic search demand.
People's search behavior and idiomatic scenarios have changed. There are bound to be some changes that will happen among the Internet giants. The search story is getting better and better.
First, the logic of search has changed
If independent search engines, browsers, etc. are searching for 1.0 products, then the search behavior in WeChat search and byte-based Douyin search is to search for 2.0 products. When the old search and the new search ability meet narrowly, the former wins users by the mind, and the latter wins users thanks to traffic and scenarios.
Looking at the online traffic in recent years, some users who pursue "fun" go to short videos such as Douyin, and another part of users who pursue "useful" go to WeChat. WeChat later made a video number, and the enriched ecology was both "useful" and "fun". Immediately after the "fun" vibrato also began to make a big knowledge category in its own content, but also to go "useful". Baidu also made its own video a few years ago, occupying the search mind at the same time, but also "fun" and "useful".
As a new force in search, the search growth rate of WeChat search and Douyin is very fast. If you look at the product daily active (DAU) data alone, the search penetration rate of Douyin is higher than that of WeChat search. WeChat has more than 1.2 billion DAUs, Search 700 million MAUs, and Douyin 600 million DAUs, but it has reached 550 million MAU. Obviously, in the scene search, Douyin users also like to search.
It's just that the search terms of Douyin users may point more to content, and they will also face the problem of how to search for generalization in the future. Because weChat search can connect and evoke the ecological matrix of the WeChat system, it can search for more complete content and services, which is a product closer to the big search than douyin search. But if it is more accurate than Baidu search with many long-tail entries, the two new search forces will become children again.
But the advantage of children is that they are young, vigorous, and have room for growth. In the early stage of the development of new products, the core accumulation cannot be spelled, but as long as the business logic is rooted and grows fast, there is a future.
The search for the epidemic in the past two years has risen rapidly. This part of the growth represents a more violent need than fun and usefulness – just need.
Take the health code that must be shown today to get in and out. Initially, by scanning or searching, find this code, use this code, it will appear in the traces of use in the drop-down menu. If there is a gap of a few days and the historical traces disappear, many users will search through WeChat again and repeatedly look for the health code. This behavior is enough to make the product manager of The Search Ecstatic, and they can see the user coming back repeatedly in the background data, indicating that the user likes or uses the product effectively.
For more than two years, there have been many Wild Operations Managers searching for WeChat at the entrances of airports, stations, restaurants and various public places. They used their loudspeakers to tell the crowd how to find the health code by searching, which can be quickly passed. In this way, they help to scan the QR code area to divert.
Do not rule out many users who did not have to search in the past, because searching for health codes, once born and two times cooked. Slowly began to search for everything in the search box above the WeChat chat interface. WeChat search wants to emphasize its own big search ability, and now open the main search entrance above the WeChat chat, which can see the circle of friends, articles, public accounts, mini programs, music emoticons, services and other content tags. Search puts these tags at the entrance, in addition to the ability to achieve classified search, the main role is like a billboard - let users understand what can be searched here.
Whether the search results of a search can satisfy users is not only the pressure of searching, but also the pressure of other search apps. Under the competition of stock, if the search can not always meet the needs of users, users will draw a small black fork for WeChat in their hearts. On the contrary, if the user can always find something that meets expectations in a search, the user may not be willing to jump WeChat again, and specifically open other search apps.
Second, why do you want to make a connector?
The product positioning of SouYisou is a top-level design. Logically, a search can only belong to WeChat. The search box above the WeChat chat has existed since the birth of WeChat, but its function and significance are very different from today's ratio, and the boundaries of this box are expanding with the growth of the WeChat ecology.
It is common to do a small search in the information. All major news apps have search or search functions. But to do a big search in a national application is a very unobscriptive and risky thing.
The larger the product, the greater the user base, and the more difficult the work. It is necessary to make a resource pool, but also to let users find the corresponding content and services through algorithms. Although in the past two years, we can see that the products and services of Souyi have become more and more perfect, but this is far from enough. Search is a product that requires unlimited accumulation of content and unlimited distribution of content. There are never-ending demands on supply-side growth and delivery-side precision.
The search team belongs to the low-key team in WeChat. Around the "connector" positioning, they made further explanations in this year's open class, refining to the dimensions of mini programs, public accounts, video numbers, services and brands that connect WeChat.
The above connections that ordinary users can also understand, what you see is what you get, it is very easy to understand. But after the connection, how to operate ecological prosperity? After opening up all the product logic, how to get close to the user's mind for a new search product?
The screenshot is from the main forum of the 2022 WeChat Open Class
Under the epidemic, the most perceptible part of the answer for users may be "service". The concept of "service" is large, but it is indeed a widespread but not fully satisfied demand market.
In the 20 years of rapid development of the Internet, no company has achieved 100% connection to offline services. A few years ago, as soon as the Product Form of WeChat Mini Program came out, everyone knew that WeChat wanted to try it. The "Service" module accesses a variety of just needs, in addition to epidemic services, including living expenses, social security payments, express delivery inquiries, provident fund inquiries, etc.
When there are more and more content and services juxtaposed in the WeChat system, the value of WeChat search is highlighted. For the average user, a search is like a cover: you don't have to remember anything, you can just search. But the cover is easy, and it is not so easy to operate a huge system of cover associations. Content things are easy to solve through the product system, which is also what the WeChat team is very good at.
However, many of the service parts outside the content cannot be standardized or even closed-loop. However, since WeChat Search has done a big search, all the connected content and services have become part of the delivery of the Search experience.
Now WeChat search can search for a variety of other "universal codes", such as communication itinerary cards, travel policy inquiries, nucleic acid testing appointments; ride codes, covering all aspects of travel and life. I have experienced the registration service of Peking University Dental with WeChat search, and I have also used WeChat to search and search other top three hospitals in Beijing, and I can find it smoothly. In the WeChat open class, the so-one lecturer put forward a set of data: WeChat aggregated more than 500 authoritative institutions at all levels, more than 2,800 various universities, tens of thousands of medical institutions, more than 5,000 public hospitals, and more than 100 million registered services.
In the industry, this data certainly sounds cool, but for the search team, such access and delivery levels, at the operational level, are incremental in operational marginal costs. Online solutions and offline delivery are not a team, and the closed loop cannot be completed from the product level, which can easily cause resources and services to stop at the aggregation level.
Or use the registration as an example, where to register, WeChat search can accurately guide the way, but whether it can be hung up depends on how many remaining numbers are put out by the corresponding hospital, and the user's hand is not fast. Behind the complex offline scenario, access and delivery, there is also a long run-in process based on government rules and user expectations.
Third, what is the future of scenario-based search?
Where the user's stay time is, the imagination space of the product is where it is. Looking at the search according to this logic, the scenario search can be expected in the future.
Now China has the most basic search team from this model, perhaps WeChat and Douyin and Kuaishou, whether other scene searches will be derived in the future, I don't know. From the perspective of weChat and Douyin's strategy alone, search is one of the important businesses, and there is no public news on Kuaishou.
Due to the different genes of the product, the historical baggage is also different. WeChat and Douyin teams do searches with different dilemmas. WeChat search cut into the ecology and services, you have to worry about delivery. Even if some offline scenes are not necessarily a problem with the search itself, the user's mind will search for the source. Baidu suffered similar losses in the early years, and later byte tested the water search, saying that it did not touch medical treatment.
If Douyin only does short video search, it will be very easy; but if it does a big search, it will also face the problem that the user's mind is difficult to locate. Although the byte system has a content and traffic matrix, they don't have a connector to connect things scattered around the app factory. A few years ago, the effect of independently packaging a separate search APP was not ideal, if you do a big search in Douyin, based on the mind of Douyin users, it seems that things other than videos are very fragmented.
But TikTok has its own advantages. The high penetration of video content represents another promising prospect.
New searches are releasing new traffic. This incremental crowd is an absolute new user, which is good for brand building.
Practitioners have long been keenly aware that in today's mobile Internet traffic ecology, it is almost difficult for brands to find a platform to achieve 50-60% growth per year. Last year's WeChat brand search reached an 80% increase. This is because new users who have not used independent search on other ends in the past and are less exposed to the brand will generate new connections or aggregations because of scenes and searches. Under the logic of the new product, brands and users will go in a very natural way, in both directions and like each other.
Last year, vivo achieved good results in WeChat search and testing the water. After the release of their new machines, the official district increased the powder rate by 268%, and the number of people scheduled for the conference accounted for 47% of the total channel. Brand traffic guaranteed increased by more than 80%. That number is enough to make brands scream. WeChat also has a place to release business opportunities: the circle of friends and community were originally private domain traffic, but with the connection of search, the brand is connected to the public domain traffic.
The search for TikTok will also be interesting. Search engine inside a random search, a keyword, may come out a lot of content of a certain category. The content is the same and different, but for real Douyin users, their motivation for searching is also looking for fun. Video content is tagged and classified with new search logic, and the corresponding imagination space also appears.
Three programmers who influenced China's search landscape
The three bosses behind WeChat Search, Baidu, and Douyin Search are all programmers, and they are all low-key, smart and diligent. The three search products they control and define are also profoundly influencing China's Internet search landscape.
Zhang Xiaolong did not attend the WeChat open class, but his shadow was everywhere at the scene. Several lecturers mentioned "Xiaolong Said" at the beginning, and in the WeChat product team, their product managers called the product or project meeting with Zhang Xiaolong "Over Xiaolong" or "Over Dragon Brother".
Because of the fine management, WeChat has a good shield for learning to use: whenever they receive product demand that can be done by the brother department, they will tell each other that it may take Brother Long to change here, and you should consider whether to add this function or not, and whether to pass Brother Long; but in fact, within WeChat, "Brother Dragon" is not a nervous thing, they use this reason to dissuade demand, but they are meeting with Zhang Xiaolong, and they also bring snacks or meals they want to eat to easily enter the conference room.
In the Baidu Science and Technology Park in Xierqi, Beijing, Baidu employees went to the canteen between 6 and 7 in the morning, and they could meet Robin Li and Baidu's senior management team also eating breakfast in the science and technology park canteen. Executives' morning meetings start after seven o'clock, hours earlier than employees go to work. In the early years, when Lu Qi left Baidu, he was banned by the media, including a job at 6 a.m. But one of the reasons why professional managers go to work early should also include that the boss goes early.
Zhang Yiming likes to participate in Byte's "CEO Face-to-Face" event in the office of AVIC or Fang Heng. It was a byte staff meeting that would be broadcast live online internally. Byte's classmates talked privately about the boss, and felt that Yiming was sometimes nervous about talking to employees, and his speech ability was far worse than that of professional managers in the company. But the employees really like him, so the screen is also warm, and they almost didn't brush the rocket for the boss.
Zhang Yiming announced his retirement last year, but he didn't really idle. Spent a lot of time researching and visiting various places. According to Byte's classmates, many of the company's important products "still have to go through with Yiming."
Unlike other Internet products, search is a product that requires the user to initiate it. To truly serve users, meet needs, and solve problems, in order to win the hearts of users. WeChat search a search to do WeChat this connector in the "connector", Baidu this year in the new slogan added "life", obviously want to be closer to the user, Douyin also said that the search in the video. Search is an unstoppable demand, with 700 million, 607 million and 550 million users voting for three of China's most famous programmers each month through the "search" instructions on each product end.
Judging from the search release of this year's WeChat open class, a data is temporarily ahead, and the search has not yet won. It's growing fast, but as a sober and profound top-level designer of the product, Zhang Xiaolong may be more worried than his team. In addition to the framework data, the more detailed dimensions of the data are more worthy of thinking and analysis.
For example, in the 700 million MAU search of WeChat search, how many are searching for contact lists, how many people are searching for content, and how many people are searching for services? How many people are free to express their search intent? Are their needs well met?
Author: Tingting's Brave World, Internet practitioner, product enthusiast. Public number: Miss Geometry (ID: jihexj)
This article was originally published by @Miss Geometry and everyone is a product manager. Reproduction without permission is prohibited
The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol