Li Mu didn't lie to Robin when he said he didn't want to be a search engine.
If I had been reborn ten or eight years earlier, the search engine would have definitely found a way to do it. This thing is a super necessity of the Internet. In a sense, this thing is more irreplaceable than instant messaging. In ten or eight years, Before, Google was not even born, let alone Baidu.
But now, Google has formed a monopoly around the world, and Baidu has also gained considerable popularity in China. At this time, what is the point of building a search engine by itself
What's more, search engines are really a field that requires very high technical strength. Now that they are starting to catch up, the road to catch up is long and arduous. The ideal situation is to suppress Baidu and become the number one in the country, but I want to follow Google around the world. Li Mu had no other ideas except hehehe.
Based on this market environment, Li Mu is really not prepared to engage in the search engine business by himself. However, if there is an opportunity to plant a flag, he is still very happy.
It is unlikely to go to Google to plant a flag now. Even if it were possible, the cost would be prohibitively high, so Li Mu felt that it would be better to plant a flag on Baidu. Yiting.com really doesn’t mean much to him. , but it is of great significance to Baidu.
Moreover, Baidu's current valuation is not high, and its premium ratio is not high. If Yiting.com can get a good replacement offer, I am completely willing to sell it and exchange it for Baidu shares.
The question is, how many shares Baidu is willing to pay to replace Yiting.com
In Li Mu's view, if the price is less than 10%, then there is no need to negotiate, but he would not agree to 10%. The ideal replacement price should be between 15% and 20%.
Baidu is not the Baidu it was after it went public, nor is it the Baidu it was after Google launched the Chinese market and he alone became the dominant one.
Yiting.com is not just a simple music and audio-visual website. It has huge traffic, strong reputation and user stickiness, and is seamlessly connected to Tieba and Taobao. The most important thing is that it has genuine authorization from various record companies. .
For those record companies, there are too many pirated music online and they can't fight them. Li Mu can help them create stars on YY and Taobao, help them increase their influence, and help them sell albums and peripheral derivatives. In other words By the way, Li Mu is now a super boss in the entire entertainment industry, so everyone has authorized the genuine version to his Yiting.com. Although this authorization does not have much practical value, because the name is justifiable, the brand value is very high. less, and completely eliminates all legal risks.
With Yiting.com's current size, exchanging 20% of Baidu's shares is a bit of a pitfall, but it's not too bad. After all, online music is booming right now. However, if you look at the long term, even if you exchange 10%, you will still make a lot of money.
In order to maximize profits, Li Mu drew a big pie for Robin.
He said: “In the future, I will embed Baidu search into YY123 and put it in the most prominent position as YY123’s only default search engine. In this way, YY123 can bring huge traffic to Baidu. "
"In addition, the current short news section of YY123 also has very large traffic. All the links on our website are related to YY. When the time comes, I can completely make the default link for Baidu search and divert the traffic first. You, then you give the traffic back to me, in this case, it will also add a huge traffic entrance for you."
Robin didn't understand and asked Li Mu: "Mr. Li, what do you mean you give me the traffic in one hand and I give it back to you in the other hand?"
Li Mu smiled and said: "For example, in the news flash on the home page of YY123, there is a news title titled 'Baidu successfully acquired Yiting.com'. Under normal circumstances, if the user clicks on this link, he will directly enter the specific news of YY.com. page, but if we cooperate, I will let users click this link and enter the Baidu search page for 'Baidu successfully acquired Yiting.com' by default, and then you will feed back a lot of search results to users, allowing users to click spontaneously. When the time comes, you use technical means to put the links to the YY network at the top. Users click on the search results on the Baidu search page and return to the YY network. However, because they jump to Baidu in the middle, they will naturally be able to give you Increase traffic by a large amount. "
Robin cried. Although this was a trick that he would fail in the future, Li Mu suddenly used it in advance. After listening to it, he felt that a new world had opened up.
Li Mu looked at his stunned look and said with a smile: "This operation is normal and easy to implement. It has advantages and disadvantages for you. For us, the user experience will be affected because of the addition of an intermediate link. However, The impact is not too big and is still within the acceptable range.”
Search engine traffic is a very deep industry, and there are countless gray areas in it. The method Li Mu mentioned is not a gray method at all.
Robin has begun to feel a little excited. In this era, Baidu is not the traffic leader, but Li Mu is. His YY is the product with the highest number of registered users, daily active users, and monthly active users in the country. If he can get some traffic from Li Mu, , will be of great help to Baidu's overall business reports. Whether it can be listed in the future and its market value will depend on the performance presented to capital parties and securities companies.
Originally, MP3 and Tieba were Baidu's products, but they were quietly snatched away by Li Mu. As a result, Baidu fell into the embarrassing situation of having a single business model and being unable to form a breakthrough.
Li Mu knew very well that after tonight, Baidu's road would be cut off by himself. That was the keyword bidding that would be criticized and even scolded by countless people in the future. Counterfeiting, theft, fraud, medical fraud and other extremely dirty things. Everything stems from this business model. However, on tonight’s charity night, if Li Mu formally establishes an industry alliance and allows the industry to accept its own rules of the game under his own influence, then Baidu’s path in the future will basically be It must be cut off. At the very least, these evil keyword bidding methods must be cut off. Otherwise, they will become the target of public rebuke and the target of isolation and closure across the entire network.
From this point of view, the future development of Baidu is indeed worrying. If you did everything in your previous life, it will inevitably go downhill. In this life, you will not be able to do many things. It is estimated that it will be difficult to become a domestic first-tier Internet company.
If Baidu is willing to acquire Yiting.com and becomes a shareholder of Baidu, then it can regard Baidu as a partner in the ecosystem and provide certain support.
After thinking about it, Robin said to Li Mu: "Mr. Li, I will discuss this matter with the board of directors after I go back."
Li Mu nodded: "Okay, you can study it. By the way, if you are willing, in addition to acquiring Yiting.com, I can personally invest some money in you."
Robin was stunned, looked at Li Mu and said in surprise: "Mr. Li, do you want to join Baidu?"
Li Mu smiled slightly: "I still have great trust in your ability, Robin, and I am also optimistic about the search engine market."
Speaking of this, Li Mu deliberately wanted to cause some negative interference to Robin, and deliberately said: "Google's current momentum is too strong. You were founded not long ago, your foundation is unstable, your business model is single, and your product line is also very single. If you don't build flood control dams, , once Google goes all out to develop the domestic market, you will not be able to hold it back."
Robin's heart suddenly sank.
Li Mu is right. This is not the time when Baidu was smooth sailing in the previous life. The overall development soon fell into the shackles of the model and it was difficult to find a breakthrough point. In this case, Baidu was like a baby that had just learned to crawl. If the strong eighteen-year-old boy from his neighbor breaks into his house and steals something, not only will he not be able to resist, but he is also likely to be kicked to death. Deep in his heart, the crisis is always there.
However, if Li Mu, a young man who is much stronger than the strong boy next door, can help Baidu, it is impossible for Google to kill Baidu, and it is even possible that it will fail.
Letting Li Mu invest in Baidu and become a strategic shareholder is equivalent to building a powerful flood control dam for Baidu, which can even withstand the impact of tsunamis.
In the process of development, many start-up companies will introduce capital shareholders and strategic shareholders. Capital shareholders, as the name implies, provide financial support to the company so that the company has ammunition to continue to fight; strategic shareholders, generally speaking, have more important strategic significance.
After Lei Gongzhu founded Xiaomi, he became a well-known angel investor. Many new entrepreneurs want to invest in him. It’s not that his money is more valuable than other people’s money, but that Lei Jiaozhu has a very huge ecological resource. If he can make it If he buys shares, it is equivalent to getting a ticket to ecological resources. Therefore, finding a way to get Leader Lei to invest in shares is more for strategy than money.
And Li Mu's ecological resources are much greater than those of Leader Lei.
Li Mu actually really wants to seize the opportunity of Baidu. By investing in Baidu through a two-pronged approach, he can tie Baidu to his side. Not only does it have strong strategic significance, but the investment significance alone is also very significant. Now he has invested tens of millions. It might be worth several billion in a few years.
If Yiting.com can take 15-20% of Baidu's shares, and then personally invest in more shares, and hold more than 25% of Baidu's shares, it can support Baidu like a godson, but at the same time, it must beware of Baidu's defection, so if If search engines like Sogou and 360 start up in the future, I will definitely invest in shares in advance, and then export more resources to Baidu's competitors to check and balance Baidu, and use this to ensure my influence on the search engine industry.
This move is very damaging, but it is also very effective. Just like why ancient emperors allowed eunuchs to interfere in politics, it was largely to curb the strength of civil and military officials. The emperor pursued a stable country, so the strength of the eunuchs in the court and the civil and military hall If the strengths of the two parties can check and balance each other, it can ensure that if any party wants to rebel, the other party will not agree and must resist desperately for their own wealth and life. In this way, the emperor's throne will not be overthrown by those around him. , As for the impact of this kind of internal strife on the country, it is not important in the face of the stability of the throne.
Li Mu is like an ancient emperor. He hopes to turn Baidu into his minister. If he is obedient, everything will be easy. If he is a little bit rebellious, he will cultivate a group of eunuchs who are incompatible with him and punish him. Checks and balances make his life worse than death.
(End of chapter)