On August 16, Sina.com held a press conference, officially launched a charge email, named VIP mailbox, and there is a great move in the original free mailbox, reduce mailbox capacity from 50m straight line to 5m, capacity reduction 90%.
The next day, that is, on August 17, Sohu held a press conference and launched a new generation of free email - Sohu flash email. Under the premise of maintaining the original free mailbox 20m capacity, more services provide users with more services, including stability, security, speed, etc., have made a lot of improvements.
Sohu claimed: Sohu flash mail is not a difference than other company's charged mailbox.
Sudden events made people have doubt before this conference, many netizens have known this change. So, the Sina Forum, as well as the forums in all parts, are full of dissatisfaction and complaints on this reform. After all, the Sina mail box registered users more than 25 million, this number accounted for a large part of the national netizens, there was no complaints.
What is even more confusing is that on the afternoon of Sina released email, that is, Sina's press conference just ended, Sina's free mailbox server is all paralyzed. At this time, sudden paralyzed events naturally let the net people have doubts.
Starting from August 16 nights, Sina.com is not working properly, and Sina.com users cannot use free mail systems. President Wang Yan issued a public apology, indicating that this paralysis is completely coincidental, and there is no direct contact with Sina released charge mailbox. The Sina Network chief engineer responsible for the technology will immediately rush to the server center of Beijing Telecommunications Bureau after receiving the paralyzed report to investigate and repair. In order not to damage the data in the hard disk, coordinate through Sina.com and server hardware vendors, in order to ensure data security, all Sina's free email users of all Sina free email users are all closed.
The server provider engineers also rushed to Beijing from Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and other places to invest repair. After repair, 93% of Sina free email recovery at 9 o'clock on August 17th, the last 7% of the mailbox was repaired in the morning of the 18th. It is understood that in this accident, users of Sina's charge emails are not affected.
Almost at the same time, in the premise of maintaining the original free email 20m capacity, Sohu will provide more services to users, including stability, security, speed, etc., the most concerned issue Make a lot of improvements.
The email charge time is not a new problem, and Sina is not the first company that pushes the charged mailbox. However, this problem has been plaguing email providers and netizens: Is the opportunity to charge mature?
At the reporter interviewed the President Wang Jing, he said: The launch of the charged mailbox belongs to the ripe, and the timing has matured.
"We have to return to the traditional idea to see this challenge for Sina today, which is the challenge to the entire industry. If in the United States, the Internet has developed six or seven years, Europe has developed five or six years In China, there may be only a few days of defective, then after the Internet is cooled in the second half of the year, it is actually in the United States. It is also a lot of essence in Europe. Although the bubble disappears, But enterprises, individuals are using Internet work, study, communication, and even more importantly, in some online funds, I think it is already very mature, that is, the Internet has really played in the national economy in these developed countries. The role should be played. "" In China, we have still stayed in the early days of the development of the Internet, which is why we think that it is impossible to use a so-called "attention economy" today, or use the eyeball economy to think The reason for this matter, should go back and think, what is our value chain, which one is in the value chain, how we should provide services and products to others, and create value for others At the time, we can really go to a piece, go to the value we should get, I think it should use the traditional business method to see the development of the Internet today. "Another idea of the income mode If you say Two years ago, there is an idea, you can go to open a website, open a website, you can find a way to attract attention, just! To attract a certain degree, you can go to finance, you can financing, you will want to go to the market, in the future It is possible to get advertising revenue, thousands of.com companies have had such an idea in China and the world, but today, this thing is already impossible. Wang Yan said: "It is not to say that Internet advertising is impossible to raise a company, but it is impossible to support so many companies." Then the email charges are imperative. Sina provides the results of the survey conducted on the Internet. The survey shows that more than 35% of netizens can accept the charged email service. For this group, Wang Yan also said "it was very surprised at the time", which could be more firm. The belief of the Sina mail box.
Sohu's ideas and Sina is very different, Yang Ning, Vice President of Sohu, said in Sohu New Mailbox Conference: Currently due to technical and equipment restrictions, mail is not mature enough as a charging item.
He believes that there are several main reasons to lead to this conclusion: First, email services are a special service, it is difficult to know the value of each email, maybe a thousands of dollars, maybe a garbage letter, Once there is a mistake in the delivery process, it is not possible to estimate the loss in time during the mail delivery process. Once the email service charges, the legal issues and compensation issues will be very complicated. At present, Internet companies will not bear this responsibility.
Second, even if it can now solve legal problems, there is obstacles in technology, and email is sent from one server to another server. One of the two will fail to lose mail. Which server is there? Or is the line failure? The current technology is not enough to judge very well, then the responsibility is also difficult; the third issue may not be the technical level - how much does the mailbox charge can earn?
The charged mailbox does not make money. "The charged mailbox is charged. Of course, you have to make money." Many people may think so, but is it possible to meet the cost of investment? Is it a mistake that would "smashing sesame, lost watermelon"? And these are the problems we should consider.
Wang Yan said: "Sina said the charge, we won't be pretending to charge, still half-faced, so we launch this charge service, we will not pay, we are definitely at cost value." This may be Explain why Sina's charge email price is quite high. The cost of free email is quite high. Sina Products Marketing Manager said: "Now Sina's mail registered users have exceeded 25 million, and frequent users have more than 10 million. Because some users will register a few mailbox at the same time, so If a 9 million users, it is assumed that one user only takes 5 mega mailboxes, then it is 45T; and each T is calculated that it will be more than 1.8 million yuan in a year and two years, and some of the high-end can be 3 million yuan. It takes hundreds of millions of yuan. If you are free, all portals will be affordable. "However, Sohu's high level does not think so." Sohu Chief Operation Officer Gu Yongzhen said: "Sohu will not achieve profitability in harming users, although the free mailbox will bring a small financial burden, but will also bring business opportunities, there is no need to be in an email address There are many ways to make money, and the Internet can make money. "In fact, the email service itself is a" multi-makeup platform ", although ICP can not sell the registered user's information to third parties, but you can use such a huge repository To make money, for example, you can use the advertiser's intention to advertise the advertisement. Gu Yongzhen emphasizes that these ads are not spam. When each person applies for mailbox, you can choose whether to receive these messages. If you represent an argument, then there will be no advertising emails in his mailbox. Even so, facing more than 20 million databases, advertisers are still willing to invest.
For now ICP, "attracting attention" may not be so important, "profit model" is the words that are often chanting in CEO. However, is "eye" really worthless? Page View seems to be an important website indicator.
The reporter asked whether Wang Yan's new wave free email capacity would cause a large amount of loss of users, Wang Yan means "I don't want to see this situation", but he doesn't deny that this will happen, but the degree Different. Then the situation happens, the impact on the website is not allowed. Is the money earned by the charged mailbox really make up for the loss of Page View? To know that the advertising price is almost as shades for the data of Page View. Will I get a loss for Sina for 83% of the income from Internet advertising? Time may explain everything.
From the attractive eye to the service, Wang Yan admitted that Sina launched 50M mailbox purely the purpose is to attract eyeballs, improve the visits and visits. According to Sina's own survey, 98% of the mailbox users need to be less than 5m, which is why Sina free mailbox is reduced to 5M technical conclusions. In the era of burning money, this approach is unlikely. So now, what is it attracting attention, retain existing users? Wang Yan's answer is - the service, the service, and the fees.
There are two options, one is like a cable TV, and collect a high cable TV, not inserting any advertisements in cable TV, close-circuit TV like HBo, basically relying on such a way To charge.
There is also a way, just like a CCTV, just allowing a lot of advertisements to publish in the mailbox, publish a lot of data. Sina basically believes in the email, the former may be a big trend, because everyone does not want to receive a lot of unused letters in their own mailbox, and then account for their bandwidth, Pointing for your own server, accounting for your own time, everyone is more hopeful is that your own mailbox can keep a clean and maintain a fastest response. So 50M free email is reduced to 5m, still keep free, and will continue. But you can't guarantee whether there is an advertisement to enter your email from time to time. And on the other side, Sina has opened a charged mailbox. If you like, you can upgrade to the charge here, of course, after paying this money, you get no spam, no ads, There is a protection against viruses, assuming that you expose the email when you accidentally send you a garbage advertising, you can go to block it, you can have more backup, you can have enough bandwidth, and adequate equipment To ensure that your email works smoothly, and there is a series of additional services such as the personal homepage, personal album, personal timetable, personal card holder, etc., which are launched below the personal homes charged.
It seems that the charging service is really attractive, but Sohu's high level is not so thinking that Yang Ning said: "Most mail users must have only three requirements: stability, high speed and security." Free Whether it will be self-contradictory, according to Yang Ning: Sohu flash email is a free mail system made by Sohu Technology Special Team carefully develops test upgrades, compared to many mail systems in the previous Sohu and today's domestic market, it has unique Aesthetic interface, improved power and stable and reliable performance. First, in terms of technology, Sohu company uses distributed storage technology, webpage Cache technology, greatly improves the access speed of the mail system; secondly, by increasing the server, memory, and the highly scalable linear technology, the entire system is guaranteed Stability and scalability; at the same time, the mail backup mechanism adopted by the system, the mail virus preventive mechanism guarantees the mail server and the user's mail security.
Third, Sohu flash email is also quite effort in the individual management of the function. For the user of the network users who use email, the mail editor, feature letter, mail packet filter, personality signature file, etc. provided by the new mail system. A range of featured features, can further enrich and deliberate users to browse websites and experiences and experiences using the network.
Free mail can be done well, then Sina has both free mailbox, and has a charged mailbox, which is more than yourself?
Wang Yan said: For customers who charge, he has more the right to after-sales service. He can play our customer service 24 hours a year, 24 hours a year, or send an email to communicate with our customer service personnel. Search for some questions, like these services are artificial, it is impossible to get in this part of the free email.
"We will launch some more detailed services, interactions between mail and SMS, including equipment updates, all backups, free backup, but free backup updates may not be so fast, charge Backup is absolutely not problematic, and we are still thinking about the off-site backup, that is, there is a problem in Beijing, then I have backed up in Shanghai. "But in Wang Yan's words, he can not guarantee Sina Tolls do not appear like Sina free email events
