Old-fashioned social networking sites fade out of the public eye

　　Our reporter Zhao Yuhan

　　"When I heard that Xici Hutong was sold at a low price, it was like saying goodbye to an old friend who I haven't seen in 20 years. It's really the youth of a generation!" In the past two days, a news that "Xici Hutong was listed for sale at a low price" spread on the Internet, making the once Ms. Wang, who spent a green time on this social forum, was particularly emotional.

　　The reporter logged on the website of Jiangsu Property Rights Market on March 31 and saw that Nanjing Xici Technology Co., Ltd. issued an announcement on the transfer of 5 million shares. The listing time was from March 18 to April 18, and the transfer reserve price was only 1 yuan.

　　Not only Xici Hutong, but also Tianya, Maopu, Renren.com. The social networking sites that were once all the rage have now come to a close with the change of social media.

　　The low-cost transfer of Xici Hutong has been suspended

　　Why has Xici Hutong, which once attracted many young people, declined to "1 yuan transfer"?

The transfer announcement shows that as of November 30, 2021, Nanjing Xici Information Technology Co., Ltd. audited a total of 1.868 million yuan in assets and 4.3329 million in total liabilities.

According to industry analysis, in recent years, the decline of BBS (social forum) and the company's debt have become the reasons for low-priced transfers.

However, the 1 yuan auction is only the starting price, and it is also to attract more buyers.

　　In fact, Xici Hutong has been stopped as early as last year.

The reporter logged on the Xici Hutong page from the computer and saw that although many posts and information could still be browsed, the most recently updated post was also displayed in August last year.

In September last year, Xici Hutong issued the "System Maintenance Announcement".

Below this post, some netizens asked when to resume, but some netizens replied, "Maybe goodbye."

　　"Hutong" used to be "full of people"

　　Although it is not known by many young people now, the horizontal axis of time is 20 years back, and Xici Hutong has also been "very popular".

　　Since it originated in Nanjing, Ms. Wang, a native of Jiangsu, was very active in Xici Hutong 20 years ago, and she also hosted a literature section.

"I was in college at that time, and this social forum was very popular in Jiangsu. Many of my classmates and I went to play almost every day. Our group of literature lovers often wrote novels on it, like stacking Arhats. It was very interesting."

　　Post-70s Ms. Zhang was also active on this online forum.

"When I was young, I was engaged in journalism. There was a section called 'Reporter's Home', which was very famous. Many reporters would go there to talk about topics and work." Ms. Zhang recalled.

In addition to communicating with her peers here, Ms. Zhang also likes to go up and watch some "good people" posts.

"In my impression, Niu Wenwen, the founder of the dark horse of entrepreneurship, was a well-known writer in the forum at that time." Ms. Zhang said.

　　There are even people who "bring goods" on Xici Hutong.

At that time, Taobao had just started, but some people were already "carrying" skin care products on Xici Hutong, and the monthly sales reached 20,000 to 30,000 yuan.

Such a turnover can give a glimpse of the high popularity of Xici Hutong at that time.

It is reported that in its heyday, Xici Hutong had 30 million registered users and more than 800,000 self-built discussion boards, making it an important information release platform for making friends, chatting, job hunting, and e-commerce.

　　Iteration of social products robs young people

　　For many post-70s and post-80s, Xici Hutong is an important "spiritual home".

But why did it go into decline?

Wang Shaolei, an associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of Nanjing Normal University, believes that in the rapid development of the Internet, the decline, disappearance and replacement of media platforms are actually very common.

In addition to Xici Hutong, social networking sites such as Tianya, Maopu, and Renren, which also carry the youthful memories of many first-generation netizens, have also gradually declined with the emergence of Weibo, WeChat, and Douyin, fading out of the public eye.

　　"The initial social networking sites were mostly in the form of BBS (forums). Their rise realized a kind of 'council' function, allowing ordinary people to break through space restrictions and express their ideas." Wang Shaolei analyzed, but with blogs, Weibo, The emergence of WeChat, etc., a more "decentralized" way of expression, and the development of the mobile Internet have gradually replaced the BBS model.

Since then, with the advent of the 4G era, social media such as short videos and live broadcasts have begun to compete for traffic from Weibo and WeChat.

　　Because of this, although the old social networking sites have also tried to add new functions through product iterations, launch mobile apps, etc. to fight the arena, but they have not been able to set off a big wave.

In the opinion of commentator Yuan Shan, the decline of the old forum has a lot to do with the loss of young people.

　　"Young people are willing to invest energy and time to express their opinions on new things, and they are the most important users of the forum. However, taking Xici Hutong as an example, the early users are mostly post-70s and post-80s. With the increase of age, the pressure of work and family increases. Due to factors such as these, the activity of these users in the forum has been declining. Facing the rise of more vertical social platforms such as Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, etc., it is difficult for established social media to attract more young users to join. The aging user structure And the lack of iterations made them go to the niche one after another." Yuan Shan said.