This article can be regarded as the sequel to "After Blued was shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Courage Award, we chatted with CEO Geng Le about the gay industry" on the Huxiu site: In mid-January, the gay social software Blued from China Shortlisted for the "Boldness in Business Awards" jointly established by the Financial Times and ArcelorMittal. This award is "reserved to those who see opportunities in areas that others think are dangerous and are not afraid of them." Companies that change the direction of the company and challenge the existing order of the industry. "A month later, we received an invitation from blued to go to the UK to attend the awards ceremony. After completing a series of complicated visa application procedures, we came up with this article.
It must be noted that this is an article that does not look like it. It is such a rigorous, slightly travelogue narrative that collects what the author sees, hears, and thinks. Since it inevitably contains certain subjective factors, it is far from news in the standard sense, but it can be. Guaranteed, the article will not look so dull and boring.
First impression of London: Deeply British style
After 10 hours of flight, we finally landed at London Heathrow Airport, which is one of the busiest airports in London. One: It is responsible for receiving passengers from more than 90 countries around the world. After we got off the plane, we went straight to the airport garage. Buildings in London are generally very short, usually only 4 or 5 floors, even for residential buildings. London is very green, with vast tracts of forests, parks, and lakes. Looking down from the airplane window, it feels like you are in a city covered with vegetation. Of course, the air is also very good
(Heathrow Airport. Exterior scene, please note that the white broken line is not a meteor, it is just a reflection during shooting)
Due to the 8-hour time difference, when we arrived, it was only less than 3 hours before the departure time. It was still afternoon in London, and the weather Very good, we suppressed our sleepiness, and after settling in, we wandered around the streets of London.
Unlike the United States, British architecture still retains a very strong traditional European style, both in the street shops and the residents. Residences and even office spaces are all European-style buildings from the last century, and the styles are very unified. Each room has large vertical windows, and the scenery inside can be seen through the windows. It is absolutely unique in the urban area of London. Most of them are such buildings that it is difficult for us to tell whether they are residential or office buildings.
Shops in London generally close early. Except for bars, restaurants and night venues, most shops close before 7 or 8 o'clock. It was closed, and the whole street was deserted. In fact, this was not bad. Some friends who studied in Europe told me that in some European countries, shops close before 6 o'clock and are not open on weekends. For those who are used to 24 hours a day in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou For urban residents who have convenience stores that are open for hours, this is indeed a bit unfamiliar.
(Photo taken from outside the hotel)
Robert Pirsig repeatedly talked about Shaw in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". In fact, Shaw. Chautauqua was a very popular adult education movement in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Before the mid-1920s, Chautauqua gatherings were widely spread in agricultural areas of the United States, and Chautauqua gatherings provided entertainment and cultural education to the community. Including orators, teachers, musicians, entertainers, pastors and other experts in various fields at that time. Therefore, in a sense, this trip to England is more like a Chautauqua.
The roads in the UK are very narrow, both in lanes and sidewalks. It is cloudy most of the time, much like Hong Kong, but the roads are very clean. We bought a British version of "Wired" on the roadside. The cover It’s the famous Red Sun Lei Jun. The price is very expensive, equivalent to RMB 50.
Britain is called a rotten country, partly because of the large number of LGBT people. But in fact, today’s gay Britain was once homophobic. Spy novels during the Cold War always associated homosexuality with secrets, sneakiness or betrayal. connect together. The connection between homosexuality and secrecy, surreptitiousness and potential betrayal made homosexuality a fixture of Cold War spy fiction.There is such a subtext in "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" written by the famous British spy writer John le Carré. The novel was adapted into a film in 2011, and this is even more clearly reflected in the film.
At that time, LGBT people were in danger of losing their jobs and freedom once their sexual orientation was exposed. It was not until 1952 and not until 1967 that homosexuality was decriminalized in Britain.
Now in the UK, not only are the people very friendly to gays (second only to the Netherlands), they also have gay zones and related industrial services, and there are also many same-sex applications. This trip to the UK was also an informal market research. We followed blued through the streets of the UK. In addition to shopping, we would also open several same-sex apps at the same time to observe the user distribution, density, and crowd attributes between different apps. It is said that blued is already the number one in the world, but in European and American countries, Grindr is still used more. Grindr was founded in 2009. It has 10.5 million registered users in 196 countries and more than 2 million daily active users. It is poised to become a global The largest male-only mobile social network. More than 30% of users are American users, and the average daily user time exceeds Facebook, reaching more than 54 minutes.
html According to news on November 11, Kunlun Wanwei issued an external investment announcement, announcing that it planned to acquire 98.448 million shares held by existing shareholders of New Grindr.LCC for US$93 million (approximately 610 million yuan), accounting for 60% of the total share capital.From the current point of view, Grindr should be blued’s biggest competitor overseas.
In addition, there are some very niche but fast-growing new gay apps, such as hornet, scruff, etc. The characteristic of these small apps is that they focus on a certain function or segmented field and continue to be vertical in the vertical. Before
came here, my colleague told me that you don’t actually need to know too much English in the UK, just a few sentences like “excuse me” and “thank you” are enough. After arriving, I discovered that this is indeed the case. British people love to ride bikes and can ride them everywhere. I saw people riding bicycles, and there were poles specializing in locking bicycles everywhere on the roadside. Cycling in the UK is different from that in China. Everyone is either wearing professional cycling clothes or fluorescent safety clothing. , it is said that this is mandatory by the British transportation department, and you must wear a safety helmet. If you don't wear it, you are not allowed to go on the road. It seems that the UK still attaches great importance to bicycle safety.
When shopping and eating, of course, eating is indispensable. I have long heard that British food is unpalatable, but it was only after I actually arrived that I found out that it is really unpalatable. How should I put it? As a developed capitalist country in the 21st century, Britain’s diet is still stuck in the Middle Ages. Every Chinese will become a cook when they arrive in the UK. In the UK, you either eat pasta or a small portion of French fries, a small portion of salad, a small portion of chicken cutlets like chipfish. There seems to be no concept of "fried" in British cooking techniques, and the categories are extremely varied. There are few and the price is very expensive (average starting price is 100 RMB per person).
Of course, we still found a local night market in London. At first we thought there would be skewers and the like, and at the very least there would be milk tea or seafood. But it turned out that they were all hot dogs, hamburgers and snacks, and there was no place to sit. We looked for I went to a shop that looked like it made pancakes and confections, and I ordered one. The two owners were young, one man and one woman. It looked like a mom-and-pop shop. I wanted to ask if I could put some green onions in it, but I was at a loss for words. I knew how to say onions in English, but later I discovered that they didn’t seem to have any onions either.
Awards ceremony
html On the evening of the 118th, we participated in the awards ceremony organized by the Financial Times. The location was at a place near the hotel where we were staying. I don’t know if it should be called a club or a hotel. The format was similar to the press conference in China. You had to sign in at the beginning. Then the relevant person in charge will lead you to the second floor. Since no other media were invited to enter this event, I disguised myself as a staff member and temporarily registered an ID to sneak in.I have to say that the UK is quite strict in organizing events. Each seat corresponds to a number plate. Since I had just registered, I was assigned to another table. There were several foreigners next to me. I knew it through the plates on their chests. Some of them are from a chemical and pharmaceutical company in South Korea, some are Amazon AWS employees, and some are startups that they have never heard of. I struck up a conversation with a lady from the PWC at the next table. We chatted about LGBT and shopping in the UK. She told me that she actually has many gay friends around her. The British don’t seem to care about this. She personally also supports LGBT. Then she asked me about LGBT. In China, I said that there are still only a few people who come out. The vast majority of people still dare not come out, partly because of society and partly because of family. The latter is often the main reason. After hearing this, she quickly said yes. yes. The awarding process of
is similar. All companies are divided into 7 groups, and each group competes for an award, so a total of 7 awards have to be awarded. Blued is in the Boldness in Business Awards. Unfortunately, this award It was eventually taken away by FANUC, a robotics company from Japan, but the good news is that in addition to blued, there are two other Chinese companies shortlisted, namely Tencent and DJI. It doesn’t matter that
didn’t win. CEO Geng Le doesn’t seem to be very unhappy, because blued, the world’s largest gay social app, is about to announce a new round of financing.
The news has not been officially announced yet, but as far as I know, the amount of this round of financing is over 100 million. According to some funds from investment institutions including Yintai, according to Geng Le, the amount of financing has doubled from before. , the main reason is because the newly launched live broadcast business has demonstrated their profitability to the outside world, so investment institutions are willing to make additional investments, and in this field, giants disdain to do it, and there are certain thresholds for small companies to enter, and the Matthew effect is obvious .
"If you are not number one, then you are nothing, especially in the same-sex social field." Geng Le repeatedly emphasized this point of view. At present, the domestic homosocial software competition bubble has begun to emerge. Maintaining the existing advantages in quantity and stickiness, and entering the international market in a timely manner will become an inevitable choice. However, looking back at the obstacles in the localization of international giants such as MySpace, MSN, and Whatsapp, and the domestic players even WeChat in foreign countries The fact that promotion also costs a lot of money, the challenges that domestic gay social circles represented by Blued may foresee are obvious.
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