Where is the antidote for short videos?

Today, more and more giants have joined the short video battlefield. Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, NetEase, Meipai, etc. are increasing their investment in short videos, and the competition in the race to grab user time is becoming increasingly fierce.

For example, Tencent Video and Himalaya recently announced the establishment of a series of IP cooperation, opening up the content membership rights of both parties. The video content industry is shifting from traffic-only theory to expanding the breadth and depth of video content. Quality, content resource sharing and IP have become the keywords in the new round of competition.

Players in the short video industry are making new moves frequently, and behind this is a change in the overall industry environment - short videos have entered a new trend of structural adjustment and business reshaping.

Tik Tok in the south and Kuaishou in the north, the two giants in the world of mental retardation?

Data shows that as of June this year, the user scale of various popular short video applications reached 594 million, accounting for 74.1% of the total number of netizens. The short video industry had a net increase of 90 million users in the first half of 2018, and the usage time of short video users accounted for 5.5% of the total mobile Internet usage time.

Short videos have become extremely popular this year, but behind this popularity lies a hidden crisis.

From the perspective of the entire industry, on the one hand, the quality of content is uneven, the model is single, homogeneity is becoming increasingly prominent, and user aesthetic fatigue is approaching a critical point. On the other hand, short video platforms have been repeatedly summoned and removed from the platform due to content violations, and the question of how to take a new path has been placed before many players.

There may be two main reasons behind this:

First, after entering the market, all major players have been imitating Douyin's gameplay, signing a large number of young men and women, strengthening operations, promoting popular products, and over-focusing on entertainment content. This results in an increasing probability of similar content appearing repeatedly.

Second, the platform lacks reviewers to check various low-quality and homogeneous content, and has no effective technical means to identify them. In the fight for traffic, major platforms are willing to resort to vulgar and borderline means to attract users. The copyright infringement of content caused by homogeneity will also deal a fatal blow to many platforms.

There is a teasing saying circulating on the Internet: "Tik Tok in the south and Kuaishou in the north, the two giants in the world of idiots" - vulgarization has actually indirectly blackened this generation of young people. In the past, vulgar content such as underage pregnancy and childbirth, and live broadcast of baby making have triggered imitations from the post-2000s, which reflects the profound influence of the content positioning of short video platforms on the values ​​and behaviors of immature young people.

The next antidote to the culture of mourning: revisiting the content production mechanism

When watching short videos becomes a daily routine for young people, and the platforms tirelessly push those boring videos of bad taste and pretty boys and girls, many people can't stop watching, but feel infinite emptiness after finishing. Among the young people, there is a pervasive atmosphere of dejection.

It is obvious that if we only rely on producing all kinds of boring and low-interest content that is entertaining to death, it will easily lead to resistance from later users and trigger concerns at the regulatory level. The antidote to the problems of short videos needs to start with establishing a set of high-quality content production and management, differentiated, and high-quality content output mechanisms.

To solve the problem of vulgarity, the core issue is to review the algorithms and review mechanisms.

For example, Kuaishou has accumulated 5 billion short videos so far, with more than 10 million short videos uploaded every day. It needs to understand, match and distribute such a huge amount of short videos.

The short videos distributed by Douyin every day are equally impressive, and powerful technology and algorithms are indispensable.

But it is obvious that the accumulation of technology and algorithms for Douyin and Kuaishou is not enough.

Although TikTok, Kuaishou, Meipai, Tencent and Baidu all emphasize their own algorithms, operations and AI technologies, the controversy over whether algorithms have values ​​is actually determined by technology, because the accumulation of AI technology is critical to whether algorithms can accurately match, screen and distribute high-quality content.

For example: From the fact that Baidu’s Q2 information flow + AI growth rate exceeded 150% and the growth of video consumption, we can basically judge that Baidu’s personalized recommendation system based on AI technology has driven the growth of its video consumption business.

The level of technical capabilities behind AI-driven algorithms and whether they can make up for the shortcomings in this area will be the key to determining whether short videos can match and screen high-quality content, whether they can effectively break the dilemma of the "information cocoon" and form a virtuous circle of content output.

Burning traffic is a dead end, introducing high-quality resources for entertainment is the way to go

To avoid falling into the dead end of homogeneity, it is necessary to clarify the differentiated content operation route. An industry insider once revealed that Douyin spends more than 20 million yuan every day to buy traffic, which is enough to burn up two or three school district houses in Beijing in one day.

But on the other hand, behind this strategy of spending a lot of money on strong operations is that Douyin is also very anxious, because problems that can be solved by purchasing traffic, money and resources are difficult to form an indestructible barrier. If the outbreak is fast and the barriers are low, it will be easy for latecomers to copy and surpass it by spending the same amount of money and resources.

As for other players in the short video industry, how can they achieve differentiation?

In my opinion, firstly, integrating exclusive high-quality resources may be the key to forming barriers. Especially when facing strong competitors such as Douyin and Kuaishou, latecomers need to maximize the integration of internal resources to fight back.

Here, Baidu and Tencent take completely different approaches. Baidu's approach is to match and associate short videos with complete long videos of the same content in iQiyi, forming a mutual resource linkage within the system. The integration of iQiyi's long videos, information flow content and short videos creates a superimposed effect.

Tencent has always advocated the "horse racing mechanism". While reviving Weishi, it also successively launched products such as Youshi, Sukan Video, and Shiguang Short Video. Although it is also cooperating with each other internally, it has not yet formed a good synergy in integration. For Tencent, whether it can integrate its internal high-quality resources is crucial.

Second, through the operation of the industrial chain, we can access more exclusive content resources to make up for the lack of positive energy content.

At present, due to the excessive entertainment nature of short videos, Douyin and Kuaishou are busy putting out fires everywhere. Players such as Tencent and Baidu have also seen the opportunity to break through - starting with tapping into positive content and planning their industrial chain operations.

Tencent launched Youvideo and cooperated with Beijing Radio and Television Station to connect with the content resources of traditional media and produce "customized" content.

Baidu is following the model of short video IP + top international MCN, including strategic cooperation with Zoomin.TV to create China's "Youtube", and cooperating with more than 200 well-known MCN organizations such as WebTV Asia and New Film Studio to support high-quality content and IP incubation, and strengthen PGC content production. The goal is clear, which is to establish barriers by accessing domestic and foreign industrial chain resources and consolidating differentiated exclusive content.

The third is to expand into vertical fields and enrich the content ecology in diversified and vertical fields.

For example, Tencent's Time Video and Speed ​​Video have also begun to advance into the segmented markets - one focuses on intelligently generating short video stories from photos in albums; the other targets users of film and television dramas, focusing on film and television commentary, behind-the-scenes revelations, etc.

Baidu's Haokan Video continues to expand into vertical fields such as music, film and television, entertainment, games, life, online education, medical care, and tourism promotion, and is building Haokan Video into an outlet for high-quality original content in Baidu's information flow.

In general, both Tencent and Baidu are trying to de-TikTok and get rid of the label of entertainment to death.

However, for latecomers, the difficulty lies in creating a recognizable platform label while achieving a differentiated layout.

In the early days, Douyin labeled itself as trendy and cool through its magical music and brainwashing dance; various earthy videos such as social shake, shouting, double-clicking Laotie 666, etc. gave Kuaishou a label of wild and fresh earthy culture.

Baidu Haokan Video is integrated into the main channel of Baidu search + information flow, and labels itself as AI + positive energy content.

The reason why Tencent Weishi failed to take off may be, on the one hand, the lack of breakthroughs in the algorithm level, and on the other hand, it lost its own clear brand label while following Douyin.

Therefore, whether or not a clear platform label can be formed through differentiated content layout to capture a specific user group may determine where the ceiling is.

Focus on sinking on one hand and overseas on the other hand, both content quality and differentiated resources must be strong

According to the "China Mobile Internet 2018 Half-Year Report" by data research organization QuestMobile, the future traffic dividend of short video users will be in second-tier and third-tier cities and below, and even in towns and rural areas. On the other hand, short videos have reached their growth ceiling, and going overseas to attract new users is also a major demand.

For the sinking user market, on the one hand, strengthening the PGC model with strong professionalism and more guaranteed content quality is more stable and sustainable, because when the user base expands to the whole people and small town groups, positive energy and differentiated content suitable for all ages are indispensable. Foreign short video platforms represented by Vine and Instagram have already attracted users around the PGC model.

On the other hand, planning international content resources in advance is also an effective way to break into overseas markets in the future.

In general, the signals currently revealed by short video giants are to add more positive content, resist vulgar tendencies, and strengthen genuine products to cater to policy needs.

Judging from this trend, the battlefield of short video content may be similar to that of digital music platforms. Once the grassroots era of program spoofs and illegal editing is over, it will gradually transition to an era that emphasizes genuine copyright of video content. The genuine copyright of high-quality resources may become an important killer in the second half of the competition in short videos.

Conclusion

If a popular Internet product or field exploits human weaknesses from the beginning to the end and lacks positive energy, it is inevitable and dangerous that it will go downhill.

Therefore, judging from the practices of the giants that entered the market later, they are actually consciously trying to correct this trend, and this direction is correct.

In the final analysis, it is crucial for short videos to get rid of the label of entertainment to death, make breakthroughs at the content level, and change the depressed mentality of young people.

Author: Hot Spot Micro Review

Source: Hotspot Micro Review (redianweiping)