What is the reason for the giants to change from the super-entry to the super-interface? Why is there a trend for Super Interface? What path can they choose?
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Aggregation Technology Group” ( ID: juhe_cn).
In recent years, the giants collectively transferred the bow, from the consumer Internet to the industrial Internet, from the to C service to the to B, the giants have chosen to regroup and plan for the future.
For a certain strength of Internet companies, they are experiencing a similar business focus transfer process: from the super portal – Super Interface, from Super App – Super API.
About the turn of the giants, we have seen a lot of interpretations, but the article shared today still gives a more innovative and comprehensive perspective.
What is the reason for the giants to change from the super entry to the super interface? Why is there a trend for Super Interface? What path can they choose? Almost all of this article gives the answer.
Why is there a trend for Super Interface?
In the “first half of the Internet”, that is, the mobile Internet period in which mobile phones are the mainstream terminals, the absolute protagonist is the Super App. The core contradiction is the competition for daily life, monthly activities, and user usage time.
When it comes to the “second half”, that is, the various types of smart terminals are all in one, and the interactive way is integrated into the multi-scenario of the Internet of Things. The new protagonist is likely to be a “super interface.”
All the big and small giants who have a place in the (mobile) Internet era, all have Super App, the super traffic portal. So we saw the unique position of WeChat in Tencent. Ali invested heavily in mobile Taobao, and Baidu, who had not found the mobile portal, was left behind.
The “super interface” is based on the idea of ”going back to the sky” and retreating from the application layer closest to the consumer at the C end. The technology layer delivers some common capabilities to diverse industries and diverse scenarios.
The cloud computing business pioneered by Amazon is a typical super interface, which was originallyIt is to solve the problem of computing power within Amazon, and then gradually open to the outside world, providing general-purpose flexible computing capabilities for enterprises.
The meaning of the super interface:
In general, the super interface should have two meanings: one is “super”, that is, the application is wide and the volume is large. The second is the “interface”, which is a to B middle layer business, which does not directly reach the consumer; at the same time, the “interface” also means a more standardized business form.
In the new retail, new manufacturing, autonomous driving, new interactive and other circuits, head Internet companies are exploring a wide range of super interface services based on technologies such as AI, cloud computing and blockchain.
“Super Interface” Case
In China, Alibaba, which is born on the e-commerce platform like Amazon, is the company that has played the most in the super interface. Alipay and Aliyun in the Ali system just reflect the Internet company Two forms of “super interface”.
One is the upgrade from Super APP to Super Interface represented by Alipay.
Case:
The latest case is that Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Ningbo 3 cities have realized the interconnection and intercommunication of subway scan code payment under the technical assistance of Alipay. This project is a very intuitive representation of the super interface to the super APP replacement – passengers do not need to use the scan code in the Alipay APP to open a new function, Ningbo people go to Shanghai, do not download Shanghai Metropolitan APP, use Ningbo Metro APP on the line Similarly, Shanghai people go to Hangzhou, do not need to download Hangzhou Metro APP, continue to use Metropolitan APP.
In addition, Alipay has also become the winning bidder for the Hong Kong subway scan code crossing project. The MTR will officially launch this new program in 2020.
Earlier, Alibaba Cloud and Alipay jointly supported the launch of the Metro Metropolitan App in January this year, and the Shanghai Metro opened a scan code payment.
Now, Alipay’s brushing technology has already gone out of the sea: In Malaysia, seven subway stations have been able to use the local wallet TNGD to scan the code; Japan’s Okinawa bus and the Russian subway have also begun to cooperate with Alipay.
In the above case, Alipay has stepped back, hidden behind the subway APP, and changed from a pre-stage actor to a “director” who provides general functions such as payment and anti-theft brush by interface.
Reviewing the development history of Alipay is just two stages in the evolution of Super APP to Super Interface.
The first stage is to cultivate internal strength
From the establishment in 2004 to the first ten years of upgrading to Ant Financial in 2014, Alipay has developed rapidly under the internal business. The technology is mainly used internally, and the external form is Super APP Alipay.
The second stage is external empowerment
In 2014, after Alipay was reorganized into Ant Financial Service, it began to open its own research technology. First, it was “mature, open one”; last year, Ant King’s chairman and CEO, Jing Xiandong, finally shouted, “Ant Jinfu 100% open self-operated business has been achieved.”
Why is there a super interface?
We can look at the background of super-interfaces from both supply and demand perspectives.
Traffic Dividend Level:
From the point of view of the Internet company, the super-interface-based provider, the most obvious reason is that the traffic dividends mentioned repeatedly are peaked.
Jingdong’s share price surpassed 8% after the release of the 2018 Q3 earnings report on November 19, the biggest reason being that its monthly live subscribers in the past 12 months fell by 2.8%. Super APPs such as WeChat, Weibo, and Vibrato have also seen a slowdown in the growth of active users and even a decline in some months.
Traffic business is getting worse and worse, and Internet companies must find new growth points. But the transformation is not about turning around, but also depends on timing and conditions.
After 2015, the conditions are gradually maturing, that is, the development and improvement of technologies including cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and sensors. These technologies provide the general capabilities required by computing, payment, data, and other industries, and new interface-based services are on the horizon.
“Requirement” level:
From the perspective of various industries and scenarios, that is, the “demand side”, it is always the company’s organization to use new technologies to improve efficiency and reduce costs. In recent years, there have been two trends that have increased the hunger and acceptance of technology in various industries.
One is the increase in labor costs and the difficulty of recruiting workers, which has led to an increase in demand for technology-assisted and alternative manpower.
Secondly, in the past 20 years, the development of China’s Internet and mobile Internet has promoted the “Internetization” and data precipitation of various industries. Popularization of applications such as WeChat payment, Alipay, and Meituan has allowed some offline scenes, especially those closest to consumers, to accumulate data that has not been previously owned by industries such as banks, supermarkets, restaurants, and real estate sales. .
With data, there is a need to use and further rely on data to deepen operations, thus having the need for various basic capabilities such as computing, payment, and risk control. This is a process in which supply and demand push each other up.
In the new supply and demand relationship, the super APP form is no longer invincible, thisIt is related to the increase in friction in the technical transformation industry.
“Internetization” is undergoing a deepening evolution in two directions: deepening into upstream companies and deepening into large, complex systems. The in-depth manifestation of the upstream is Ma Yun’s “new manufacturing”, which is the “industry Internet” that Ma Huateng said. The whole process from the C-end to the B-end will be opened.
The typical scenes that go deep into large and complex systems are the “smart cities” where Ali, Tencent, Baidu, Huawei and other players are all in the layout; public transportation, citizen credit, public safety, real estate information, urban services, government services, etc. They are all important parts of a complex system of cities.
The new customers in these two directions are completely different from the personal consumers faced by large Internet companies in the past. New technologies will face greater friction when serving such B-side and G-end customers.
Business landscape level:
From the perspective of business landscape: Friction lies in the existence of large players in many upstream businesses and complex scenes. They are the “garden owners” in the industry.
Technically: Friction is manifested in many industries’ upstream business and large complex scenes have been formed for many years, with a variety of hardware, software, mechanisms, process deposition, and high replacement costs.
Taking mobile payment technology as an example of the empowerment of the subway system: Commercially, the subway industry chain is complex, and the subways of different cities have operators and administrative units; technically, subways in first-tier cities in China are upgrading. Most of them face many challenges such as long lines, long distances, large construction time of new and old lines, and inconsistent hardware equipment.
At this time, the Internet giants who want to get involved in the transformation of the subway system are no longer able to follow the idea of the Super APP.
Because the Super App has certain exclusivity, the subway company that leads the upgrade of the subway system wants to access as many payment methods as possible to facilitate passengers.
Secondly, in a scenario similar to the subway with multiple hardware architectures and complicated management systems, the super APP that does itself to C is not a large-scale copying and spreading game, but a lower-level, universal super interface. Became a choice.
The birth of the new echelon
China Internet entered the second half, the focus of the war is shifting from the super portal to the super interface, from the super app to the super API.
For the big companies that came from the previous era, their goal is to get new tickets, just like the world’s first mobile entry five years ago. Today’s situation is similar: first become a super interface. The company will gain more dominance in future business forms.
For startups, you can skip the Super APP stage and integrate into the super interface ecosystem, just like the latecomer countries directly cross the PC era.Into the mobile era.
The super interface will bring the whole society a lower level, more comprehensive and deeper transformation than the super app. The giants will rearrange their seats, and new forces may rise. New faces will appear in the first echelon.
Who is likely to become a super interface?
There is a limited similarity to the Super App, and the field in which the Super Interface can be born is limited. The super interface should provide versatile technical capabilities that are “super”.
Universal has two meanings: First, it is required by all walks of life, with cross-industry commonality; second, standardization and scale. An interface business, only with these two characteristics at the same time, it is possible to achieve “super” in mass.
The computing world is particularly well-suited for super-interface because of the need for computing in all walks of life, and this is a relatively generalized The ability to standardize. The current super interface business in this area is cloud computing.
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