Product analysis, function analysis | Bilibili Live!

Editor's Note:

Since its listing , Bilibili (hereinafter referred to as B Station ) has been committed to exploring diversified commercial monetization models, and the live broadcast business is part of its diversified business layout. Since 2019, Bilibili has made various explorations in the live broadcast business, including signing top entertainment anchor Feng Timo and obtaining the exclusive three-year copyright of the League of Legends finals. At present, it seems that the expansion of the live broadcast business has accelerated B Station’s “breaking the circle” plan and brought more new users to B Station on the one hand, and on the other hand, it has also brought B Station considerable commercial benefits. The author of this article will analyze Bilibili’s live broadcast business and the functional points of the live broadcast room page from macro to micro.

Article structure:

1. Research Purpose

2. Analysis of the live broadcast industry

3. Bilibili and its live streaming business

4. Competitive Product Analysis

5. Function Optimization Suggestions

VI. Conclusion

1. Research Purpose

This report first briefly describes the development history and current situation of the live broadcast industry and the overall situation of Bilibili's live broadcast business. It then establishes a product demand pool for the live broadcast room page, the core scene of the live broadcast business, and conducts a competitive product comparison analysis with Huya. Finally, it proposes functional optimization suggestions for the problems found in the above analysis. The purpose of the optimization is to improve user experience, enhance user retention and fan stickiness, and promote commercial realization.

2. Analysis of the live broadcast industry

1. Development history of the live broadcast industry

2. Analysis of the current status of the live broadcast industry

There are currently two major categories of live streaming: pan-entertainment (games + entertainment) and "live streaming +" (mainly "live streaming + e-commerce").

The following will analyze the current status of pan-entertainment live streaming according to the three main bodies in the live streaming business.

(Since the live broadcast business of Bilibili is currently mainly pan-entertainment live broadcast, "live broadcast +" has yet to mature, especially the "live broadcast + e-commerce" model does not match the tone of Bilibili. It remains to be explored if we want to launch "live broadcast + e-commerce" on a large scale on Bilibili, so we will not introduce the content related to "live broadcast +" for the time being.)

• Content consumers: The user scale tends to be stable, with male professionals born after 1985 and male students born after 1995 as the representative audience groups.

User scale

Figure 1: Scale of mobile users in the pan-entertainment live streaming industry Source: Mob Research Institute

After the wave of nationwide live streaming in 2016, the problem of homogeneity of live streaming content caused by low-threshold UGC gradually emerged, and the attractiveness of live streaming content to users decreased. In addition, short video platforms rose rapidly after 2017, distracting users' attention. Therefore, at present, pan-entertainment live streaming has passed the rapid growth period, the scale of mobile users has fluctuated little, basically maintained at the level of 160 million, and the market has entered the stage of stock competition. The future development trend of pan-entertainment live streaming is for major platforms to explore more diversified business models.

User Profile

Figure 2 User portraits of entertainment and game live streaming Source: Mob Research Institute

There is a difference in the user structure of entertainment live streaming and game live streaming. The age of entertainment live streaming users is concentrated between 25 and 34 years old, and they are mainly corporate white-collar workers with strong paying ability. Middle-aged men born after 1985 are the representative audience group of entertainment live streaming; the age of game live streaming users is concentrated under 25 years old, and compared with the entire network users, the proportion of students is higher. Male students born after 1995 are the representative audience group for game live streaming.

• Content producers: Transform from UGC and PUGC to PGC and OGC

In the early stages of market development, pan-entertainment live streaming platforms needed a large amount of low-threshold UGC content to attract users. However, as the market continued to mature, users became tired of low-quality, homogeneous content, so various platforms began to expand content boundaries and explore diversified businesses. The platform cooperates with content production companies to launch well-produced PGC and OGC customized content to build brand barriers.

Currently, pan-entertainment live broadcast content is showing a trend of diversification, refinement and customization. The boundaries between entertainment and game live streaming content are no longer clear. Entertainment live streaming has stronger real-time power, while game live streaming has stronger user stickiness.

• Platform: A commercial monetization model based on live broadcast reward income

Figure 3 Distribution of China’s game live streaming market size from 2016 to 2020 Source: iResearch

The main sources of income for live streaming platforms are: live streaming rewards, advertising revenue, membership value-added, game promotion, and commission sharing. Among them, the core revenue of the pan-entertainment live broadcast platform mainly focusing on games and talents comes from live broadcast rewards. Rewarding is a one-way consumption after users recognize the anchor, and whether to reward or not depends on the quality of the live broadcast content.

3. Bilibili and its live streaming business

1. Introduction to Station B

• Product Positioning

Originally a content community inspired by animation, comics, and games (ACG), Bilibili has grown into a comprehensive online entertainment platform covering a wide variety of genres and media formats, including video, live streaming, and mobile games. Bilibili has now become a home for people with different cultures and interests, and a destination for China's younger generation to discover cultural trends and phenomena.

• User Profile

Figure 4 User portrait of Bilibili Source: Research report

The majority of Bilibili users are Generation Z, who were born in the Internet age, are materially wealthy, well-educated, and willing to pay for their beliefs. In addition, in recent years, Bilibili’s various attempts to “break the circle” have also led to an increase in users born in the 1980s and 1970s.

• Business model and revenue

Figure 5. B station platform revenue business distribution and change trend Source: Mianchao Research Institute

Bilibili has four main revenue channels: gaming business, value-added services, advertising business, e-commerce and other businesses.

Previously, Bilibili’s revenue structure was relatively simple, with game revenue being the main source.

Since its listing in March 2018, Bilibili has been committed to breaking away from its dependence on the gaming business and exploring diversified commercial monetization models: innovating information flow advertising models, increasing investment and promotion of premium membership business, signing Feng Timo and obtaining the exclusive rights to the League of Legends Global Finals in mainland China for three consecutive years, and seizing the pan-entertainment live broadcast market. Judging from the changing trend shown in the above figure, Bilibili's diversified business exploration has begun to show results. In Q4 2019, the proportion of non-game business revenue exceeded the game business revenue for the first time.

Figure 6 B Station 2020 Q3 Financial Report Source: B Station

In Q3 2020, Bilibili’s total revenue was 3.23 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 74%. Among them, value-added services (live broadcast + premium membership) reached 980 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 116%. This is mainly due to the various commercial efforts made by Bilibili in accelerating live streaming and monetizing premium memberships. It also shows that improving the commercialization capabilities of the live streaming business plays an important role in optimizing Bilibili's commercial revenue structure.

2. Analysis of the live broadcast section of Station B

• Content Consumers:

In terms of content consumption orientation , the user audience of Bilibili live broadcast can be roughly divided into three categories:

1) General audience of pan-entertainment live streaming: This group of users is more likely to overlap with the target users of leading pan-entertainment live streaming platforms such as Huya, Douyu, and Inke.

2) Users in the two-dimensional vertical field: Bilibili has a monopoly in the two-dimensional entertainment field, and these users have high stickiness and loyalty to Bilibili.

3) UP host fans: UP host live broadcast is an extension of the main site business and is also a feature of Bilibili. However, this part of users may have higher stickiness to UP hosts than to the platform.

• platform:

The content layout of Bilibili can be divided into two parts: pan-entertainment (the same section as the mainstream live broadcast platform) and ACG + learning (Bilibili’s advantage section)

1) In the field of pan-entertainment live streaming, Bilibili’s strategic direction is to “break the circle” and attract new users to seize market share.

Bilibili has always had the following competitive disadvantages in the field of pan-entertainment live streaming:

a. Top e-sports anchors are concentrated on Huya and Douyu, and it is difficult for Bilibili to attract a large number of game player users.

bB station's event resources are generally weaker than those of Huya and Douyu.

c. Users have platform migration costs, such as recharged currency, platform function learning costs, etc., which increases the difficulty of grabbing users from other platforms.

In recent years, Bilibili has made various efforts to overcome the above disadvantages:

In the field of game live streaming , Bilibili has increased its investment in game content and top e-sports copyrights since 2019, and has obtained the exclusive live streaming platform rights for the League of Legends Global Finals in mainland China for three consecutive years to continuously enhance the attractiveness of the platform content to young users and its industry competitiveness. Rapidly develop the game live streaming business through anchor recruitment, event promotion, etc. The launch of League of Legends S10 has added fuel to the e-sports live broadcast content of Bilibili: According to statistics, on the night of the finals, the peak popularity of Bilibili's live broadcast room exceeded 300 million, which was 160% of the peak of S9 live broadcast. The number of live broadcast viewers of Bilibili's S10 overall event increased by more than 300% compared with S9, which means that Bilibili has begun to occupy a place in the field of game live broadcast.

In the field of show entertainment live streaming (live broadcasters), Bilibili signed "Douyu No. 1" Feng Timo in 2019 with the aim of enhancing the attractiveness of the entertainment live streaming section.

2) In areas where it has competitive advantages, such as the ACG field and learning, Bilibili’s strategic direction is to retain old users and attract more young users of Generation Z.

As the birthplace of ACG in China, Bilibili itself gathers a large number of core two-dimensional users, and its high-quality fan base has established its irreplaceable position in the vertical field. Modules with strong B station attributes such as virtual anchors, singers, dancers, and radio stations are tailor-made for the two-dimensional group. The market for virtual anchors cannot be underestimated. The virtual anchor "Fei Chi Elio", whose popularity has soared recently, achieved the achievement of 8,000 captains in just twenty days, breaking the record of Bilibili. In addition, while exploring diversified business models, Bilibili has always been committed to striking a balance between "breaking the circle" and "maintaining its taste". Two-dimensional content is in line with the "original attributes" of Bilibili, and plays a positive role in improving the stickiness and activity of old users in vertical fields and maintaining the community atmosphere of Bilibili. It is a sector where Bilibili needs to increase its investment.

In addition, the "live broadcast + education" model has a huge potential market space. The target users in the education field overlap to a large extent with Bilibili's mainstream users, Generation Z, so Bilibili has a competitive advantage in this field. This year, Bilibili invited Luo Xiang, Wushan Finance and other professionals to join as knowledge bloggers, which shows that Bilibili is indeed interested in strengthening its label as a learning platform.

In summary, the two-dimensional world and education and learning are important sectors for Bilibili to create differentiated competitive advantages in the future.

• Content Producers:

In recent years, in order to enhance the diversity and richness of live broadcast content, Bilibili has expanded its anchor matrix based on content layout : introduced Feng Mo, a top anchor in the entertainment area; cultivated high-quality top UP hosts such as Lao Fanqie and Ao Changzhang to transform into game anchors to achieve resource exchange between video content and live broadcast content; introduced knowledge influencer Luo Xiang; encouraged virtual anchors to settle in, etc.

In addition, Bilibili has also set up a comprehensive anchor discovery and support plan, providing anchors with exclusive growth channels and exposure traffic resources. It has currently cultivated many top anchors in gaming categories such as Hua Shao Bei and Xiaoyao Sanren.

3. Product demand pool

Figure 7 B station product demand pool Comment source: APP STORE Comment period: 2020.05-2020.11

The most popular requirements: Add a "picture-in-picture" function in live broadcast mode or split screen when watching Bilibili on iPad to meet users' needs of browsing other pages/taking notes while watching live broadcast.

4. Competitive Product Analysis

1. Introduction to Huya

Huya Live is one of China's leading game live streaming platforms, providing users with high-definition, smooth and rich interactive video live streaming services, covering more than 3,300 games, and has gradually covered diversified barrage-style interactive live streaming content such as entertainment, variety shows, education, outdoor, and sports. In May 2018, Huya was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming China's first listed game live streaming company. Currently, Huya ranks first in terms of user scale and market share in the field of game live streaming in China.

Figure 8 User scale and market share of game live streaming platforms Source: Mob Research Institute

2. Comparison between Bilibili and Huya

1. Comparison of platforms and live streaming services

2. Functional iteration

The table records the key function iterations of Bilibili and Huya Live since their launch.

Judging from the product's functional iteration path, while Huya is constantly adding interactive live broadcast methods, it also focuses on optimizing the details of basic functions, such as small window playback, search results, and search tags. As a live streaming platform focusing on gaming content, Huya’s interactive functions are more tailored for gaming live streaming content (such as planting beans, etc.), with diverse gameplay and a fast update and iteration speed.

However, Bilibili is more cautious in the development of interactive functions, and has removed many interactive functions since 2020. The author speculates that there are two reasons:

1) The main reason is that the data behind the function is not ideal, and the effect of stimulating user activity and increasing commercial monetization is not ideal.

2) Bilibili needs more distinctive and differentiated interactive functions. Many of the offline functions are similar to the interactive functions of other mainstream live broadcast platforms (such as the offline silver melon seeds treasure chest is similar to the treasure chest of Huya). In the early stage of the establishment of the live broadcast section of Bilibili, a relatively complete and mature live broadcast interactive mechanism can be quickly built by developing functions similar to those of mainstream live broadcast platforms. However, as the user base expands and live streaming content continues to grow, Bilibili needs to build differentiated and innovative features based on its own unique content and users in order to establish a competitive advantage. In other words, Bilibili's unique live broadcast audience and content format determine that Bilibili needs new interactive gameplay.

3. Comparison of existing functions of the live broadcast room

According to the relationship between different types of user needs and user satisfaction, the KANO model divides the factors that affect user satisfaction into five categories: basic needs, expected needs, exciting needs, indifferent needs, and reverse needs. The following article will use this model as a basis and compare and analyze the functional structure of the live broadcast rooms of Huya and Bilibili in combination with user demand types.

Figure 9 KANO model diagram Source: Baidu Encyclopedia

The following three tables compare the corresponding functions set by Bilibili and Huya in landscape and portrait modes to meet users' basic needs, expected needs, and exciting needs.

• In terms of basic needs, the functional settings of Bilibili and Huya are roughly the same. The playback setting function of Bilibili in the vertical screen scene is more complete.

• In terms of expectation-based demand, Huya stimulates fan activity by setting daily and weekly tasks for fan groups. However, Bilibili is relatively weak in setting the rules of the fan club system. After users join the fan club, in addition to the amount of krypton gold, there is only one indicator, "intimacy", to measure the relationship between fans and anchors. Moreover, "intimacy" is mainly used for vertical comparison within fan groups, and it plays a very limited role in enhancing users' sense of belonging to fan groups, strengthening fan group cohesion, and stimulating horizontal competition among different anchor fan groups. In addition, Huya has also developed features such as "screen recording" and "timed shutdown" to enhance user experience.

• In terms of excitement needs, Huya has rich and diverse interactive gameplay, such as using free treasure chests to encourage users to watch live broadcasts and stimulate potential reward behavior; the TV gameplay encourages users to join fan groups by lowering the threshold for users to join fan groups; the subscription to the anchor’s installation function shows the user’s recognition of the anchor’s gaming skills and thus increases fan stickiness. However, Bilibili is obviously inferior to Huya in the diversity of interactive functions, and the only existing interesting interactive function is to apply for a live connection with the anchor. There are fewer interactive gameplays with diverse features. Therefore, Bilibili should increase its efforts in meeting users' excitement needs and develop more distinctive interactive functions based on Bilibili's tone and live broadcast content.

4. Comparison of interaction and profit data

Figure 10 Comparison of live broadcast data between Huya and Bilibili (data period: 2020.11.12-2020.11.25) Source: compiled from Xiaohulu

Figure 11 Distribution of anchors on the top 100 most popular game live streaming platforms in 2019 Source: iResearch

Judging from the recent live broadcast data of the two, there is no doubt that Huya, as a leading pan-entertainment live broadcast platform, has a much larger overall revenue and interaction data than Bilibili, which has live broadcast as a subsidiary section. Huya's advantage lies in the fact that it has gathered a large number of top anchors in the pan-entertainment field. Data shows that 30.7% of the anchors on the top 1000 most popular game live streaming platforms in 2019 belong to Huya. In addition, the Huya live streaming platform has been open for a long time, has a large and sticky user base, rich and diverse interactive functions, and relatively complete fan group system rules. It adopts a variety of methods to stimulate user interaction and reward behavior.

Compared with the total interaction and profit data, Bilibili's per capita payment and per capita active data (per capita reward amount for paying users, per capita number of barrages for active users) are still relatively impressive, not much behind Huya. This shows that although the overall volume of Bilibili's live broadcast section is small, the quality of the live broadcast users it attracts is relatively high.

5. Function Optimization Suggestions

The basis for the feature suggestions is based on three aspects: the author’s own usage experience (experience version: ios 6.14.0), user feedback from the demand pool, and inspiration from competing products. It mainly proposes solutions for optimizing existing functions and adding new functions for basic functions and interactive functions.

1. Optimization of existing functions

1. "Lock screen" pinned

Current issues:

When the live broadcast room receives frequent rewards, the lock screen button will be blocked by the reward special effects, and the lock screen button will be unclickable.

Current user solutions:

When the lock screen key and special effects overlap, the user has two options to lock the screen:

1) Users need to wait until the current special effects disappear and no new special effects appear before they can lock the screen, wasting their time.

2) Blocking the gift-sending special effects will affect the user’s experience of the interactive atmosphere in the live broadcast room and the subsequent incentives for users to give rewards.

In addition, this situation is more likely to occur in the live broadcast rooms of popular anchors, and the corresponding number of active users affected is greater, so improvements are recommended.

Optimization suggestions:

Place the lock screen key on the top layer, that is, when the gift sending special effect and the lock screen key overlap, the lock screen key is still clickable. In addition, since the gift-giving special effects are a response and incentive to users' rewarding behavior, the transparency of the lock screen key can be appropriately reduced to reduce the degree of obstruction of the special effects in order to lessen the impact on the user experience of rewarding users.

2. The top bar displays basic device information

Current issues:

Currently, when Bilibili live broadcasts in full screen, the top bar cannot display basic information such as time, battery level, and network status. Compared to videos, live broadcasts take longer and consume more power. Users are more likely and more likely to check the time and battery level while watching live broadcasts.

Current user solutions:

If users want to check the time or battery level on the device they are watching the live broadcast, they have three options:

1) Rotate your phone or click the back button in the upper left corner to adjust to portrait mode. In this case, the live video and audio will continue to play.

2) Pull down the upper menu bar, and the live audio will still play.

3) Exit the software. If the user does not enable background playback, the live broadcast will be interrupted. If the user turns on background playback, the live audio will still play.

The above three options will affect the user's concentration and immersive experience on the live content.

Optimization suggestions:

It is recommended to simplify the user operation path. In the horizontal screen mode of live broadcast, the top bar displays brief information: time, battery level, and network status.

The top buttons are moved down one row as a whole. Among the existing buttons, except for the anchor avatar and the Join Fan Club button, other buttons are semi-transparent, with low obstruction to the content and little impact on the user's viewing experience.

3. Added "Timed Stop Playing" function entry on the live broadcast room page

Current issues:

There is no direct entry to the "timed stop playback" function on the B station live broadcast room page. The live broadcast time is relatively long, usually more than an hour. Compared with videos, users are more likely to use the "timed stop playback" function when watching live broadcasts and have a greater need for it. Currently, the "timed stop playback" function of Bilibili can only be enabled on the video playback page or in the settings.

Current user solutions:

If the user wants to stop the live broadcast at a fixed time, there are two options:

1) Exit the live broadcast room page – click My – click Settings – click Playback Settings – click Timer to stop playback – select the timer time – return to the live broadcast room

2) Exit the live broadcast page – enter the video playback page – click the extended menu bar – select the timer – return to the live broadcast room

The above two operation paths are cumbersome, which not only increases the user's operation time cost and reduces the user experience, but also affects the user's concentration and immersion experience in the live content.

Optimization plan:

Add the "Timed Stop Playback" function to the playback settings of the extended menu bar on the live broadcast room page.

User path:

Page flow chart:

Overall process:

Page details:

Note:

• Similar to the "timed stop playback" setting of the video, the countdown set in the live broadcast room will not be paused or terminated due to exiting the live broadcast room or leaving the APP (without stopping running in the background).
• If the user is not watching a live stream or video when the countdown stops, there will be no prompt.

4. Update of fan group rules:

Existing problems: Currently, the rules and gameplay of the fan club system of Bilibili are relatively simple, and only use intimacy (duration indicator) to show the fans' stickiness to the anchor, and serve as the basis for ranking within the fan club. The existing rules do not provide sufficient incentives for users to actively participate in interactive rewards, nor are they conducive to shaping the collective sense of honor of fan groups.

Optimization suggestion: A level should be set for the fan group as a whole. The level depends on indicators such as the overall activity of the fan group and the ability to spend money. This level setting is essentially a horizontal comparison of the fan groups of different anchors, which can stimulate fans' sense of collective honor and belonging and enhance fan stickiness.

Rule logic: Level – Task – Reward

Fan groups are divided into levels. Fan users reach a certain level by completing daily/weekly tasks. The system (daily/weekly) issues corresponding rewards to the anchors and fans who complete the tasks.

Rules in detail:

• Fan club level settings: paper boat – wooden boat – giant yacht – Noah’s Ark (combined with the concept of “Great Voyage”, it can be modified in combination with the two-dimensional rhetoric)
• Fan individual identity settings: Crew member (ordinary fan), Captain (user with Grand Voyage), Admiral (user with Grand Voyage), Governor (user with Grand Voyage)
• Task indicators: Popularity value (number of new fans, intimacy) + money value (gift amount, eye-catching message amount, number of new voyages)
• rewards and punishments:

Individual fans: Completing daily/weekly tasks will earn you gift packs of corresponding levels on a daily/weekly basis. For example, if your fan group is upgraded this week, you will receive an additional advanced gift pack.

Broadcaster: Provide broadcasters with corresponding traffic and exposure support according to the level of their fan clubs

Fan Club as a whole: 1) If you complete the weekly task this week, you will maintain your level next week

2) Complete weekly tasks during the week - upgrade to a higher level and unlock new tasks. After the upgrade, the progress of tasks completed by fans in the remaining days of the week can be accumulated to the next week.

3) If the weekly task is not completed this week, it will be downgraded to the next week

(II) New features

1. Screen Recording

Users, scenarios, requirements :

• Ordinary viewers (who watch a particular anchor infrequently and for a short time, and who have not given gifts or have given gifts of low amounts): They want to record the exciting operations in the live broadcast room so that they can imitate and learn; they want to share the funny moments in the live broadcast room with their friends.
• Loyal fans (those who watch a particular anchor frequently and for a long time, and give gifts frequently and with a high total amount): Fans generally have the desire to recommend the anchor, and when there is a charming moment with the anchor's personal characteristics, they want to recommend the anchor to their friends or the public.
• UP主/Scissorhands: I have the habit and awareness of collecting materials on a daily basis. When there is wonderful content in the live broadcast room, I want to save it and do secondary creation.

Functional Description :

• A "screen recording" function has been added to the full-screen playback mode of the live broadcast room, allowing users to record short videos of 5 seconds to 5 minutes.
• Add entrances to the must-cut and fan creation areas on the video generation page. The addition of the fan creation area and the must-cut entrance is based on the following considerations:

1) Fans’ video creation as a form of output transforms the host’s one-way output into a two-way interaction between the host and fans. On the one hand, it can enhance the anchor's fan stickiness, and on the other hand, it can encourage viewers to become UP hosts and stimulate potential high-quality creators.

2) To attract traffic to Bijian and help B station layout its product matrix.

• Add a fan creation area under the host information column in the live broadcast room to centrally display video works contributed by fans, and the videos are sorted by popularity or time. There are three channels for fans to contribute to the fan creation area:

1) Use the live broadcast recording function. After recording, select "Submit to the Fan Creation Area" on the sharing page.

2) After editing the video using Bijian, select a host and submit it to the corresponding host’s fan creation area.

3) Select a host in the Creation Center and submit your work to the corresponding host’s fan creation area.

User path :

Page flow chart:

Overall process:

Page details:

Subsequent operations:

• Please ask the anchor to provide guiding words during the live broadcast and encourage fans to re-create the wonderful moments of the live broadcast.
• The anchor is encouraged to post three comments in the fan submission area to stimulate fans' enthusiasm.
• In the fan creation area, repetitive and low-quality video content will be downgraded to ensure that the fan video content is interesting and attractive.

2. Picture-in-Picture function

Current problem: In the comment section of Bilibili's iOS version from May to November 2020, comments requesting the addition of a "picture-in-picture" function for live broadcasts accounted for more than 50% of all comments with the keyword "live broadcast", and users have a strong demand for the "picture-in-picture" function.

Users, scenarios, and needs

• Learning scenario: When watching a live learning video, users want to browse the web and take notes while watching the live video. (Mainly appears on iPad)
• Social scenario: When watching a live broadcast, a user receives a chat message and needs to reply but does not want to exit the live broadcast room. (Mainly appears on mobile phones)
• Entertainment scenario: Users want to perform two entertainment activities on the same device at the same time, such as watching a live broadcast while browsing Taobao. (Mainly appears on mobile phones)

In particular, the learning scenario has the following characteristics:

1 ) Large number of users: Data shows that the number of users studying on Bilibili reached 300 million in 2019. There are two main ways for users to learn on Bilibili: watching videos and live broadcasts.

Currently, videos support the "picture-in-picture" function, but live broadcasts still do not support it, and Bilibili's iPad client does not support split screen.

2 ) High frequency of use: Using iPad to watch courses and take electronic notes is a common learning scenario for students of Generation Z (the most mainstream users of Bilibili). Compared to watching videos, it is more important to take notes when watching live broadcasts. In addition to the accompanying learning module, the content of the learning live broadcast is often a course with a complete knowledge system and dense knowledge points. The live broadcast audience cannot repeatedly watch a certain knowledge point that they did not understand/heard clearly. There is no "class representative" under the video area comments in the live broadcast area. At this time, users need to concentrate and record in time. Therefore, live streaming needs to take into account the user's need to take notes.

3 ) Large potential demand: In the future, if Bilibili wants to strengthen its differentiated advantages over video websites such as iQiyi, Youku, Tencent Video, Douyin and Kuaishou, it will inevitably increase its investment in the learning section, enrich the content and scale of the learning section, so as to attract and retain more young users. Correspondingly, more young users mean more demands in learning scenarios, so it becomes inevitable to provide solutions for users to take notes while watching live broadcasts.

Potential issues with the feature: Picture-in-picture has a potential negative impact on live streaming

Due to the small window interface of the picture-in-picture mode, if barrage and interactive special effects are displayed, the interface will become cluttered, key live broadcast images will be blocked, and the user's viewing experience will be affected. Compared with video, live broadcast requires a more immersive experience. If the picture-in-picture interface can only display the live broadcast image and retain basic playback functions, it will weaken the user's experience of the interactive atmosphere of the live broadcast room, which is not conducive to triggering interactions, rewards and other behaviors. This is particularly unfavorable for entertainment and game live broadcasts. The author believes that this is also the main reason why many mainstream live streaming platforms do not provide the "picture-in-picture" function for live streaming. In addition, although users can choose to turn off barrage and block special effects in full-screen mode, this is an active choice of the user. Not being able to view barrage and special effects in picture-in-picture mode is a passive choice of the user.

Solution:

To alleviate the above problems, it is recommended to make adjustments based on the existing "picture-in-picture" video function of Bilibili and in combination with the nature of live broadcast: add reward and barrage buttons in the picture-in-picture window, and users can jump back to the main interface to choose reward gifts/edit barrage by clicking the gift/barrage button.

In addition, considering the potential weakening effect of the picture-in-picture mode on user interactive behavior, it is recommended to lower the priority of the function and place it in the extended menu bar (for reference, the "picture-in-picture" function of the B station video playback page is placed on the main playback interface).

User path:

Note: Returning to the homepage of the live broadcast room is a vertical screen page

Page flow chart:

3. Voting function

Rule setting:

• Anchor

Before turning on the "Voting" function, you need to set a question, two options, and the voting start and end time.

Example questions: Next game character/next song to be sung.

• user

1) Each user who enters the live broadcast room will have one free ticket in each round of voting (to encourage user participation). Users can cast free or paid votes in the first round and cast unlimited additional votes based on the choices made in the first vote. This means that each user can only select one option, but there is no limit on the number of votes.

2) Users cannot view the number of votes for two options before the first vote. After the first vote, a preview of the current number of votes will be displayed. The purpose is to prevent users from voting for the party with higher popularity at the moment, rather than the party they really want, in order to obtain victory rewards. This fails to achieve the goal of giving users control over the live content and increasing their sense of participation while meeting their real expectations.

3) If the free ticket is not cast in this round, it will be automatically invalidated and not accumulated. Paid votes are permanently valid if they are not cast or are not cast again due to a draw return.

• system

1) Prop settings:

Free tickets: 1 free ticket is equivalent to 1 ticket, and each user will receive a free ticket in each round of voting.

Paid tickets:

2) Results evaluation and reward settings:

Victory side: Users receive rewards, and ordinary users and fans need to distinguish between rewards. For example, ordinary users receive spicy strips, fans receive spicy strips + intimacy.

A draw occurred: free tickets are invalid and no accumulation. All paid tickets cast by the user are returned in the form of tickets, non-money or gold beans.

Note:

• Setting two options instead of multiple options, and users can only cast one option per round, is based on the following considerations:

1) The two options are presented in oppositional situations, and the number of votes is intuitive, making the voting parties more competitive.

2) Reduce the probability of flat votes.

3) Make it easier for users to make choices.

• In order to avoid users confuse the unit "number of votes" of the actual tickets with the unit "number of votes" of the option statistics unit, they can change the "number of votes" to "help value", etc.

User usage path:

Page flowchart:

• Note: Due to the large number of prototype pages and limited space of the article, the details of this function page are not displayed.

4. "Card Draw" function

Function description:

Combine live streaming and card game. Users who complete the designated task on the same day can be eligible to draw the anchor card, and collect a complete set to receive rewards.

Target users:

The users who collect cards have strong krypton gold ability, are highly loyal to the anchor, and are interested in this gameplay.

Rules details:

• Anchor

Provide card photos and story settings

• platform

1) Function settings: Create a card pool based on the photos provided by the anchor, and each card has name, story and scene settings. According to the MVP principle, 3-5 cards can be set initially to increase the probability of users collecting them in a short time and give users a sense of accomplishment. When a certain number (10%-20%) of users gather, they can update the card pool or set a limited-time card.

2) Collect all rewards: virtual prop gift pack (material reward), glory medal + intimacy (spiritual reward)

• user

1) Card drawing qualification: Users who give a certain amount of reward every day/gift a specific gift/join the Nautical can obtain card drawing qualification, and the number of card drawings depends on the number of tasks completed.

2) User instructions: After drawing the card, the user can view the card-related stories and save the virtual card to the mobile phone album. In addition, users can preview all cards in the anchor card pool, and the cards not drawn only show the back and name of the card.

Functional comment:

Advantages: It is conducive to increasing the fun of interactive live broadcast rooms and improving user stickiness.

Disadvantages: High cost and complex technology. It is not suitable for all types of anchors, but is more suitable for virtual anchors. Therefore, after weighing the ROI, this function can be initially activated for the large voyage to reach a certain number of popular virtual anchors.

VI. Conclusion

B station is the spiritual home of Generation Z and is also accompanied by the author's growth. The author looks forward to the live broadcast sector of B station to be further enriched and expanded in the future and become a unique Internet live broadcast field. Bilibili – (゜-゜)つロ Cheers!