The self-redemption and helplessness of a sunset product

Every product has its life cycle. After going through various stages, a product will enter its twilight stage. At this time, the product is struggling. On the one hand, the number of users is decreasing, and on the other hand, the product will not be so hard in operation . Because even if you try harder, it will be of no avail, because it is not that the product is not good, but that the product has passed that era. If you fail to transform successfully, you are destined to be abandoned by the times.

When operating a product , the operations used in different stages of the product are also different.

1. For example, during the product exploration stage, you should focus on the quality of users, because the product needs to be constantly adjusted and iterated, and you need high-quality users who are willing to give feedback to your product. Therefore, at this stage, don't just attract new users and ignore the quality of users.

2. When the product enters a period of rapid development, it has accumulated a certain amount of users in the early stage. At this time, the most important thing is market share. Just like Mobike and ofo now, after accumulating early users and having sufficient funds, they need to expand the market rapidly, continuously carry out offline and online activities, provide subsidies and discounts, and let as many users as possible use your products.

3. When the product has passed the rapid development period and entered the stable development period, monetization and user activity become extremely important. At this time, it is necessary to continuously promote activation and explore business models . Just like Toutiao and WeChat now, you will see ads in Moments , Toutiao’s headline Q&A, I want to be on the headlines, etc.

one,

Every product has its life cycle. After going through the first three stages, a product will enter its twilight stage, which is the late stage of the product. At this time, the product is struggling. On the one hand, the number of users is decreasing, and on the other hand, the product will not be so hard in operation. Because even if you try harder, it will be of no avail, because it is not that the product is not good, but that the product has passed that era. If you fail to transform successfully, you are destined to be abandoned by the times.

When we talk about sunset products on the Internet, I think several products will come to everyone's mind, and these products should include the 20-year-old Mop, the 18-year-old Tianya, the 14-year-old Tieba, and the 12-year-old Douban.

Baidu Index: Douban, Mop, Tieba, Tianya

Among these products, Douban and Tieba have already stepped into the twilight stage, and Mop and Tianya have already entered their twilight stage. So we can see that Tianya and Mop have almost disappeared in the Internet world (even if they still exist). If no one mentions them specifically, probably not many people will pay attention to them.

What about Douban and Tieba? Tieba is a content product of Baidu. Compared with Douban, Tianya and Mop, it has a good godfather and can lean on a big tree for shade. For more than ten years, relying on Baidu's dominant position in the PC era, it has been active in people's sight. Even in the mobile Internet era, its momentum is even stronger. However, in 2016, Baidu entered a turbulent period, and Tieba also suffered greatly. Although it cannot be said that Tieba's user traffic has fallen drastically, it has begun to go downhill.

Compared to Tieba, Douban is younger, but constrained by the verticality of its users, its user growth has been slow and steady. In the PC era, its weight in Baidu was among the top three, and Douban also reached its peak around 2011. Its PC products include Douban Radio, Douban Movies , Douban Reading, Douban Groups, Douban City, Douban Music, etc., which are the favorites of many literary and artistic young people. In September 2013, Douban officially released a set of data showing that the number of registered users exceeded 75 million and the average daily PV was 210 million. At that time, this was a very huge scale.

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However, after releasing this set of data, Douban seemed to announce that it was his farewell gift. At this time, mobile Internet developed rapidly, and many mobile products began to appear. There were countless products with similar target groups and product positioning as Douban. Douban’s average daily PV has dropped to less than 4,000, and the loss of users also indicates that a product is beginning to go downhill, which is also fatal to the product.

We also know that Douban is actually actively following the trend of mobile Internet development, but it seems to have lost itself. Douban has no fewer products on mobile devices than it did in the PC era, including Douban FM, Douban Groups, Douban City, Douban Radio, Douban Movies, Douban Groups, Douban Square, Douban Reading, etc. Each product is a standalone app. At first glance, Douban has no more mobile internet users than other products, but is more better?

Time has told Douban that it was wrong. These nearly 10 independent apps have left users confused as to which one is the official Douban app? Are you planning to integrate or split them up? In the era of mobile Internet, there is no shortage of good products, so users have no shortage of opportunities to choose. From a Douban app on a PC to 10 apps on the mobile Internet, attention is bound to be distracted, and the products produced are not as good as imagined. Users no longer trust Douban and have turned to other apps.

Douban’s advertising revenue in 2014

In fact, it would be better to say that Douban was abandoned by money rather than being abandoned by the mobile Internet. We can see from the above picture that in 2014, Douban’s advertising revenue was 41.572 million. This number is equivalent to one-fourth of Renren . Douban has failed to find a profit model as effective as its competitors and has failed to monetize its huge number of users and content.

In fact, when Douban first started, it claimed that it had no advertisements, and users felt that it was a clean place without the harassment of advertisements. Yes, the lack of advertisements was indeed one of Douban’s publicity gimmicks at that time, but the ultimate goal of running a business and making products is to make a profit. Any business that does not have the purpose of making a profit is a rogue. Douban’s business model is indeed relatively poor, which is enough to prove that in the era of mobile Internet, a weak or unclear business model and relying solely on advertising for profit cannot last long, and investors are not optimistic about it.

three,

As mentioned above, there is no shortage of good products on the mobile Internet. Especially when mobile Internet is developing rapidly, users’ needs can almost lead to hundreds of products. Last year’s live broadcast platform is a typical example, as well as shared bicycles , food delivery platforms, and so on.

When Douban was actively embracing the mobile Internet, many products had already begun to appear, and some were even developing rapidly, with financing at an astonishing speed. For example, Jianshu and Zhihu, and there are countless products claiming to be literary and fresh: LOFTER, Luowang, one, Matchbox, Pianke, Maonong, etc. Compared with Douban, these products appear to be more fresh and lighter on mobile terminals. Although these products cannot compare with Douban in terms of user volume, we can clearly see at this time that users are slowly fleeing Douban, or going to Zhihu, or turning to Jianshu, or other places where literature and art can provide a habitat. For example, the picture below is what a Douban friend wrote when he escaped from Douban:

Douban is like a dying lion. If you touch it, it wakes up and then continues to sleep. If you touch it again, it wakes up again and then falls asleep again soon. This is the current Douban. Because at this moment, compared to the motionlessness of Mop and Tianya, it seems as if it has been sleeping for a long time, or perhaps it will never wake up. But Douban actively embraces the Internet. It has developed nearly 10 apps. Every time it releases an app, it seems to be declaring to the world that it is waking up. However, a drop of water cannot cause a thousand waves. Every time an app is released, it is submerged.

Four,

By 2017, the mobile Internet has entered the second half, knowledge payment has begun to rise, and everyone is calling for content payment . A number of paid platforms have emerged, including Fenda , Zhihu Live, Dedao , Himalaya , and this year's popular Weibo Q&A and 36kr .

At the beginning of 2017, WeChat also began to get impatient and has been testing the paid subscription function for WeChat public accounts . I believe that we will see paid subscriptions on WeChat soon. Just when everyone was looking forward to the emergence of WeChat paid subscriptions, Douban, like before, released other apps and suddenly launched a paid subscription product - Douban Time - without any warning.

According to the official introduction, Douban Time will invite academic celebrities, young newcomers, and industry experts to launch carefully crafted paid columns. Each column contains dozens to hundreds of issues of high-quality content, presented in various forms such as audio and text, and updated regularly every week. The first column launched is "Wake Up - Poetry Class of Bei Dao and Friends". The program is planned and compiled by Bei Dao himself, and he invited 16 poets and translator friends to create this special "Poetry Class" on Douban. The course has a total of 51 classic modern poems from China and abroad and 102 master-level poetry classes.

I read "WeChat's paid reading has not yet arrived, but Douban Time has quietly launched!" ” also said: In fact, we can think that Douban Time is a product that focuses more on spiritual and cultural food for literature and art. In the current content payment market, practical skills and knowledge are the mainstream, and cultural products are still a niche. However, the market that Douban entered may seem niche, but it actually hides huge business opportunities. It is a growing market that can be called a blue ocean. The Chinese people's demand for consumer consumption is becoming increasingly strong. Movie box office has been growing year by year, folk art studios are springing up everywhere, niche theaters are always packed, folk singers are very popular... These all show that users have stronger demands and higher pursuits for spiritual consumption, and they are very eager for personalized, diversified and innovative content.

According to the 2016 China Mobile Internet Innovation Trend Report by iiMedia Research:

Cultural films and television have become the darlings of the market.

The film and television industry has flourished over the past year, with movie box office revenues often exceeding billions and variety shows constantly breaking new ground in sponsorship fees. The cultural industry has inadvertently become the darling of capital. The potential scale of China's cultural consumption is about 4.7 trillion yuan, while actual consumption is only around 1 trillion yuan, with a gap of more than 3 trillion yuan. There is great potential for entrepreneurship and layout around the cultural and film and television industries.

Compared with Douban Films, which was its predecessor, Douban Time has invested much less money and manpower, and its output and overall product rhythm are also easier to control. It can also be seen that Douban has become more and more mature in exploring the path of commercialization. However, Douban Time’s ambition is not just to target the narrow market of cultural payment, but to target pan-culture, including travel, life, etc. This may be Douban Time’s differentiation strategy, focusing on the market and making breakthroughs at a single point.

Is Douban Time a self-redemption for Douban, or is it the same as before, that the world simply alarmed it, so it just came out for a walk, then wandered around again and went back? We don't know.

However, judging from the current environment, Douban just doesn't want to miss out on this era of paid knowledge, because Douban is a product that started with content, and it is the content that brings it users and indirectly brings it profits. So Douban also seems to be claiming that content is my strong point. I didn’t seize the opportunity of the development of mobile Internet last time, and I don’t want to miss this era of knowledge payment this time.

But ambitions are ambitions, and having great determination is certainly good, but if Douban really wants to carve out a path in this content field that is already a semi-red ocean, it cannot just be done by talking about it, but must really show the determination to fight to the death, because there are not many opportunities left for Douban.

at last:

The 12-year-old Douban is the last memory left to the literary youth in the PC era, and now it is still struggling. It seems that we have no choice but to be a spectator and watch it. We can only silently make wishes for it and wish Douban good luck!

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