The wave of Yuan universe surged in front of Baidu. Last week, baidu quietly launched a social app called "xirang". Baidu explained that it would create a multi person interactive virtual world with identity, across virtual and reality and permanent survival through xirang. Baidu, who was born as a search engine, has never given up social networking and has constantly launched social applications in specific scenarios. From the anonymous social "earpiece" app to the werewolf killing social "one game" app, baidu also wants to tell a good story in the social field, but it has been "silent". From this action, Baidu's atmosphere for Xi soil can not be considered very strong. During the big bang of the concept of the meta universe, new products and companies "rub" the concept of the meta universe emerge in endlessly, and Baidu is only one of them. Moreover, Baidu's social dream has always been half asleep and half awake. It wants to do well, but it has not been done well. This time, Robin Li's bet on the social universe and what new stories he can tell is still unknown. Baidu's social life is tasteless, but it's a pity to abandon it Social networking is Robin Li's dream for many years, and it is also a pain for many years. Baidu is at the peak of its involvement in the social field and still stays in the era of PC Internet. Once popular online buzzwords such as "your mother calls you home for dinner" come from Baidu Post Bar. Baidu Post Bar, which controls users and traffic, has always been a difficult problem. With the explosion of negative events such as "jianniang bar" and "hemophilia bar", Baidu Post Bar faded, and it was difficult to return to its peak. Until 2017, baidu resumed its layout in the social field. According to incomplete statistics, from 2017 to now, Baidu has continuously launched nine social apps, including interest learning community products, anonymous social networking, AI intelligent social assistant, video social networking, campus social networking and other vertical social software. But almost every time it goes online quietly, the final fate either disappears after it is off the shelf, or there is no waves and no follow-up. Although Baidu has been in the layout of the social sector, Baidu has never understood where the key point of social networking lies in the race track in the mobile Internet era. Of course, this is also related to Baidu's publicity of social products. From the current reports, compared with Baidu's core business products, the online social app can hardly find too many publicity traces, which is more like a test of the water. Why baidu is so attached to social networking is inseparable from the anxiety of business model in addition to the traffic brought by social networking. On November 17, baidu announced its third quarter earnings as of September 30, 2021. Data show that Baidu's revenue in the third quarter was 31.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12%, and its net profit was 5.09 billion yuan. The overall index met the expected value. In terms of specific business, Baidu's core online marketing revenue was 19.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6%. Although the online marketing revenue increased year-on-year, the month on month growth actually slowed significantly. In the second quarter, online marketing revenue increased by 16.6% over the first quarter, while in the third quarter, it increased by only 2.6%. Baidu's non online marketing revenue (including cloud services and artificial intelligence) was 5.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 79.31%. Weak online marketing business is a problem Baidu has to face. Although Baidu gradually turns to AI / cloud and other businesses as the new growth engine, its non online marketing revenue accounts for only 16.29% of the total revenue because the AI / cloud and other business base is not very large. From the data, at present, AI / cloud and other businesses still need advertising business to transfuse blood for them. Baidu also does not want to give up the commercial value of social networking. In February this year, baidu also mentioned in its financial report for the fourth quarter of 2020 that in the future, baidu mobile ecology will continue to develop in depth in its business model, deeply cultivate core vertical categories such as e-commerce and health, and expand diversified realization potential. On the one hand, social networking can accumulate traffic for its business. On the other hand, social platforms are also important scenes for advertising. Scenes in Greek soil app From this point of view, despite Baidu's quiet layout in the social field, the ambition behind it can be seen. Behind Xi soil, baidu plays more than social chess As for the introduction of xirang, there is a passage in Huawei application Mall: it is expanding rapidly and becoming an infinite world without boundary. I hope you can have a pleasant journey here. In short, the current Greek soil can provide users with a virtual identity, and then interact with friends in the virtual world. Whether the future journey will be pleasant or not is unknown, but the current Greek soil does not seem to have the "pleasure" in the concept publicity. By the time of publication, Xi soil had downloaded and installed less than 10000 times in Huawei's app store, and only 14 people rated it, with a comprehensive score of only 3.1 points. In many comments, most of them said that they had a bad sense of experience, too rough pictures, too few playing methods, etc. First of all, there are relatively few users. During the experience, the reporter of Phoenix Weekly finance and economics found that most of the users experiencing "Xi land" are product managers of media or Internet companies. Among them, some users said that Baidu launched "Xi soil", which ordinary users hardly know. "I also learned that Baidu had launched a new social software after reading the reports of financial media." In addition to the small number of users, xirang currently has relatively few functions and only supports user voice communication. At the same time, xirang also has the function of "small voice assistant". In terms of scene experience, the current Greek soil still has the situation of delayed blocking of characters and buildings. In addition, the reporter of Phoenix wekkly finance and economics experienced the situation of "dizzy 3D" in less than a quarter of an hour. Scenes in Greek soil app As a newly launched application, aside from the problems to be optimized in the early development, it is still doubtful whether the Greek soil launched by Baidu can really link with the social meta universe. At present, the elements of social meta universe generally recognized in the industry need to have key characteristics such as virtual avatar, social assets, immersion, economic system and inclusiveness. Judging from the current functions of xirang app, it has simple avatars and assets. However, the problem is that after entering xirang, including the formation of virtual characters in the early stage and the specific imaging of the virtual world, users have problems such as Caton, delay and character overlap, which directly leads to poor user experience. The launch of xirang app can be said to be the first step for Baidu to officially enter the social meta universe. But in fact, behind the Greek soil app, it more reflects Baidu's thinking and layout of virtual reality. At the baidu World Conference in August this year, "xirang" virtual space multiplayer interactive platform has been well known as a new product of Baidu VR. On Baidu VR's official website, "xirang" is displayed separately as a series of products. The product functions of "xirang" include "virtual space customization", "full human-computer interaction" and "business development platform". Here, baidu defines "Xi land" as a multi person interactive virtual world with identity, economic prosperity, spanning between virtual and reality and permanent existence, based on technology and with openness as the concept, together with customers, developers and users. Baidu said that the application scenarios of "xirang" include VR education, VR marketing, VR cloud exhibition, VR training and VR Industrial Park. From this point of view, xirang app is more like a product of Baidu in the social field with the blessing of the concept of meta universe. Nevertheless, Xi soil is still highly expected by Baidu. From the current definition and functions of Baidu, baidu hopes to contribute more at the technical level, and xirang app can also be regarded as an infrastructure platform of social meta universe. Developers, customers and users can create their own exclusive space on xirang, including online conferences, exhibitions, online classes, etc. Scenes in Greek soil app Social metauniverse: the concept is still floating, and the hype comes one after another The concept of social meta universe was first proposed by soul at the beginning of this year. For the understanding of social metauniverse, soul explains it through its own application functions. Users have a virtual identity in soul, and these virtual identities can be released instantly. Soul will recommend users and information through AI algorithm based on users' social portrait and interest map. It can be simply understood as that in a virtual world, people in real life establish new social relationships through virtual characters. Soul and xirang are not the only ones with the concept of social meta universe. Tianyancha app shows that recently, Chongqing iqiyi Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. applied for the registration of trademarks such as "adventure yuan universe". In June this year, Shanghai anymen Technology Co., Ltd., an affiliated company of soul, applied for the trademark of "young people's social meta universe". Countless companies have "rubbed" the concept of social meta universe, and the sound of concept hype is also coming. In November 18th, the yuan universe concept unit released a letter from its official account on the official public address, which was signed by the then chairman Li Meng. It formally introduced the "3D universe" of the world's virtual social product based on block chain technology. "In the 3D virtual planet, such as the rainbow universe, the creator of the virtual planet, compared with VR and AR, it is believed that the future must be MR (MIXreality, mixed reality). The world of. On the day of the open letter, tianxiaxiu's share price closed up. But that night, tianxiaxiu immediately announced that after the company's self-examination, the company's main business had not changed significantly, the company had not participated in the R & D of AR, VR, Mr and related hardware technologies, and there was no relevant hardware technology reserve or patent. At present, honguniverse's products have not been connected to the above hardware technologies. Honguniverse is produced in the experimental stage The product has great risk and uncertainty. The regulatory warning of the Shanghai Stock Exchange also followed. The Shanghai Stock Exchange said that in the hot period when the "meta universe" and other related products and technologies are highly concerned in the current market, the company releases important information related to the company's business and future development through non statutory information disclosure channels, and the relevant release information may mislead investors. At the same time, the Shanghai Stock Exchange gave a regulatory warning to the improper release of the above information caused by Li Meng, then chairman of tianxiaxiu and Yu Yue, then Secretary of the board of directors. In fact, tianxiaxiu is not the only one who uses the concept to hype. Many institutions, including Shanxi securities and CITIC Securities, talked about in their research reports to guard against the risk of hype about the concept of meta universe. On September 16, the new media research center of the school of Journalism and communication of Tsinghua University released the Research Report on the development of metauniverse from 2020 to 2021, which mentioned that participation, avatar image and scene social networking are the value sources of metauniverse. In addition, the report also emphasized the importance of "social networking" in the ecology of metauniverse. However, at the same time, the report also points out that at present, the meta universe industry is still in the foundation stage of social + game scenario application, and is far from realizing the ideal state of whole industry coverage, ecological openness, economic self consistency and virtual reality interoperability. People's daily He also recently issued a document saying that while being curious and exploring new things, we should also retain a sense of prudence and rationality. Even if the meta universe may become the extension and expansion of the real world, and the potential opportunities and possible changes are worth looking forward to, everyone still needs to rationally look at the current meta universe boom and guard against any flickering in the name of technology and the future. Metacosmic exhaustion