A ready-to-use product analysis framework

This is an original article about product analysis. The product analysis framework in this article is very good and worth learning from. If you find it helpful, please click "Read More" and share it. I have written several articles about product analysis before, such as Real Like Me, Oasis, Renren, etc., which are all new products launched recently.

Through the analysis of these products, I summarized a set of methods for analyzing new products. Start from the three major dimensions of micro, meso and macro. I hope I can help you analyze new industries and new products.

The framework of this method is as follows:

1. How to make products at the micro level

1. Product positioning

2. Product core functions and experience

3. Product data and customer acquisition

4. Some suggestions on products

2. From a medium-term perspective, is the product worth making?

1. Is it a real demand?

2. Is it a rigid demand?

3. Is there a large enough market capacity?

4. Is it easy to monetize?

3. Macroeconomic forecast of the product

1. Whether you can gain a place

2. Possible directions

3. Personal expectations

What you need to know is that product analysis is not competitor analysis, but it is better than competitor analysis.

Competitive product analysis is the analysis of the products of competitors in your own industry, and it is more focused on the micro-functions and experience levels.

Product analysis includes but is not limited to competitor analysis, and is more about product analysis in different industries and unfamiliar industries.

This is a way of thinking, analyzing from different levels: micro, meso and macro. Hope it's useful for you.

Next, we will try to use this method to simply analyze Kuaishou’s new product “TaiZan”.

1. How to make products at the micro level

1. Product positioning

"TaiZan" is a short video product, positioned as a short video community that young people love to watch and play. Launched by Kuaishou 2 weeks ago, this positioning is the official statement.

There are several issues here.

1) How do you know that "TaiZan" is a product of "Kuaishou"?

"TaiZan" is a product released by Beijing Chenzhong Technology, which is 100% controlled by Hangzhou Youqu Network, and the actual controller of Hangzhou Youqu Network is Su Hua, the founder of "Kuaishou".

Due to the company's complex equity relationships, the true identities of the companies or controllers behind many products are easily concealed. By using enterprise information query platforms such as Qichacha, Tianyancha, and Qixinbao, it is relatively easy to know which company or person is the actual controller.

At the same time, when logging in, "Kuaishou" third-party login is given priority, and it is also known that this product has an inseparable relationship with "Kuaishou".

After entering the product, all video content comes from Kuaishou, and you can jump to Kuaishou through the personal center of the publisher of the work. We further learned that this is the product of Kuaishou.

2) What kind of product is “TaiZan”?

It is not clear from the official definition. I can't tell the difference between "TaiZan" and "Kuaishou". The answer to this question will be given after experiencing the next part of the function.

2. Product core functions and experience

1) View videos, no video publishing function

All videos in the "TaiZan" product come from "Kuaishou".

Currently, the content is presented by more than 100 accounts officially planned by the company. These more than 100 accounts all have specific themes, such as "You Never Know What Animals Are Thinking", "Daily Hot Topics Express", "Twin Tails Are Justice", "A Must-Read for Straight Men", "I'll Call the Police If You Flirt with Me Again", etc. Each account name is similar to a topic. Each account does not produce content, but only recommends content on Kuaishou that is related to the account theme.

2) Attitude Square, a collection of popular videos

Presents the most popular content of the day recommended by various official accounts.

How to select the hottest content? The number of likes posted by users on this account on that day.

Does it remind you of the website that ranks popular articles in the graphic era? There used to be a foreign website called digg, and people who participated in digg were called "diggers". By liking, the more popular articles will be ranked higher. The same can be done with videos.

3) Personal center, including the browser personal center, video recommender personal center, and video publisher personal center

What are the differences between these personal centers?

Viewer’s Personal Center: This is also the personal center of general users. All your likes records are here. "TaiZan" will recommend relevant content to you based on your likes history.

Video Recommender Personal Center: collects all the videos recommended by the recommender. After entering, you can browse all the contents recommended by him. The video recommender is called "Digger".

Video publisher's personal center: presents videos recommended by "Diggers" and allows users to follow video creators. If you want to watch all his videos, you can click to jump to the author’s Kuaishou account.

Therefore, the three roles of consuming content, transporting content, and generating content collaborate to complete the digg of the video.

4) Other functions, including like, comment, share, follow, etc.

Likes, comments, and shares are based on content, while following is based on recognition from content contributors.

However, in "Zhan", content contributors are weakened and content porters are strengthened.

Overall, this is a further decentralization strategy of Kuaishou and a further secondary consumption strategy of high-quality content.

Judging from the product name and function of "TaiZan", "Like" is what makes this product different from other short video products.

From the perspective of content organization, we can see the difference between "TaiZan" and "Kuaishou".

"Kuaishou" is a short video and live broadcast content browsing and publishing platform. It recommends content based on algorithms and organizes information based on dimensions such as publisher, followers, same city, and discovery.

"Tai Zan" is a short video browsing community, a digg for video sites, which reorganizes information based on liked content, and is a secondary organization and consumption of Kuaishou content, further decentralizing it and allowing more good content to be exposed.

It can be seen that the characteristics of "Zan" are:

a. It can only consume existing video content and does not support content publishing.

b. It is the video content that is reorganized based on likes, allowing historical content to be consumed and spread again. It’s the digg of video sites.

c. The content on Kuaishou is highly timely, and generally what you see are contents from the last one or two days. The content of "Zhan" has weak timeliness. As long as it is on the same topic, it will be organized according to the time when the liker liked it.

This is a new attempt to redistribute existing content.

3. Product data and customer acquisition

After the launch of "TaiZan", amid a wave of media exposure, it reached its highest ranking on October 29, 198th on the entertainment free list, and then gradually declined.

Judging from the rankings, Kuaishou did not promote this product.

(AppStore data)

Judging from the download volume, it is also extremely limited because it has not been officially promoted yet. Maybe it is still adjusting the product positioning, or maybe it is still waiting for the right opportunity.

(AppStore data)

User acquisition for this product has not yet started, so we won’t discuss it for now.

4. Some suggestions on products

The product experience of this product is pretty good, at least it doesn’t have the major flaws that some new products usually have when they are first launched.

1) In terms of product positioning, it is positioned as a short video community that young people love to watch and play. However, the positioning does not reflect the product characteristics.

Judging from the version description, "Tai Zan" was initially positioned as "a short video community with a 'point' of attitude", and was later adjusted to "a popular short video community that young people love to watch and play."

We may need to think about how to position "likes".

2) In terms of product functions, can we focus on content recommenders rather than content producers?

If the product is positioned for secondary distribution and dissemination, higher weight should be given to the content recommender.

Content recommendation accounts basically make recommendations based on a certain theme, similar to a topic.

The recommended content is updated daily, so following and subscribing to topics becomes more important.

2. From a medium-term perspective, is the product worth making?

1. Is it a real demand?

Currently, users consume video content mainly through platform machine recommendations or content from individual followers. If there is a collection of n authors' content on a certain topic to consume, it is another option for users, which is different from machine recommendations. There is a multi-dimensional consumption demand for video content.

For short video platforms like Kuaishou, there is indeed a lot of content, a lot of high-quality content. The consumption of high-quality content should not be time-sensitive. The Kuaishou platform has a strong motivation to allow high-quality content to be exposed and spread for the second time.

2. Is it a rigid demand?

From a personal point of view, recommended content, followed content, and content in the same city can better meet browsing needs. And the content is very rich.

So this demand is not so urgent for me.

3. Is there a large enough market capacity?

Because the demand is not that rigid, the target population is not that wide.

This market is a nurturing market. It may not be that strong when short videos are developing rapidly.

In the mature stage of short videos, there may be a large market for multi-dimensional consumption of content.

4. Is it easy to monetize?

As long as the platform has traffic and users, it is easy to monetize.

Because the platform has data on users’ preferences and habits, recommending advertisements based on user interests is a relatively mature way to make profits.

But the prerequisite is that the number of users can be gathered.

Overall, whether the "Tai Zan" product is a real demand or not needs further exploration. If it is not a real need, perhaps birth and death. If you can cultivate a market, that's a strong capability.

3. Macroeconomic forecast of the product

1. Whether you can gain a place

In the short term, at this stage, the reorganization of video content consumption belongs to the user cultivation period. It is difficult to rise in the short term and it will take some time.

In the long run, consuming other dimensions of enriched content should be a direction. What you may not know is that in the era of pictures and texts, Toutiao rose to prominence by reorganizing existing content for recommendation.

2. Possible directions

Break through platform restrictions, aggregate content from multiple short video platforms, and make recommendations. Other short video platforms also support content acquisition. Now when searching on video websites, if your platform does not have the video resources, you will be directed to the platform that has the resources.

Open content recommendations to users, not just official recommendations. That is, from PGC to UGC. It will start with PGC, and when there is a certain number of users, it may switch to UGC.

The recommendation of video content is the core, but not limited to video content. If you want to know about ByteDance's video content distribution, there are Toutiao, Xigua Video, Huoshan Video, etc. These products are not limited to short videos, but also include pictures and texts, live broadcasts, long dramas, etc.

The above are all addition processes, which may not be correct. The key is to grasp user problems and existing needs.

3. Personal expectations

"TaiZan" is a new attempt at content distribution. Attempting means a high possibility of failure, so more encouragement is needed.

I hope this product can be more accurately positioned and find new opportunities in the short video field. Especially with the popularization of 5G, the video field is still in a period of growth.

Short-term dormancy is for long-term outbreak.

This is the end of the product analysis of "TaiZan". The focus of this article is not "likes", but the framework and ideas of product analysis.

If it helps, please share or click "like".

Author: Product Notes

Source: Product Notes (cpbiji)