Getting to know a person starts with understanding what he likes.Understanding a person's taste can start with understanding the music he likes.If you want to find someone who knows your music taste very well and is always ready to recommend songs to surprise your ears, that person should be one of the programmers working on algorithms at NetEase Cloud Music.I think I saw him typing codeThe music circle has always been in turmoil. The pork seller complained that he couldn't find the music he liked in China. I want to say that indeed few people listen to Yugoslav music. However, with the insistence on good music having no borders and the determination to break the embarrassing situation of niche and unpopular music, the pig farm director decided to do something big with his pig teammates. NetEase Cloud Music (abbreviated as Cloud Music) has been online for three years and has 200 million active users. Facts have proved that users are crazy about music and have a unique and high pursuit of music quality.Cloud Music is a music and MV video playback tool + product production content and recommendation + an interactive communication community based on content self-production, sharing, commentary and recommendation.The fact that Cloud Music has been able to gain a large number of loyal fans in a highly competitive market in a short period of time is inseparable from its content quality, quality control, and content recommendations.For Cloud Music, users can directly consume content including:
From products: song library (including MV), self-made programs, contracted radio programs, NetEase exclusive (music columns, music topics, etc.).
From users: lyrics, playlists, reviews.
Content quality standard: Do not ignore any small needs of usersCloud Music is first and foremost a music playback tool, and the content is the direct consumption object of users, which also has an impact on user behavior. Musical tastes vary from person to person. Content that users like is good content, and content that satisfies music needs and brings a good music experience is also good content. Therefore, the criterion for judging content quality lies in whether it can meet the needs of users.User requirements for using the product include:
Primary needs: listen to music, read lyrics, watch MVs, check singer information, comment and share, etc.
Advanced needs: After meeting primary needs, you can discover new songs, learn about singers and music events, gain music knowledge, and improve your music taste.
Other requirements: attractive content display, no advertising interference, easy operation and use, small memory, etc.
Content quality standards are related to user preferences for product content and are directly related to whether users will use the product. Therefore, the quality of content can be judged by analyzing whether it meets user needs:Meeting primary needs:(1) Music quality (sound quality, accuracy and completeness of lyrics) and music update speed.(2) Include singer information, albums, and make the song library as large as possible.(3) Perform a series of actions on music: download, collect, like, recommend, comment, and share.Meeting advanced needs:(4) Help users filter songs and recommend songs they like.(5) Push updates on singers and music events.(6) Popularize professional music knowledge and music history knowledge, help users expand their understanding of the music field, explore user interests, and cultivate high-quality users with music appreciation and identification capabilities.Meeting other needs:(7) The product content display and page layout are reasonable, not procrastinated, easy to operate, and users have a certain amount of customization space.Quality control method: help you find what you like, like what you find and missUsers need to continuously consume high-quality content to gain value from it. Products also need to continuously recommend high-quality content to users to encourage them to continue consuming content, increase the frequency of product use, and create value for the products.How do you determine whether the content is high-quality for users? How can we enable users to discover high-quality content as quickly as possible? How to continuously produce high-quality content? This should be an issue that needs to be addressed by content quality control.For products like QQ Music, users are very subjective, and there is no obvious right or wrong, good or bad in the content. The biggest difference is different preferences and focuses. Therefore, as long as you firmly grasp the preferences and focuses of users and ensure that the content is discovered and accepted by users in a timely manner, the content can be considered to be of high quality. Cloud Music’s main product is to provide good services in hardware and software to meet users’ basic, advanced and other needs, and make music recommendations based on users’ music preferences.Question 1: How to determine whether the content is high-quality for users?Satisfy users' musical tastes and the content they like is high-quality.For this question, we can analyze it one by one according to the content quality standards mentioned above.(1) Build good hardware and lay a solid foundationCloud Music contains nearly 50 million songs of different types, including popular, unpopular, mainstream and niche, as well as high-definition MVs of some songs. Users upload lyrics. Most song lyrics are complete and accurate. Users can correct the lyrics and upload them as pictures.(2) Improve software and servicesThe singer information and album introduction are clear and complete. It has a large number of radio programs, regularly publishes music columns, music information, singer dynamics and other information, and updates quickly.(3) Understand user preferencesUsers can determine the quality of songs by performing operations on them (such as liking and commenting on them). Cloud Music has set up like, download, comment, and list buttons on the music playback page to encourage operations such as liking and commenting. It also encourages users to categorize their favorite songs and create playlists, making it easier to understand user preferences and make recommendations.Question 2: How can users discover high-quality content as quickly as possible?(4) Optimize the recommendation mechanismCloud Music's recommendation method is based on algorithms and user playlists. After users filter the types of songs they like, songs that have not been found among users who like the same category will be recommended to you. There are also recommendations based on similar songs, songs created by the same singer-songwriter, and other aspects.While ensuring the accuracy of its song recommendations, Cloud Music will occasionally mix in songs that you have heard before but not for a long time, giving users surprises. The number of recommendations will not be too large at once, which also avoids recommending a lot of similar or inconsistent content at once, causing user disgust.The disadvantages of this method are also obvious. Whether the user likes all the recommended songs or not, there may be a situation where the user does not like the song after trying it once, but the system still continues to recommend the song, resulting in deviations in the recommendation results. However, Cloud Music has also made improvements, and songs can be modified and deleted in the recommended list to ensure the accuracy of future recommendations.Question 3: How to continuously produce high-quality content?(5) Provide user-defined spaceHigh-quality content itself is relative to users. As long as users like it, it is high-quality. Cloud Music has 50 million songs. It is impossible for users to listen to all of them, nor is it possible for users to dislike all of them. New music will continue to be added. On the one hand, we need to recommend new music, and on the other hand, we need to discover unknown music, allowing users to continuously expand their areas of interest. By organizing songs of the same type or with the same characteristics through playlists, we can continue to explore points of interest and continue to produce high-quality music.In addition to the custom playlists and custom song lists mentioned above, users can also customize the sorting of the homepage.Presentation method: You can keep scrolling for a whole dayThe means of presentation is to understand user needs and user usage, and then decide how to present the content. Cloud Music uses recommendation + playlist + ranking + topic + user sharing to present songs. A song attracts users through these packaging methods, and also helps users discover new music and enrich the content. Songs are presented in a variety of ways, with videos and user comments, which will keep you glued to the songs for the entire day.Recommendation and push strategy: It is to be able to predict that you will fall in love with itAs mentioned before, Cloud Music's recommendation strategy is based on algorithms combined with user preferences. Songs recommended for individual users are mainly made using algorithms; playlists are pushed to users based on algorithms to select songs with high playback and collection volumes; rankings are based on playback statistics based on categories that have already been divided; topics and user sharing are relatively free, and recommendations from people the user follows and content the user likes will be sorted and presented after being processed by algorithms.Cloud Music focuses on user experience. Users have unique tastes and can only rely on algorithm recommendations. Editors can selectively recommend high-quality content with high user click volume , and set different display positions on the page. Cloud Music focuses on experience and also on providing users with a quiet environment for enjoying music. Push notifications are also mainly concentrated within the product through messages, in-site messages, and red dots.ConclusionBased on the principle of showing off after learning some content operation knowledge, this article analyzes how Cloud Music has grown and become a favorite of music fans in a short period of time. It does not use gimmicks or exaggerate, but respects every user, respects music, and returns to quality.
