We are sometimes unconsciously afraid, although we do not know where the danger comes from, and anxiety spreads as if it were a virus, leaving us with nowhere to run. Insecurity may be the nature of animals, but in modern society it is not so simple: life is full of uncertainty, the future is hopeful and waiting, but also difficult and challenging.

The Internet, especially the mobile Internet, has been integrated into our lives. We use the Internet to consume information, socialize, entertain, vent or generate emotions, and compose our spiritual world. At the same time, the lack of security and the uncertainty of life are passed to the Internet, using our "greed and anger" for various online behavioral constructs.

Too often in the Internet industry, we are so used to hearing all kinds of "fashionable" industry words that we forget the most primitive forms, the essential patterns, and the underlying behaviors. The impetuous industry atmosphere also makes us look more at the brilliance of the spotlight on stage, but few people look at the emotions of the audience and their state on stage.

Today, TOMsInsight team inspects the underlying story of mobile social traffic and industry ecology with you through real case studies, and the theme of the report is: "Mobile Social Traffic: Is it Sharing or Selling".

Wedge

In the middle of 2015, a county-level city in eastern Henan Province. On a normal day, Achi drove more than ten kilometers from work to a stronghold every day to have a "meeting" with a few friends in the Internet circle, as usual. There were four other participants, all of whom had never missed a meeting, and did not dare to miss one. The content of the meeting was: "What is our next project, how to engage in".

Achi is a local Internet police officer, a marginal figure in this five-member group, but also indispensable: only Achi has a serious job, so he attends every day after work. We don't expect Archie to contribute money or resources, or even to give advice, but for some reason, we all feel safe with Archie on board.

The site is a single house, but in this county city is not called a villa. Archer parked his car in front of the courtyard, and the dog inside the courtyard started barking. A few chairs, a table, the house side smoking smoke, can not open their eyes, but no one will open the window. The table was set up in the morning to eat the remnants of the local specialties of breakfast "spicy soup" and "dumplings", and no one cleaned up.

The leader, A, was still sitting in a dark place in the corner of the room, and his expression could hardly be seen. The curtains are open at one corner, and the dim light shines on three people other than A. Article dark table: Since it is not very relevant to our analysis report, let's call the other three people "three brothers".

"I've said, nothing of value, you do not see now mobile traffic simply can not be sold on the price."

"If you can't sell it, you can play it yourself, and that's the way to cash in."

"We have the patience to optimize it, have that work might as well seal up a local product."

"Shit, fucking local products do not have to raise it?"

... ...

The discussion here is not like the startup party in a first-tier city, there is no "concept", do not want to get any investment, and no one cares what self-worth to achieve and other "pretentious" ideas, to earn real money is the only goal.

Achi listened carefully, for him, the "meeting" here in public and private have a lot of value, this year, a lot of network case clues are provided by A, and he himself can follow A's project to earn some "pocket money", although tens of times more than the salary, Achi still think it is "pocket money". What he never expected was that this day's discussion was the beginning of a story of termination.

Later, Achi felt that the moon looked hairy on this night and always felt that something would happen.

The story: the first stage

The protagonist of the story is Xiao A, 32 years old, a local, popular face. In high school, Xiao A was a popular figure in school, but only in a specific small circle: Xiao A played computer games particularly well, and the games in that era were mainly LAN games, such as Red Alert, Interstellar and Empire. Extended by the game, Xiao A also has a great interest in all kinds of computer knowledge, although limited to buy this county only "computer newspaper" "computer enthusiasts" and so on, but has been the county's only a few "computer room" of the wind.

Little A's academic performance is average, and there is not enough determination. The company's main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers. In the four years of college, A seems to have learned nothing from the classroom to learn the basics, continue to "not work", but self-taught a lot of technology to keep up with the times. That said, it is also a good time to catch up, with Java, J2ME, as well as some PHP and the then popular WeChat.net and other technical miscellaneous studies, after graduation in Beijing, a Fortune 500 foreign companies Internet companies as outsourcing employees, programmers.

Xiao A never seemed to find self-esteem, as if always outside the mainstream value system: other students to read serious undergraduate, their own on the third; other colleagues are regular employees, their own belong to the outsourcing staff. The feeling of always being inferior also makes Xiao A always looking for his own world with his sword, always unwilling to compete with others head-on.

Little A knows that his background and skills (mainly English) in foreign companies have little hope of turning into a regular employee, let alone climbing up the ladder. The good thing is that the current specific social value of everything can be quantified in money, and Xiao A hopes to make a comeback through other channels: Xiao A spends all his energy and spare time on trying out Internet projects.

Due to the similarity with the work, from 2006 small A began to do site group to eat SEO traffic to net alliance to cash, to 2007, began to cash with Taobao, as well as do special Taobao SEO site, black hat diversion, and even become a rare can Baidu SEM diversion to Taobao profit people. And in those years Taobao best to do a period of time really made some money, but small A is always a person, and the studio play can not compare, but also not scale.

In 2009, A began to use the one-night stand model (i.e., playing one-night stand dating simulation operation, luring users to recharge, after recharging found that nothing can be obtained, thus also avoiding the risk model) website themselves to cash, stepping on the various "dating" wind to do the one-night stand model App.

"The overall industry atmosphere from '09 to '11 was such that LBS was even interpreted as Location Based Sex, and major Internet companies began to operate without finesse. In fact, PC-based one-night stand sites have always been quite profitable, but few people understand them. I was almost the first to copy to the mobile side, at that time to the channel 3 yuan an activation of CPA costs, I can almost still earn half." A told his story to the research analysts of our TOMsInsight team as if he could not finish. But there were more and more imitators, and as usual, Little A was alone and gradually withdrew.

At the end of 2012, WeChat launched the public number function. A did not want to become a self-publisher, but just wanted to take advantage of the traffic bonus of WeChat's public number. "The earliest time to register, there is no ban on keywords, there is no ban on keyword searches, and there is no need to upload handheld ID photos to register. The first thing that I wanted to do was to divert the traffic to my dating app for myself, and then the traffic got more and more, so I simply did CPA to sell the traffic. A is also from that point in time, completely began to around the mobile to "think about things".

In 2013, Xiao A registered several tens of thousands of WeChat public numbers in bulk through "keyboardist", and hundreds of thousands of natural traffic every day, using the development mode of public numbers to directly lead to the download page of the app, which can have tens of thousands of income every day. And in addition, shake a shake entrance is not restricted, small A is also the earliest group of shake a shake simulator players.

"A computer open a few simulators, a few hours also sealed a number. The company's main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to its customers. At that time that good time has lasted for 4 months ah", when talking about that time, small A face of regret and regret.

Although small A in the Internet project a day earn more than their own "work" a month salary, but he still do not want to, always feel that they have to have a job, no job will completely leave the community. Since childhood by Henan serious governmental thinking, and even small A also try the national examination year after year, hoping to become a national civil servant, but every year the results are very poor.

At the end of 2013, the microphone envelope dropped the inner browser direct download and install Android App, Xiao A's main income road is almost completely cut off. At the same time is also this time, small A look at this foreign enterprise in the domestic completely "not on the road" of the rules of Internet operations, as well as their own several years younger leadership childishly commanded, silly as in addition to good English what do not know the product manager, plus "the whole team product revenue is not as good as a person engaged in", small A finally left the job. After the departure of the small A decided to repair some, coincidentally, the family urged to go home for a blind date, simply back home. And the snake has the snake road, the mouse has the mouse road. A's return to his hometown is the beginning of his true "self-worth".

Story: Stage 2

Although Xiao A did not become an official, but after so many years of tossing and turning, he had money to return home. After returning to his hometown, in addition to dating and picking up girls, Xiao A is eating and drinking with his former classmates, and treating them to fun every day. In high school is a popular figure, old classmates stay at home, it did not take long to gather a bunch of brothers around A, and the life of a lonely shadow in the north can not be the same, A also enjoy such days.

After all, the tossing is used to the bottom of the Internet project, the customary use of human nature and social work practices, small A back to this nearly 10 years have not lived in the familiar and unfamiliar city, and from a new dimension to observe also have a new understanding. The four walls of "alcohol, money and sex, not the gods can not jump" A summarized very concisely the state of life in this fifth-tier city in Henan.

There are no coincidences, life is full of occasional. What I didn't expect was that "wine, air, money and sex" all gathered at the same point in time on Xiao A's own body. About 2014 just after the Spring Festival, A and a few high school classmates together for dinner, including the then high school class president Achi, as well as the other three bad study every day playing games and A very close relationship with the "three brothers", three brothers are three or specialist graduation, after graduation home no serious work, get a variety of small business to mix food, since the small A back almost every day and A mixed together.

After three rounds of wine, A began to talk about his troubles: dating is very failed, no girl has the intention, nothing more than a bad-looking, short, currently no job, no car, no house year 30, tell those girls dating, they are very rich, and they do not believe! In Achi and the three brothers of the tirade of enlightenment, small A serious discussion of what car to buy in the end: this place official position must Audi, this place of the girl does not know the car must SUV, the three brothers decided and small A tomorrow together to mention Q7.

And that moment, do used to dating one-night stand mode of small A, suddenly enlightened with a clear understanding and ideas: in this kind of five-tier cities, mobile population, strong acquaintance relationship chain, offline relationship more closely. In fact, there is a fundamental difference between online social networking in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, people's acceptance of complete strangers is low (compared to Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities), and even strangers need to have a circle and a label within this circle.

Little A himself has not lived in his hometown for ten years, and has no offline circle attributes, unlike those of other blind dates (government mouth, education mouth, xx hospital, xx school) who have their own labels. In this case, even if they go to buy a Q7, they will be considered to be from abroad, no roots, do not know the roots, estimated to be a fraud, etc., not trusted, how can this work.

No on the creation, small A decided to build their own "circle and label".

The plan was finalized almost on the same day: create a dating club, dating club has a maximum number of 5000 people, the proportion of men and women in half; men and women must be in the local, must be single, using the invitation system; to join the club requires 2000 yuan per year for boys, girls free; boys must have a car, girls must be 28 years old or less; the club uses an app to contact communication, only members The members are strictly confidential, the club remains mysterious and cannot have any public publicity (perhaps imitating the movie "Fight Club"), etc. (More details involving interests will not be detailed)

Little A's many years of accumulated bottom-line Internet experience was a breeze, and the three brothers' several years of local idleness provided ample social resources: the dating club took only three weeks to fill up locally. The app data is not connected, and each city authorizes a separate operation team to protect and charge by way of app authorization.

By the end of 2014, Xiao A's club App was operating in 17 county-level cities in Henan and was fully staffed. Little A did not even register the company, in just one year brother several revenue of more than 100 million, due to the use of annual fee system is expected to have enough income every year, and more room for development. A, however, is not so wildly arrogant or overwhelmed. Foreign companies working level with low also have a certain degree of pattern, as well as the bone of inferiority and years of patience, so small A has a greater ambition.

Little A in the local one year, found that the local unique situation or demand: the local economy in 2014 a serious contraction, the city inside almost no booming economy, the only guaranteed point of work is the civil service or institutions. But for well-known reasons, people are not motivated to work, and the trend is to find various ways to make money in their spare time. And the improvement of the living condition of the residents, higher personal consumption needs continue to arise, especially the young people's group.

C2C transaction demand began to show offline continuously, and the corresponding various micro-business forms began to develop rapidly in the WeChat ecology. Micro business mainstream profitable single page play, small A lightly familiar with, from Baidu bidding to Taobao brush single + Taobao guest, is not new at all, just a change of platform. Small A's experience understanding, sooner or later the channel backwards products, traffic is the most scarce.

And the decentralized nature of the mobile Internet, there can be no central entrance. The flow nodes centered on individual users, and the shared flow network, also heralded a very different way of playing with the PC side.

Little A started to use a large amount of cash to assign cash sharing tasks to raise their mobile social network. The specific approach is to develop their own App as a tool platform to assign tasks, and share specific links to receive cash bonuses. Whether in WeChat or other mobile, up and down lines, pyramids, multi-level distribution (packaged into three levels), a nominal fee for advertisers, all the energy spent on cultivating their own traffic platform network.

Little A bone still wants revenge, he can never get over his inferiority complex, just like Mark inside "Social Network", buy the xxx club into his own ping pong room, become the only way to spit out that breath.

Story: Stage 3

Although Xiao A lives in the county, many of her own relatives are in the countryside. Almost all the women in the rural areas of this place peel garlic and give a few cents for a pound. Garlic is exported to the United States, and the peeled garlic in the rural areas of Henan is directly exported, washed and processed before being exported. For many years, the garlic in Xiao A's house was secretly "left behind" by her rural relatives to send, and was called "American garlic".

This model has marked Xiao A deeply. More people are more powerful, and more people can change the shape of any product. And Little A's network had grown to the weight of several million people by mid-2015. "Any article, divided into tasks on my platform, can have millions of retweets, millions of tens of millions of reads, all true, and the cost per IP is less than 10 cents. At this time, Xiao A seems to have forgotten about the life of an outsourced programmer in the north and the task of dating locally.

WeChat's rectification of micro-businesses in the first half of 2015 also confirmed Xiao A's vision. Ultimately what remains is the channel, mobile traffic accounts for more and more large, especially social sharing, there is a strong effect but no centralized placement channel. Especially the locational specific regional traffic purchase and advertising placement.

From the middle of 2015, small A, three brothers, Achi, began to discuss how to make the traffic channel to cash. The discussion has been going on for a long time. The discussion had been very sensible and the debate was very heated, but in the end, an extremely wrong decision was made: eventually they chose to use Internet finance to cash in.

In China, many business laws are counter-intuitive, especially for small cities. Different regional locations, user groups, even have 180 degree opposite results. The Internet model is very much all behavioral characteristics exactly. Unlike online social networking, small cities approach Internet finance with a completely different set of options.

In a place where traditional private lending has completely consumed the trust, even if you can't borrow money with a property bet on a car. An Internet finance site with no qualifications, just a few pictures or an app, and some word-of-mouth spreading, can get a large number of working retired people to throw money around. This behavior is very counter-intuitive, but it is true.

Starting in mid-2015, Little A's mobile sharing network began to frequently promote the sharing of several Internet financial products, including some 'big company' products and some localized products, and the promotion made a big impact. Catching up with frequent interest rate cuts and the stock market downturn, these high interest rate products were sought after by local users, even opening a large number of promotions in the county to entertain them.

In October 2015, one of the Internet finance companies ran away, and it was like a domino-like chain reaction. The runaway behavior seemed to be contagious, resulting in a large amount of money that could not be recovered. It caused a lot of commotion in many county-level cities in Henan, but again 'counter-intuitively', the commotion soon subsided and the city returned to its usual calm.

Only when people got together to drink did they reveal their anger, cursing, crying and various emotions, and the next day when they woke up, they still walked silently with their heads down, as if they were afraid that others would notice them, and they didn't dare to mention how much they had invested in the "wealth management plan", let alone complain about their rights. The honest people silently cried and also silently tried to 'live'.

From that day on, no one has seen Little A, and no one has mentioned it. It was as if he was still floating in the north.

Little A has never explained why he chose to do so, and from his background and mentality we might be able to guess a little.

But his dating club did not fall, dating club app is still operating, as if they did not know these things. The three brothers are still waving around in their luxury cars as if nothing had ever happened. The only thing that happened was that the daily meetings were cancelled. The dating club was still very lively, with 1 vs 1 driving tours in full swing, and young people who didn't have a place or the conditions to join the club were as anxious as hot pots of ants, even forcing their elderly parents to buy themselves cars, even though they knew their families had just been 'cheated out of money'.

Archer continued to return to his job as an internet police officer, as if none of this had happened. He is glad that he always thought that those are "pocket money", and he is more convinced that people must have a "serious job" to live. Every day at work, Archie pays attention to the Internet technology media and the self-published media. The "innovation that changes the world" seems so beautiful to him, but it feels so unreal and distant.

The Internet in Archie's eyes is always different from those in the technology media, so different that he can't believe it himself.

Lessons for us

Sometimes, we choose to get drunk and forget; sometimes, we choose to let alcohol help us believe. Under the stimulation of alcohol, the truth is no longer important, there are only memories and the lingering of time. We often forget our original intention and walk around being swayed by various interests and emotions, but why would we want to.

When we clamor for various "disruptions" at the same time, whether we are often looking at their own hearts. The real satisfaction of user needs is already one of the purposes and meanings of the industry development. Ask yourself, what exactly are we pursuing in the industry? Maybe it's just to satisfy ourselves, maybe we're just doing it for some kind of emotion. But eventually time will tell us that these are meaningless.

Finally, let's use a song lyric to encourage us: "Sword and sword is not my school, the sky and the sea have my style. Hands a push is not black nor white, not good nor bad no victory and how to defeat. There is no going where there is coming, no sword in my hand no dust in my heart is my mind, follow the fate and come with the wind is my mind.

We are sometimes unconsciously afraid, although we do not know where the danger comes from, and anxiety spreads as if it were a virus, leaving us with nowhere to run. Insecurity may be the nature of animals, but in modern society it is not so simple: life is full of uncertainty, the future is hopeful and waiting, but also difficult and challenging.

The Internet, especially the mobile Internet, has been integrated into our lives. We use the Internet to consume information, socialize, entertain, vent or generate emotions, and compose our spiritual world. At the same time, the lack of security and the uncertainty of life are passed to the Internet, using our "greed and anger" for various online behavioral constructs.

Too often in the Internet industry, we are so used to hearing all kinds of "fashionable" industry words that we forget the most primitive forms, the essential patterns, and the underlying behaviors. The impetuous industry atmosphere also makes us look more at the brilliance of the spotlight on stage, but few people look at the emotions of the audience and their state on stage.

Today, TOMsInsight team inspects the underlying story of mobile social traffic and industry ecology with you through real case studies, and the theme of the report is: "Mobile Social Traffic: Is it Sharing or Selling".

Wedge

In the middle of 2015, a county-level city in eastern Henan Province. On a normal day, Achi drove more than ten kilometers from work to a stronghold every day to have a "meeting" with a few friends in the Internet circle, as usual. There were four other participants, all of whom had never missed a meeting, and did not dare to miss one. The content of the meeting was: "What is our next project, how to engage in".

Achi is a local Internet police officer, a marginal figure in this five-member group, but also indispensable: only Achi has a serious job, so he attends every day after work. We don't expect Archie to contribute money or resources, or even to give advice, but for some reason, we all feel safe with Archie on board.

The site is a single house, but in this county city is not called a villa. Archer parked his car in front of the courtyard, and the dog inside the courtyard started barking. A few chairs, a table, the house side smoking smoke, can not open their eyes, but no one will open the window. The table was set up in the morning to eat the remnants of the local specialties of breakfast "spicy soup" and "dumplings", and no one cleaned up.

The leader, A, was still sitting in a dark place in the corner of the room, and his expression could hardly be seen. The curtains are open at one corner, and the dim light shines on three people other than A. Article dark table: Since it is not very relevant to our analysis report, let's call the other three people "three brothers".

"I've said, nothing of value, you do not see now mobile traffic simply can not be sold on the price."

"If you can't sell it, you can play it yourself, and that's the way to cash in."

"We have the patience to optimize it, have that work might as well seal up a local product."

"Shit, fucking local products do not have to raise it?"

... ...

The discussion here is not like the startup party in a first-tier city, there is no "concept", do not want to get any investment, and no one cares what self-worth to achieve and other "pretentious" ideas, to earn real money is the only goal.

Achi listened carefully, for him, the "meeting" here in public and private have a lot of value, this year, a lot of network case clues are provided by A, and he himself can follow A's project to earn some "pocket money", although tens of times more than the salary, Achi still think it is "pocket money". What he never expected was that this day's discussion was the beginning of a story of termination.

Later, Achi felt that the moon looked hairy on this night and always felt that something would happen.

The story: the first stage

The protagonist of the story is Xiao A, 32 years old, a local, popular face. In high school, Xiao A was a popular figure in school, but only in a specific small circle: Xiao A played computer games particularly well, and the games in that era were mainly LAN games, such as Red Alert, Interstellar and Empire. Extended by the game, Xiao A also has a great interest in all kinds of computer knowledge, although limited to buy this county only "computer newspaper" "computer enthusiasts" and so on, but has been the county's only a few "computer room" of the wind.

Little A's academic performance is average, and there is not enough determination. The company's main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers. In the four years of college, A seems to have learned nothing from the classroom to learn the basics, continue to "not work", but self-taught a lot of technology to keep up with the times. That said, it is also a good time to catch up, with Java, J2ME, as well as some PHP and the then popular WeChat.net and other technical miscellaneous studies, after graduation in Beijing, a Fortune 500 foreign companies Internet companies as outsourcing employees, programmers.

Xiao A never seemed to find self-esteem, as if always outside the mainstream value system: other students to read serious undergraduate, their own on the third; other colleagues are regular employees, their own belong to the outsourcing staff. The feeling of always being inferior also makes Xiao A always looking for his own world with his sword, always unwilling to compete with others head-on.

Little A knows that his background and skills (mainly English) in foreign companies have little hope of turning into a regular employee, let alone climbing up the ladder. The good thing is that the current specific social value of everything can be quantified in money, and Xiao A hopes to make a comeback through other channels: Xiao A spends all his energy and spare time on trying out Internet projects.

Due to the similarity with the work, from 2006 small A began to do site group to eat SEO traffic to net alliance to cash, to 2007, began to cash with Taobao, as well as do special Taobao SEO site, black hat diversion, and even become a rare can Baidu SEM diversion to Taobao profit people. And in those years Taobao best to do a period of time really made some money, but small A is always a person, and the studio play can not compare, but also not scale.

In 2009, A began to use the one-night stand model (i.e., playing one-night stand dating simulation operation, luring users to recharge, after recharging found that nothing can be obtained, thus also avoiding the risk model) website themselves to cash, stepping on the various "dating" wind to do the one-night stand model App.

"The overall industry atmosphere from '09 to '11 was such that LBS was even interpreted as Location Based Sex, and major Internet companies began to operate without finesse. In fact, PC-based one-night stand sites have always been quite profitable, but few people understand them. I was almost the first to copy to the mobile side, at that time to the channel 3 yuan an activation of CPA costs, I can almost still earn half." A told his story to the research analysts of our TOMsInsight team as if he could not finish. But there were more and more imitators, and as usual, Little A was alone and gradually withdrew.

At the end of 2012, WeChat launched the public number function. A did not want to become a self-publisher, but just wanted to take advantage of the traffic bonus of WeChat's public number. "The earliest time to register, there is no ban on keywords, there is no ban on keyword searches, and there is no need to upload handheld ID photos to register. The first thing that I wanted to do was to divert the traffic to my dating app for myself, and then the traffic got more and more, so I simply did CPA to sell the traffic. A is also from that point in time, completely began to around the mobile to "think about things".

In 2013, Xiao A registered several tens of thousands of WeChat public numbers in bulk through "keyboardist", and hundreds of thousands of natural traffic every day, using the development mode of public numbers to directly lead to the download page of the app, which can have tens of thousands of income every day. And in addition, shake a shake entrance is not restricted, small A is also the earliest group of shake a shake simulator players.

"A computer open a few simulators, a few hours also sealed a number. The company's main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to its customers. At that time that good time has lasted for 4 months ah", when talking about that time, small A face of regret and regret.

Although small A in the Internet project a day earn more than their own "work" a month salary, but he still do not want to, always feel that they have to have a job, no job will completely leave the community. Since childhood by Henan serious governmental thinking, and even small A also try the national examination year after year, hoping to become a national civil servant, but every year the results are very poor.

At the end of 2013, the microphone envelope dropped the inner browser direct download and install Android App, Xiao A's main income road is almost completely cut off. At the same time is also this time, small A look at this foreign enterprise in the domestic completely "not on the road" of the rules of Internet operations, as well as their own several years younger leadership childishly commanded, silly as in addition to good English what do not know the product manager, plus "the whole team product revenue is not as good as a person engaged in", small A finally left the job. After the departure of the small A decided to repair some, coincidentally, the family urged to go home for a blind date, simply back home. And the snake has the snake road, the mouse has the mouse road. A's return to his hometown is the beginning of his true "self-worth".

Story: Stage 2

Although Xiao A did not become an official, but after so many years of tossing and turning, he had money to return home. After returning to his hometown, in addition to dating and picking up girls, Xiao A is eating and drinking with his former classmates, and treating them to fun every day. In high school is a popular figure, old classmates stay at home, it did not take long to gather a bunch of brothers around A, and the life of a lonely shadow in the north can not be the same, A also enjoy such days.

After all, the tossing is used to the bottom of the Internet project, the customary use of human nature and social work practices, small A back to this nearly 10 years have not lived in the familiar and unfamiliar city, and from a new dimension to observe also have a new understanding. The four walls of "alcohol, money and sex, not the gods can not jump" A summarized very concisely the state of life in this fifth-tier city in Henan.

There are no coincidences, life is full of occasional. What I didn't expect was that "wine, air, money and sex" all gathered at the same point in time on Xiao A's own body. About 2014 just after the Spring Festival, A and a few high school classmates together for dinner, including the then high school class president Achi, as well as the other three bad study every day playing games and A very close relationship with the "three brothers", three brothers are three or specialist graduation, after graduation home no serious work, get a variety of small business to mix food, since the small A back almost every day and A mixed together.

After three rounds of wine, A began to talk about his troubles: dating is very failed, no girl has the intention, nothing more than a bad-looking, short, currently no job, no car, no house year 30, tell those girls dating, they are very rich, and they do not believe! In Achi and the three brothers of the tirade of enlightenment, small A serious discussion of what car to buy in the end: this place official position must Audi, this place of the girl does not know the car must SUV, the three brothers decided and small A tomorrow together to mention Q7.

And that moment, do used to dating one-night stand mode of small A, suddenly enlightened with a clear understanding and ideas: in this kind of five-tier cities, mobile population, strong acquaintance relationship chain, offline relationship more closely. In fact, there is a fundamental difference between online social networking in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, people's acceptance of complete strangers is low (compared to Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities), and even strangers need to have a circle and a label within this circle.

Little A himself has not lived in his hometown for ten years, and has no offline circle attributes, unlike those of other blind dates (government mouth, education mouth, xx hospital, xx school) who have their own labels. In this case, even if they go to buy a Q7, they will be considered to be from abroad, no roots, do not know the roots, estimated to be a fraud, etc., not trusted, how can this work.

No on the creation, small A decided to build their own "circle and label".

The plan was finalized almost on the same day: create a dating club, dating club has a maximum number of 5000 people, the proportion of men and women in half; men and women must be in the local, must be single, using the invitation system; to join the club requires 2000 yuan per year for boys, girls free; boys must have a car, girls must be 28 years old or less; the club uses an app to contact communication, only members The members are strictly confidential, the club remains mysterious and cannot have any public publicity (perhaps imitating the movie "Fight Club"), etc. (More details involving interests will not be detailed)

Little A's many years of accumulated bottom-line Internet experience was a breeze, and the three brothers' several years of local idleness provided ample social resources: the dating club took only three weeks to fill up locally. The app data is not connected, and each city authorizes a separate operation team to protect and charge by way of app authorization.

By the end of 2014, Xiao A's club App was operating in 17 county-level cities in Henan and was fully staffed. Little A did not even register the company, in just one year brother several revenue of more than 100 million, due to the use of annual fee system is expected to have enough income every year, and more room for development. A, however, is not so wildly arrogant or overwhelmed. Foreign companies working level with low also have a certain degree of pattern, as well as the bone of inferiority and years of patience, so small A has a greater ambition.

Little A in the local one year, found that the local unique situation or demand: the local economy in 2014 a serious contraction, the city inside almost no booming economy, the only guaranteed point of work is the civil service or institutions. But for well-known reasons, people are not motivated to work, and the trend is to find various ways to make money in their spare time. And the improvement of the living condition of the residents, higher personal consumption needs continue to arise, especially the young people's group.

C2C transaction demand began to show offline continuously, and the corresponding various micro-business forms began to develop rapidly in the WeChat ecology. Micro business mainstream profitable single page play, small A lightly familiar with, from Baidu bidding to Taobao brush single + Taobao guest, is not new at all, just a change of platform. Small A's experience understanding, sooner or later the channel backwards products, traffic is the most scarce.

And the decentralized nature of the mobile Internet, there can be no central entrance. The flow nodes centered on individual users, and the shared flow network, also heralded a very different way of playing with the PC side.

Little A started to use a large amount of cash to assign cash sharing tasks to raise their mobile social network. The specific approach is to develop their own App as a tool platform to assign tasks, and share specific links to receive cash bonuses. Whether in WeChat or other mobile, up and down lines, pyramids, multi-level distribution (packaged into three levels), a nominal fee for advertisers, all the energy spent on cultivating their own traffic platform network.

Little A bone still wants revenge, he can never get over his inferiority complex, just like Mark inside "Social Network", buy the xxx club into his own ping pong room, become the only way to spit out that breath.

Story: Stage 3

Although Xiao A lives in the county, many of her own relatives are in the countryside. Almost all the women in the rural areas of this place peel garlic and give a few cents for a pound. Garlic is exported to the United States, and the peeled garlic in the rural areas of Henan is directly exported, washed and processed before being exported. For many years, the garlic in Xiao A's house was secretly "left behind" by her rural relatives to send, and was called "American garlic".

This model has marked Xiao A deeply. More people are more powerful, and more people can change the shape of any product. And Little A's network had grown to the weight of several million people by mid-2015. "Any article, divided into tasks on my platform, can have millions of retweets, millions of tens of millions of reads, all true, and the cost per IP is less than 10 cents. At this time, Xiao A seems to have forgotten about the life of an outsourced programmer in the north and the task of dating locally.

WeChat's rectification of micro-businesses in the first half of 2015 also confirmed Xiao A's vision. Ultimately what remains is the channel, mobile traffic accounts for more and more large, especially social sharing, there is a strong effect but no centralized placement channel. Especially the locational specific regional traffic purchase and advertising placement.

From the middle of 2015, small A, three brothers, Achi, began to discuss how to make the traffic channel to cash. The discussion has been going on for a long time. The discussion had been very sensible and the debate was very heated, but in the end, an extremely wrong decision was made: eventually they chose to use Internet finance to cash in.

In China, many business laws are counter-intuitive, especially for small cities. Different regional locations, user groups, even have 180 degree opposite results. The Internet model is very much all behavioral characteristics exactly. Unlike online social networking, small cities approach Internet finance with a completely different set of options.

In a place where traditional private lending has completely consumed the trust, even if you can't borrow money with a property bet on a car. An Internet finance site with no qualifications, just a few pictures or an app, and some word-of-mouth spreading, can get a large number of working retired people to throw money around. This behavior is very counter-intuitive, but it is true.

Starting in mid-2015, Little A's mobile sharing network began to frequently promote the sharing of several Internet financial products, including some 'big company' products and some localized products, and the promotion made a big impact. Catching up with frequent interest rate cuts and the stock market downturn, these high interest rate products were sought after by local users, even opening a large number of promotions in the county to entertain them.

In October 2015, one of the Internet finance companies ran away, and it was like a domino-like chain reaction. The runaway behavior seemed to be contagious, resulting in a large amount of money that could not be recovered. It caused a lot of commotion in many county-level cities in Henan, but again 'counter-intuitively', the commotion soon subsided and the city returned to its usual calm.

Only when people got together to drink did they reveal their anger, cursing, crying and various emotions, and the next day when they woke up, they still walked silently with their heads down, as if they were afraid that others would notice them, and they didn't dare to mention how much they had invested in the "wealth management plan", let alone complain about their rights. The honest people silently cried and also silently tried to 'live'.

From that day on, no one has seen Little A, and no one has mentioned it. It was as if he was still floating in the north.

Little A has never explained why he chose to do so, and from his background and mentality we might be able to guess a little.

But his dating club did not fall, dating club app is still operating, as if they did not know these things. The three brothers are still waving around in their luxury cars as if nothing had ever happened. The only thing that happened was that the daily meetings were cancelled. The dating club was still very lively, with 1 vs 1 driving tours in full swing, and young people who didn't have a place or the conditions to join the club were as anxious as hot pots of ants, even forcing their elderly parents to buy themselves cars, even though they knew their families had just been 'cheated out of money'.

Archer continued to return to his job as an internet police officer, as if none of this had happened. He is glad that he always thought that those are "pocket money", and he is more convinced that people must have a "serious job" to live. Every day at work, Archie pays attention to the Internet technology media and the self-published media. The "innovation that changes the world" seems so beautiful to him, but it feels so unreal and distant.

The Internet in Archie's eyes is always different from those in the technology media, so different that he can't believe it himself.

Lessons for us

Sometimes, we choose to get drunk and forget; sometimes, we choose to let alcohol help us believe. Under the stimulation of alcohol, the truth is no longer important, there are only memories and the lingering of time. We often forget our original intention and walk around being swayed by various interests and emotions, but why would we want to.

When we clamor for various "disruptions" at the same time, whether we are often looking at their own hearts. The real satisfaction of user needs is already one of the purposes and meanings of the industry development. Ask yourself, what exactly are we pursuing in the industry? Maybe it's just to satisfy ourselves, maybe we're just doing it for some kind of emotion. But eventually time will tell us that these are meaningless.

Finally, let's use a song lyric to encourage us: "Sword and sword is not my school, the sky and the sea have my style. Hands a push is not black nor white, not good nor bad no victory and how to defeat. There is no going where there is coming, no sword in my hand no dust in my heart is my mind, follow the fate and come with the wind is my mind.