What's the difference between Sina and Sohu Netease?

At the end of last century, the Internet in China produced three portals-Netease, Sohu and Sina. 1997, 25-year-old Ding Lei founded Netease in Guangzhou with a registered capital of only 500,000 yuan. When the company was founded, Ding Lei and other three people crowded into a small room of 7 square meters. 1996, Zhang Chaoyang founded "Aite New Company", the predecessor of Sohu. 1998, Aite New launched Sohu. 1998, Stone Li Fang Company founded by Wang Zhidong merged with American Huayuan Information Network Company to create Sina.com. Therefore, Ding Lei, head of Netease, Zhang Chaoyang, head of Sohu, and Wang Zhidong, president of Sina.com, were called "Three Musketeers of the Internet" at that time.

At the beginning, three small websites started almost at the same time, and now they have developed into household names, all playing the role of Nasdaq China concept stocks. At the beginning, the "Three Musketeers of the Internet" all left Sina except Wang Zhidong. The other two still lead their own portals. The author once interviewed Wang Zhidong. By that time, he had left Sina. And set up a click technology company to concentrate on his collaborative software. He said he didn't want to talk about "online things" any more, so he was a little silent, but he was very talkative. Now he has launched the IM (instant messaging software) lava-lava. Some people think he wants to kill the Internet, but I think his instant messaging software is different from QQ and MSN, and it is more enterprise-oriented. These are all digressions. What I want to say is that in less than ten years, the internet has undergone earth-shaking changes, and many people and things have changed.

Today, Sina is undoubtedly at the top of the three portals. Sina is so popular in content that many people habitually open Sina if they want to see what is happening on the Internet. Therefore, advertising revenue has become the pillar income of Sina. In the third quarter of 2006, the financial report released by Sina showed that the advertising revenue of Sina in this quarter was 32.7 million US dollars, accounting for 58.29% of the total revenue of 566.5438 billion US dollars in this quarter. Sina's advertising revenue exceeds Sohu and far exceeds Netease. With its professional content, Sina is firmly at the top of the three portals. Personally, I think Sina News, Sina Finance, Sina Technology, Sina Sports and Sina Blog are all doing well. Take Sina blog as an example. Blog is not its first creation. After some conceptual hype, Sina became the beneficiary. Sina uses celebrity blogs to attract people. Lao Xu's blog, Sina's number one blog, has more than 76 million hits today! It is the celebrity effect that attracts "grassroots" like me, and even bloggers from other websites have moved to Sina. With its great influence, Sina continues to surpass its rivals and expand its advantages. Of course, Sina is not omnipotent. In the field of instant messaging, although universal communication occupies a part of the market, it is far from being compared with QQ and MSN. As for Sina's love search, it can't compete with Baidu and Google. Perhaps, the reason why Sina does these less competitive businesses is just to share the market.

Netease is now a portal, not an online game operator. Netease's financial report in the third quarter of 2006 shows that the online game service revenue in the third quarter of 2006 reached 59.2 million US dollars, accounting for 8 1.77% of the total revenue of 72.4 million US dollars in the third quarter. So Netease is also the easiest of the three portals, because even if it does nothing and sleeps, its two online games, Westward Journey and Fantasy Westward Journey, which are deeply loved by thousands of netizens, will also bring it huge income. Of course, Netease is also constantly doing it. Look at Netease's page, you will feel that the lack of content is simply not like a portal! Perhaps, after Netease saw that it could not surpass Sina in content, it simply stopped competing with Sina in this field. Netease's free mailbox is very good, with large space and relatively stable performance. In addition, Netease still has some businesses to explore, such as V dating. But there is an obvious problem, that is, the life cycle of online games is short. Although Netease is constantly upgrading existing games and launching new games, in the face of fierce competition in the online game market, many online games are launched in the market every year, and Netease cannot guarantee that each one will be successful. In particular, the free trend of online games is bound to test these traditional online game operators. How will Netease go in the future and how will online games go? These problems are what Netease must think about today.

As for Sohu, it is the most embarrassing of the three portals. Now, Sohu has made great progress in content and has the momentum of catching up with Sina. Sohu's financial report in the third quarter of 2006 showed that Sohu's advertising revenue in this quarter was $23.9 million, accounting for 675,654,38+0% of the total revenue of $35.4 million in this quarter. At this point, Sohu, like Sina, mainly relies on advertising revenue, but faces homogenization competition. Can Sohu compete with Sina in content? Personally, I think it's quite difficult. In the past two years, Sohu has invested heavily in content resources. In 2005, Sohu became a sponsor of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games at a high price. In 2006, it won the expensive video broadcasting right of the 2006 World Cup and became the official partner of NBA.com/China.. It stands to reason that Sohu won the advantage of content resources in the 2006 World Cup and made a beautiful turnaround. But Sina skillfully used its influence to obtain resources, and the result was that Sina won! According to the survey data released by CNNIC, Sina and Sohu were the two websites visited most by fans during the World Cup, with the visit rate of Sina being 73.8% and Sohu being 54.8%. The rise of Sina was reported by a series of large-scale sports events and social events, but today this method is not so effective. In other words, Sohu did it, but it didn't do well. The advantages in content need to be accumulated and maintained for a long time. Personally, I think Sohu should sum up the reasons for losing the 2006 World Cup, because the 2008 Olympic Games is another opportunity for Sohu, and I hope the tragedy will not repeat itself. In fact, it's not that God doesn't love Sohu, but that Sohu missed many opportunities. Sohu, which was first launched by Aite, became the first large-scale classified search engine in China, and gained the reputation of "when the map goes out, Sohu looks online". However, none of them expected that search would have such a big market today. It was not until Baidu went public that Google could compete with Microsoft that people exclaimed that search was too attractive! Sohu quickly launched sogou, which caused a sensation. But its original favorable terrain in search has been lost, and now it can only be left with leftovers in the search market! After Netease launched online games with great success, Sohu also launched them quickly, but the response was flat. Of course, Sina did the same, and the response was mediocre. Moreover, Sohu's inclusion in ChinaRen, a popular youth community, was originally a more powerful thing, but it did not play its due role under the integration of Sohu. We can make a big fuss about the community alone. At present, for Sohu, the most serious thing is that its position as one of the three portals is increasingly challenged by some rising stars. According to the 2007 China Internet Survey Report released by internet society of china, Sina ranked first, followed by Netease and Tencent, and Sohu actually fell out of the top three! Of course, this does not mean that Sohu is worse than Tencent, but it is a very dangerous signal! Sohu, if it doesn't break out in silence, it will perish in silence. Sohu, it's time to find the right direction and work hard.

The three portals and other portals are facing serious homogenization competition, and only differentiation can survive and develop. Each portal has its own unique side, forming a prosperous scene. If everyone is a model, it will have a disastrous ending. Portal websites must fully consider the characteristics of today's Internet and the development trend of tomorrow, seize an opportunity and open up a new world. Only by making its own characteristics and making its own business and products difficult to imitate can it surpass the homogenization competition. The changes of Netease, Sohu and Sina are good examples.