Renren is back and fighting on campus socializing again. What’s the future of perfect scores?

Source: Beijing Business Daily

Nearly a year after changing hands, Renren has made a low-key return. Recently, the former master of campus social networking has re-logged into the Apple App Store. The new Renren page continues the original style and layout, and also retains the updates and photos of the original registered users, which has been well received by old users.

The helpless feelings cannot match the reality. In the past week since its launch, Renren’s App score has dropped from a perfect 5 to 3.1, which is not as good as JD.com’s similar products “Liwooh” and “biu campus” acquired by Toutiao. Apart from feelings, there are not many highlights for Renren, and the experience of new features is not good either. The opportunity for everyone lies in the fact that in the past ten years, there has been no phenomenal campus social product, and the challenges are more obvious - head-on confrontation with leading companies, and the sharing of pan-entertainment products such as Bilibili and Douyin.

Emotional failure

Without warning, Renren launched a new version of the App on the Apple App Store, continuing the classic blue and white tones and retaining the latest news, photo albums and chat history of old users. The biggest change is the cancellation of the live broadcast service. However, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily found that in the Android app store and PC official website, Renren still has the old version, and the live broadcast service can still be used normally.

"It's good that I canceled the live broadcast. I like the clean and refreshing look of Renren," said old user Ling Lin. To cater to old users, Renren has done more than this. The opening sentence of "Your youth is here, you decide Renren's tomorrow" is a solid emotional card.

Judging from the App rankings in the Apple App Store, the effect of Renren’s operation is obvious. Qimai data shows that since October 23, as of the time of publication by the Beijing Business Daily reporter, Renren’s ranking in the overall list has risen from more than 1,000 to 65, and in the free social dimension, its ranking has soared from more than 600 to 5th, which is The social app with the fastest rise in rankings recently.

However, Renren's rating in the Apple App Store has continued to drop. Within 24 hours from the afternoon of October 26 to the afternoon of October 27, the rating dropped from 3.6 to 3.2. Most of the user comments were "stuck in an endless loop of not being able to find the password", while other users reported that "it keeps crashing" and "if you don't change the shared album browsing permissions back, sooner or later it will become useless."

The reactions of users who successfully logged in were also embarrassing. Some users logged off after posting the latest news "My WeChat ID is... I often contact old classmates", some left after saying hello to old classmates, and some asked questions. If you can’t reach the log entrance...

Users born after 1995 are still not impressed by New Renren. Zhou Qian, who is engaged in literary work, said: "I know about Renren, but I have never used it. Why should I join Renren when I am no longer a student?" Zhang Han, a college student born after 2000, has also heard of Renren, "It was from the teacher. I just know the name."

"It is to be expected that old and new users will have different attitudes towards newcomers. It is also predictable that everyone retains the original style. After all, he was once the boss of campus social circles. When returning to nature, he has to play the emotional card, so that he can at least keep the original style. Having users is still a good marketing point," said Li Jinqing, an analyst at Bida.

Liu Dawei, a big data analyst at Zhicha, further said, “This period of time when old users return is very important. Renren must clearly identify which users will be the main users in the future. If they are old users from Renren’s heyday, those users have already left the campus. At most, they can increase their marketing volume for everyone. If you want to attract current school users, attracting new users and retaining them are the key."

Old wine in new bottles

Since Renren has only completed one upgrade so far, judging from the current function settings, the target users seem to be unclear. However, judging from the functions planned to be launched online, it is still for school students.

Renren disclosed in the Apple App Store that "learning tools, mini-games, tree holes, confession walls and other functions will be opened in succession."

A reporter from Beijing Business Daily discovered through experience that everyone has online learning applications, including PPT, e-books, papers, and interest learning. The above-mentioned learning applications are all connected to third-party services, among which PPT services are provided by BIG PPT, Huaban, and Youpin; e-books are provided by Zhoudu; papers are provided by Aixuexue; and interest learning is a service from Haoke.com.

Although the entrance has been built, the access content page is still a simple connection to the official PC website and has not been rearranged for mobile applications, resulting in poor user experience. Beijing Business Daily reporters have tried downloading PPT and e-books many times, but without success.

Regarding how Renren plans to improve the experience of learning applications and whether it will develop its own learning-related functions in the future, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily interviewed the new Renren operator Beijing Matador Culture Media Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Matador Culture Media") via email. As of As of press time, the other party has not yet responded.

Compared with similar products such as Liwowoo, Biu Campus, and Summer, which was invested by ByteDance, the learning application launched by Renren is considered unique. However, the mini-games and tree holes planned to be launched are not considered new features. Taking summer as an example, it has a "rabbit hole" where anonymous updates can be posted, and it also distributes various mini-games.

"Judging from the functions in the trailer, Renren has already had ideas for monetization. For example, learning applications and mini-game distribution provided by third parties are functions that can be directly monetized." Li Jinqing took mini-games as an example, "Renren makes games. For those who have successful experiences, the proof of this is the "stealing food" by everyone. Now there are also advantages in making games. The new owner is mainly engaged in games, so this combination is logical."

When it was acquired, some analysts pointed out that Matador Culture Media’s main business is game development, and “Renren can be used as a game distribution channel” is the main reason why Duoniu Media (Matador Culture Media’s shareholder) won Renren reason. But what industry insiders did not expect at the time was that within a year, JD.com, ByteDance, and Alibaba would all jump into the campus social track. JD Finance personally entered the game and launched Liwow, ByteDance acquired Biu Campus and participated in Summer, and Alibaba is testing Real Ruwo internally.

Comparing the Apple App Store ratings of the above products, Xinrenren has the lowest score, only 3.1. The corresponding scores for Liwooh, Biu Campus, Summer, and Real are 4.2, 4.4, 4.9, and 3.4. From a functional point of view, Xinrenren’s current product setting style and functions are most similar to those of Biu Campus.

Everyone performed the rise and fall of campus social life

Enemies from both sides

In addition to the campus social applications that leading companies are betting on, there are also learning applications with tool attributes such as "Super Course Schedule", "Cloud Print", and "Postgraduate Entrance Exam Help" competing on the same track.

Beijing Business Daily reporter’s experience found that summer has stronger campus attributes and requires real-name authentication to use all functions such as answering questions. Other applications do not have strict real-name requirements, and members of the public can also browse or interact. Analysts believe that this is the layout of campus social networking to enter the society. This kind of expansion is mainly because campus users belong to a niche group.

This is evident in the scale of monthly activity. According to the monthly activity scale in June 2019 disclosed by QuestMobile's "China Mobile Internet Semi-annual Report 2019", except for the monthly activity of Postgraduate Entrance Assistant, which was 17.561 million, the monthly activity of the above apps did not exceed 10 million.

For everyone, the opponents are not just these peers on campus. Zhang Han, a college student at the school, told a Beijing Business Daily reporter, "My classmates and I don't play Renren, nor do we use summer, biu campus, or pear. We use WeChat and QQ to chat." Li Linke, an on-the-job graduate student, said, "When Renren was the most popular, not many people around me participated, and there was not much useful news. Recently, Amway has been using Renren Video, which is good for watching American TV series."

It is worth noting that the names of Renren Video and Renren seem to be closely related, but in fact the operators have no direct relationship.

QuestMobile data shows that in June 2019, among the 54 apps with more than 100 million monthly active users, only 4 social software were listed. WeChat and QQ ranked the top two with 950 million and 660 million respectively, Weibo and Momo’s There are 420 million and 110 million monthly active users respectively, ranking 11th and 49th respectively. However, the target users of mobile music and mobile game applications such as Douyin, QQ Music, Peace Elite, National Karaoke, King of Glory, Kuwo Music, NetEase Cloud Music, and Bilibili all include campus users, especially Douyin and Bilibili. Focus on social interaction.

"Because the users of campus social networking are more vertical and are more general-purpose social products, monthly active users have no advantage, but this does not mean that there is no market for campus social networking. Real names, circles, on-campus activities, etc. make campus users more sticky." Li Jinqing said, "The challenge is that the current Internet environment is very different from the era when everyone was at its peak, and the subset of campus users has been severely divided."

Beijing Business Daily reporter Wei Wei/Text