Two thoughts on Bilibili products

Is it necessary for Bilibili to have a forum/discussion group? Why does Bilibili have to do the “must-cuts”? Have you ever thought about these two questions? Based on her own experience, the author of this article shares with us some of her views on these two issues.

1. Is it necessary for B Station to have a forum/discussion group?

I have been obsessed with The Lord of the Rings recently and have been watching all kinds of The Lord of the Rings-themed videos on Bilibili. I also long to have daily interactions with people who share the same interests.

Then a question arises: Why doesn't Bilibili open a communication channel similar to Tieba for a certain topic , so that enthusiasts in a certain field can communicate more smoothly here?

Take Douban for example. Every time I follow a movie or a book, I always check the comment section. I don’t know if you have this habit~

Douban Books and Videos Comments Section↑

Interest-driven users like me who want to communicate with like-minded people on Bilibili can only use a certain work as a medium, and all communication mainly takes place in the barrage and work comment areas. But if I wanted to start a separate topic discussion on Bilibili away from a particular work, I found that there was nowhere to go. Wouldn't it be great if there was... a Lord of the Rings-themed communication space?

When thinking about this question, I thought of a passage from an interview with Chen Rui, and found that he had already given the answer:

What I want to do is to make Bilibili the most flexible community through product design. For example, I deliberately reduced the social attributes of Bilibili to reduce the number of encounters between users. Many people asked me why I don’t post on Tieba. I would rather die than do it. Building Bilibili into a content-centered community can greatly reduce the impact on existing users' experience due to the increase in user scale. Every time users meet, they only meet under the video. The community has expanded tenfold. As long as this type of content is still there, he will feel that the atmosphere has not changed.

It turns out that he was considering it from the perspective of community atmosphere.

According to this theory, if Bilibili really had a forum with "The Lord of the Rings" as its theme, then there would probably be a large number of emotional and subjective discussions, with a group of people giving "one star" and a group of people giving "five stars" battling each other. It's really heart-wrenching just thinking about it.

Bilibili has built a huge community centered around the works. People stroll and watch videos in this public area as if they were walking on the streets of a community. They occasionally meet and talk, but they all go back home after that. If you meet someone worth making friends with, pay attention to him/her. The communication between you will not be too frequent, so just chat more when you meet again. For example, when you see that the other person has posted an update, you can like it and leave a message. But Station B doesn’t want everyone to flock to a themed cafe to sit down and chat.

This is a weak connection between people in public areas. People must interact through some kind of medium or intermediary, and are not eager to enter each other's private territory. This point was discussed in "The Death and Life of Great American Cities": There must be a clear boundary between public space and private space.

2. Bilibili’s Bijian has finally become an editing tool that UP masters can recognize

If you are also a short video creator, let me ask you, what is the best video editing software?

In the past, I would say without hesitation: "Jianying"! This is a short video editing software produced by ByteDance. It is very easy to use, free, and also has a PC version. But now I want to say that I have to use the “must-cut” released by B Station. This is the most suitable mobile video editing tool for the videos I create on Bilibili. Bijian obviously understands the needs of UP hosts better than Jianying.

Bijian was launched last year. I tried to use it once and then abandoned it. At that time, I felt that there was still a big gap between its core functions and Jianying. A year later, I tried it again and found that the functions had caught up with the previous ones, such as core multi-track editing capabilities, AI subtitles, AI dubbing, video and picture library, and copyright music library.

It also gave me a lot of surprises! I want to recharge B station for these exclusive features below!

For example: On Bilibili, creating "medium-length videos" is the mainstream, so a function for batch rough-cutting of videos is provided; UP hosts need to frequently ask for triple-likes and attention, so relevant stickers and animations are all available; if it is a game UP host, there is also a one-click function for live game content; when uploading after production, Bilibili's characteristic cover template is also provided, which can be applied directly, eliminating the trouble of switching between Meitu XiuXiu and Butter Camera to create a cover.

These features can really encourage users to spread the word and spread spontaneously. This shows that the team has a deep understanding of the unique needs of Bilibili users and has put a lot of effort into product design, which is worthy of praise. Under the threat of powerful technology and product strength of competitors, Bilibili still delivered an answer that satisfied users "after a year".

The new version of "Must Cut" that makes me quite satisfied↑

Why does Bilibili have to do the “must-cuts”?

The logic is simple. How can B Station protect its most core UP master resources in the face of powerful products and operation teams from its competitors? It is important to empower creators in content production. If B station does not provide its own creative tools, UP hosts will still use the tools of Douyin and Kuaishou to meet their daily editing needs.

This... isn't something China's largest interest community should do? This is very dangerous! Competitors can at least know part of the content creation data on your platform and can poach people in a targeted manner, but the personalized needs of UP masters cannot be met. If the "must-cut" is done well, with the help of productivity tools, the UP host's experience can be taken to the next level. As a community, easy-to-use tools can be compared to perfect community infrastructure, which is beneficial to the development of the entire community.

However, after looking at the APP Store comment section, the current number of comments for this app is only 1/100 of that of its competitors, and the software's crash rate is a relatively serious problem, causing users to waste a lot of time editing but being unable to export normally. Once users encounter this situation, they will consider abandoning the app and will also spread negative news. I actually encountered the same problem. I spent 6 hours editing a video, but when I exported it, an error message appeared. Fortunately, the problem did not occur again after I restarted the application. This team really still has a long way to go.

Finally, as a productivity tool, Bijian is not actually the core element for retaining UP hosts. It is not the case that Bilibili can be successful by just making a good tool. The stagnation or decline of a community’s development is caused by a variety of reasons, both external and internal, and internal factors may be more critical.

Among external factors, the one that comes to mind more easily is poaching by certain competitors. However, based on the cases I have observed, competitors can poach UP hosts, but they cannot poach the current audience of Bilibili. The network effect formed by UP hosts and audiences is still Bilibili’s moat. In the long run, changes in the internal community atmosphere may be a greater influencing factor.

I don’t know what you think?

Author: Aunt Ran

Source: Auntie Ran’s Product Class