The new year has just passed and the three key words of online live streaming in 2017

From the industry being ignited, to capital scrambling to pursue it, and then to the slowdown in development, it took only more than a year for live streaming to go from its first year to a reshuffle. In February this year, the collapse of Guangkong Live, which was valued at 500 million yuan, was a sign.

According to the report “New Trends in China’s Online Video Live Streaming in 2017” released by Penguin Intelligence, the total usage time of users in the entire live streaming market reached its peak in October 2016, and it is predicted that it will remain stable in 2017. In other words, after the wild growth of live streaming and reaching its peak, it began to develop slowly and even began to reshuffle. Half a year ago, the capital market’s attitude towards live streaming was: “It’s better to make a wrong investment than to miss out.”

Now, the retreat of capital has begun to accelerate the demise of "apertures".

Correspondingly, the live broadcast model can no longer survive simply as a show. Simple and crude methods such as spending money, supporting internet celebrities , and giving rewards to attract money are no longer applicable. What “survival strategies” will the severely homogenized live streaming market need to learn in the future?

Content is king

The current landscape in the industry is that there are approximately 300 million users and more than 1,000 online live streaming platforms . As the craze subsided, the remaining players began to think calmly...

Wang Hao, vice president of Inke Live, revealed a set of figures: "We have been observing the market. In March last year, there were more than 80 live streaming platforms nationwide, more than 400 in May, and more than 1,000 by December 2016. I heard a joke some time ago: the relevant departments wanted to randomly check 10 live streaming platforms after the Spring Festival, but before they started the action, three of them went bankrupt. Live streaming has become more and more rational."

The fierce competition in the “Thousands of Broadcast Wars” has proved that the monotonous content of the show model cannot build barriers for the platform, nor can it achieve sustained and stable commercial monetization. Therefore, various live streaming platforms are looking for solutions and new breakthroughs to this problem.

Since the end of 2016, and especially in the beginning of 2017, live streaming has gradually moved towards diversification and market segmentation. Several live streaming platforms have released their content strategies, aiming to make a big fuss about live streaming content. Taking Douyu Live as an example, it is determined not to just focus on game live streaming. "Douyu is a live streaming platform, but also a content creation platform. From the beginning of its operation , it has attached great importance to the creation of copyrighted content, especially the creation of live streaming copyrighted works." said Deng Yang, legal director of Douyu Live. It is understood that Douyu has currently cooperated with Miwei Company on "The Temptation of Dinner" and produced original content such as "2049 Pearl" with Dragon TV.

Not only Douyu Live, the integration and upgrading of live broadcast content is also a concern of Yingke Live. Wang Hao said: "If 2016 is called the first year of live streaming, Yingke would rather call 2017 the 'strict year' of live streaming." In an environment with serious homogeneity, Yingke hopes to expand its business scope while creating more diverse and compliant live streaming content. It is understood that short videos are a strategic focus of Inke in 2017.

To break away from the quagmire of homogeneity, content seems to be the most urgent need of the live streaming industry. Judging from the strategic deployment of many well-known platforms, short videos are declared to be a key area.

Refine and realize

The live streaming industry's ability to attract money began to show in early 2016. Over the past year, the rapid development of live streaming has successfully attracted a large influx of capital. After Douyu completed its B and C rounds of financing led by Tencent in 2016, its valuation has approached 10 billion yuan, making it a unicorn in the live streaming industry.

Not only that, live streaming has also saved a number of platforms that were originally "on the decline", such as Momo and Huya . "In 2016, Momo achieved some digital success. In the fourth quarter of 2016, our revenue reached US$246.1 million, a year-on-year increase of 523%, and our net profit reached US$91.5 million, a year-on-year increase of 674%." From the statement of Momo CEO Tang Yan, it can be seen that live streaming has become Momo's largest source of income.

However, after 2017, the live streaming industry can no longer rely solely on tips to monetize. What's more, it is no longer easy to get users to pay out of their pockets and give rewards. In addition, after January, the financing of live streaming platforms has also decreased significantly compared with the previous year. Except for a few platforms such as Laifeng, Huajiao, and Now that are backed by giants, the rest need to cultivate their own blood-making capabilities.

In short, live streaming platforms must strengthen their monetization capabilities. Wang Mingxuan, vice president of China Media Group, stressed that "previous live video applications were equivalent to using oil to generate electricity to make money, which was relatively crude, while future live video applications will enter the 'oil refining' stage, that is, processing 'oil' into diversified products such as 'gasoline, diesel, plastic, rubber', etc."

Technology support

The rise of live streaming began with the rapid growth of mobile Internet , especially smartphones. Statistics show that 95% of Chinese netizens access the Internet through mobile phones, and the usage rate of mobile videos is as high as 72%. In other words, the evolution of technology is the basis for the rapid rise of the live streaming industry.

Moreover, technological development has also become one of the reasons why the live broadcast industry can present the grand scene of "Thousands of Broadcast Wars". Inke founder and CEO Feng Yousheng believes that cloud services have lowered the threshold for live streaming to the point where even three engineers can complete the development in a week.

But this does not mean that live streaming does not require high technical capabilities. On the contrary, technology has an increasingly profound impact on live streaming platforms. Many live streaming platforms have found that technical capabilities determine the smoothness of the live streaming screen and user experience to a certain extent. If the smoothness is not enough or the interaction is not smooth, it will affect user retention . To avoid these problems, it is necessary to have higher real-time processing capabilities on the server side.

In addition, some platforms have begun to try to incorporate different new technologies into live broadcasts. For example, Huajiao has launched a face-changing function with artificial intelligence deep learning technology, which can accurately detect and locate 95 key feature points on the face to achieve beauty functions such as big eyes and cute face; Chaoduowei Technology has also combined naked-eye 3D, VR and other technologies with Tencent Cloud's live broadcast technology to launch an immersive live broadcast + on-demand cloud service, thereby achieving compatibility between ordinary videos and 3D/VR videos and full terminal coverage.

Obviously, technological innovation has become another focus of competition among live streaming platforms.

Content, monetization and technology will become the three key words for the live broadcast industry to break the homogeneous competition in 2017. Xu Ying, partner of Xiangfeng Capital, suggested that live streaming platforms need to establish their own characteristics in terms of acquiring traffic and profit models. Only by forming strong barriers in the melee can they survive in the shuffle.

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