(Chinese Version)

　　Just recently, Momo 8.0 rolled out with special emphasis attached to video social networking. In this update, a variety of new functions are added, including Quick Chat, Party Chat, Werewolf. In addition to that, functions such as Nearby, Like or Pass, and Live Streaming are moved to the home page. However, this update might instead show Momo’s great anxiety amid its transformation.

　　Where lies the next opportunity for success after live streaming?

　　To a large degree, Momo’s success owed to its transition from social networking to live streaming. Prior to the transition, the biggest problem with Momo is the low matching efficiency, as it has far more males users than females ones. As a result, many males users just gave up and left the platform.

　　In this case, live streaming is a perfect solution, since a female streamer can communicate with hundreds of thousands of male fans through live streaming.This is exactly something Momo was good at. Therefore, Momo soon caught up with other early entrants in the Chinese live streaming sector such as Huajiao TV and Inke TV. Although live streaming can create steady cash flow, it has a clear ceiling. Therefore, as contents on major live streaming platforms become homogenized, it’s quite tricky as to how to maintain growth.

　　After Momo released its Q1 financial report, it turned its eyes on short video. However, short video and live streaming stand for two completely different product forms. Currently, the biggest effect of short videos is to improve user retention. However, Momo will have to figure out not only how to make users willing to pay for short videos, as did Kuaishou and MiaoPai, but also how to distribute and spread these high-quality short videos.

　　The only problem is, Momo is more a social networking platform than a paid short video content platform for most its users. Therefore, Momo naturally doesn’t have the genes to distribute short video contents.

　　It is based on this observation that I concluded short video would only help diversify its video-based social networking ecosystem, facilitate its live streaming service, but wouldn’t lead to another overnight success story.

　　Why the next opportunity for success may lie in real-time video social networking?

　　Still, why is Momo desperately looking for the next opportunity for overnight success? To a large degree, it has to do with the rising difficulty to attract users. As Momo has already fully exploited its user potential when it comes to live streaming users, it will have to gain traffic from the outside. However, it’s no easy thing to do so in the mature Chinese mobile internet. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, Momo might see a slowdown of its net profit growth.

　　To improve users’ willingness to pay, Momo can either improve the user base of paid contents, or improve the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU).

　　“Showing off, hormone, loneliness, utility and letting off. These are the six most crucial factors to all social networking platforms’ success. As long as a social network platform can meet these six psychological needs, it has the potential for success. A social network platform can rise into overnight popularity if it can meet one among these six needs, but such popularity will rapidly fade away, Therefore, such platform’s valuation can reach $100 million at most. If a platform can meet two among these six needs, it can survive for a longer period of time with a valuation of at least $1 billion. If a platform can meet three needs, its valuation can reach over $ 10 billion. If a platform can meet over four needs, then its valuation is at least $ 100 billion,” Li Haoyang, founder of Anonymous Group Chat, observed.

　　Momo, however, has the natural advantage and potential to meet all these six needs. The only problem is how to activate its potential. Fundamentally, short video, just like photo and text, is just another form of content. The ultimate challenge for Momo remains how to improve its matching efficiency between female and male user.

　　Live streaming quickly grew on Momo because it meet users’ real social networking needs. After all, videos seem more real to users than photos. Based on live streaming, Momo created another user scenario where male users can chat with female users nearby, since most male users are not active participants of live streaming.

　　Due to the one-to-many communication scenario of live streaming, streamers and audience are put in an unbalanced position. To a large degree, Momo is in dire need of a new form of live streaming that can strengthen exchanges and relationship, that is, “real-time video social networking”.

　　In fact, Momo’s previous financial reports already demonstrated its potential in video social networking.

　　“Although a female streamer might only have a couple hundred audience, most of them are male users nearby. Therefore, they constitute a major part of Momo’s user base.”