iQiyi product operation analysis!

As a video operator platform, iQiyi has developed many businesses besides videos. For example, the most famous one is iQiyi’s “Bubble” page, which can be said to be a small community. Of course, in addition to these, iQiyi has discovered many new features of its own.

In recent years, more and more IPs have received widespread attention and become popular. Even operators have taken on the role of producers, and everyone has become more and more familiar with iQiyi.

In this IP competition, iQiyi has also occupied the most popular position in the entire network. As iQiyi has completed the process of listing, iQiyi has also attracted much attention. Perhaps in the eyes of some people, iQiyi may be the domestic Netflix, but some foreign analysis agencies believe that iQiyi may be the next Luckin Coffee. As a consumer, this question may have to be left to time to judge.

This article will analyze from the following aspects:

• Product function structure
• Competitive product analysis
• User Analysis
• User research
• Functional analysis and optimization solutions
• Summarize

1. iQIYI Product Function Structure

Product Architecture

2. Competitive Product Analysis

Perhaps it is not an exaggeration to classify iQiyi as a traditional video product. It was born relatively early, almost along with the development of Internet technology. iQiyi also has some characteristics of the times that current short videos do not have. Early video products may be purer platforms compared to current video products.

As the prototype of today's comprehensive video products, due to technical limitations, some are mainly focused on providing video resources, such as Renren Video; or mainly serve as playback tools, such as Baofeng Video.

With the changes of the times and the development of technology, video products have also been empowered, and products that mainly focus on online playback have gradually emerged; with the development of mobile Internet, video products have also begun to occupy the mobile market, prompting the formation of a convenient viewing experience. The content of video products has also been expanded from long video immersive viewing to short videos that can satisfy people's fragmented entertainment.

iQiyi is such an online video product. In addition to enriching the viewing experience in the form of videos, iQiyi also meets user needs more comprehensively in terms of content, and has created a video business ecosystem that connects people and services in many aspects.

1. Product positioning

At present, iQiyi is a product that provides copyrighted content to users, mainly through membership fees and advertising as a profit method.

2. Competitive product analysis

The Internet era has entered its second half. We seem to have seen the boundaries of the Internet, which we originally thought had unlimited content and unlimited space. People have discovered that information is becoming redundant, but the demographic dividend is slowly disappearing. However, time is fair to everyone. Within a limited time, efficiency has become an important "energy source" for Internet companies to make profits.

To survive the storm of "overcapacity" in the Internet industry, perhaps the only way is to use the production capacity originally used for growth in the incremental market to develop the existing market. In today's Internet era, video products no longer have only one product attribute as in the past. Products like iQiyi, which have long occupied the top position in daily active users, are becoming more and more platform-oriented, and are building their own business ecosystem on this platform. Therefore, perhaps as Luo Pang said, with limited total national time, spatial consumption has shifted to time consumption, and the consumption of intangible products will drive the economy, and content consumption is one of them.

As the iconic consumer group of this era, young people have a certain consumption capacity and consume mainly based on their mood. Although they are not the main group, the intangible consumption of the Internet just meets the requirements of modern young people, or it can be said that the intangible consumption of the Internet is born out of the consumption habits of today's young people.

3. Competitive product selection

Although the Internet era has entered the second half, the incremental market has gradually shifted to the stock market, and the content on the Internet has become increasingly refined, all of which have directly or indirectly improved the efficiency of users in obtaining content from various aspects. From a certain perspective, this is also a means of improving the user experience of the product.

In the field of video products, there has been a gradual trend of short videos, and major "old-brand" video products have also joined in. As one of the old-brand video products, iQiyi has also added short video functions; but overall, iQiyi still sticks to videos with relatively complete long stories as the core content (movies, TV series, animations and other artistic works) and large-scale variety shows, which is undoubtedly related to the strategic goals behind the product; but it can also be seen that as a comprehensive video product, iQiyi's target users' usage scenarios and purposes are still mainly non-fragmented.

The author believes that the determination of target users should be considered from both external environmental factors and product factors themselves.

From the perspective of the product itself, iQiyi provides users with a total of more than 20 types of videos classified by content, including movies, TV series, animation, children, etc., as well as several categories with different business natures such as popular content, VIP, live broadcast, etc., which are enough to cover the interests of most users.

From an economic perspective, the products on the market still have certain commodity characteristics; after all, many companies still treat their products as commodities. Therefore, only by paying attention to market changes or social consumption characteristics can we more accurately judge the market area of ​​a product.

Therefore, external environmental factors can be seen as factors such as the consumption characteristics of society in the era in which the product is produced; with the emergence of new consumption trends in China, iQiyi's product development strategy provides a basis for commercial development, enabling it to better meet market demand and create more commercial value.

According to the "44th Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet" (released in August 2019), as of June 2019, the scale of Internet users in China reached 854 million, of which the scale of video users reached 759 million and the scale of online payment users reached 633 million; in terms of the income structure of Internet users, those with a monthly income of more than 5,000 yuan accounted for 27.2%, and those with a monthly income of 2,001-5,000 yuan accounted for 33.4%; in terms of age structure, the group aged 10-39 accounted for 65.1%, of which the group aged 20-29 accounted for 24.6% of the total, and the group aged 40-49 accounted for 17.3% of the total; therefore, iQiyi has a huge target user group. The report also pointed out that the online video content ecosystem has been gradually built, and video operations have become more professional and entertaining. Major platforms have expanded more categories based on traditional movies, TV series, and variety shows, including games, e-sports, art, etc., and have formed a collaborative entertainment content ecosystem of video content with music, literature, games and other fields under the condition of integrating resources inside and outside the platform to achieve linkage among all parties with IP as the center.

Therefore, comprehensive video products like iQiyi have a relatively large target user base and a potential user group with certain online consumption capabilities. Although the construction of the online video ecosystem has created industry barriers for new entrants to a certain extent, the more professional industry environment for old comprehensive video products is conducive to mutual competition among products and promotes their development.

The "2017 New Consumption Trend Insight Report" mentioned that the past consumption patterns have gradually faded, and a consumption structure dominated by development-oriented and service-oriented consumption has gradually emerged; in order to meet consumer demands with more emotional appeals such as individuality and quality, a more comprehensive consumption channel combining online and offline is used, and the medical industry pursues a consumption concept of personalization, green health, convenience, efficiency, and experience.

Under the conditions of economic development reform and technological development, we have entered a new consumption era with personalized upgrades and consumers at the core. The advent of the new consumption era has provided more consumption scenarios for the commercialization of iQiyi, or it can be said that people are gradually beginning to enjoy the convenience brought by online consumption. In addition to meeting basic physiological needs, they are pursuing more personalized and quality emotional satisfaction. The shift to a preference for high-quality services brought by products and consumption that can meet their own development needs has led to the development of the content payment model, providing conditions for the development of iQiyi.

In 2017, the National Copyright Administration also launched the "13th Five-Year Plan for Copyright Work", which reflects the country's emphasis on content copyright and provides policy-level support for the content payment model.

To sum up the above, from the core business of the product and the external policy, consumption, competition and other environments, it can be seen that iQiyi's target users are mainly young people and some middle-aged netizens who have certain consumption power and pursue personalized and quality consumption in the new consumption era; according to iQiyi's market areas and the business it conducts, products with the same level of user volume can be considered to be Youku Video and Tencent Video.

4. Business Distribution

1) As comprehensive video platforms, the three companies all take providing and integrating authorized TV series, web series, variety shows, movies, entertainment videos, animations, comics, etc. as their core business; in terms of core business, the three companies are of the same form, and the difference mainly lies in the content, but different from the previous UGC or PGC content, they are more professional and commercial film and television works or entertainment variety show videos; and the impact of content on products depends on the popularity of film and television works or variety shows or whether popular stars participate in them; therefore, in terms of creating user value and commercial value, in addition to the quality of their products, there may also be an impact on the competition for copyrights of film and television works.

2) Compared with Youku and Tencent Video, iQiyi has richer content. The Bubble Community provides a fertile ground for various hot topics, and the content is in various forms; the Bubble Community tends to serve as a venue for fan culture, but iQiyi has also opened a more popular community with slightly more diverse topics - Drama Headlines; at the same time, the Bubble Community can synchronize entertainment news from the iQiyi Bubble APP, enriching the content of the community to a certain extent; overall, iQiyi has created a freer and more ecological entertainment environment.

3) Tencent Video pays the most attention to the game center. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that Tencent, as a well-known game operator, can provide the Tencent Video platform with game product resources that are unmatched by the companies behind other products. On the other hand, games, as one of the important entertainment methods for young people today, have enhanced the entertainment enjoyment that Tencent Video brings to users to a certain extent. In the Tencent Video mall, most of the products are peripheral products, which can better utilize fan culture to develop fan economy.

4) The cooperation between Youku Video and Weibo is equivalent to placing the fan community on the Weibo platform, which enables Youku Video to have a broader fan community with greater traffic. Its advantage is that Youku is equivalent to the second window of Weibo. Users can obtain information with wider dissemination, more popular and more diverse topics through Youku.

5) Compared with the other three, the content format of their UGC and PGC platforms are all short videos. In addition to providing users with the entertainment fun of long-term viewing experience, they also add a form of entertainment for fragmented time, filling the gap in the short video market.

6) In terms of commercialization, the main monetization method for the three products is membership fees. Other monetization methods include advertising revenue, content distribution, etc.; therefore, the price of membership fees and membership rights may become important factors affecting the monetization of the three products; in terms of membership prices, the three products have launched "discounts" for continuous fees and quarterly and annual memberships, among which iQiyi has the lowest continuous monthly subscription price, followed by Youku Video and Tencent Video.

The membership privileges are similar, including the unlocking of specific content, ad-free waiting, unlocking of high-definition picture quality, etc.; but as for the ad-free waiting setting, none of the three products completely exempts the playback of advertisements, taking advantage of the user's psychological certainty and sense of control over the product; among them, this privilege uses a certain degree of reduction in the psychological and time costs paid by users when using the product as a selling point for membership fees; but there is a phenomenon of secondary charging, such as some movies require movie tickets and the recently launched advanced on-demand service. These features all take advantage of the user's interest in the content and the urgency or curiosity caused by their liking for certain content, which can easily reduce the user's loyalty to the product or user experience.

7) The hot business launched by iQiyi is an integration of long-screen videos and more traditional wide-screen videos (or horizontal-screen videos). The content types are relatively broad, mainly UGC or PGC film, television, and variety show-related content; while Paopao focuses on idol entertainment, but also includes hot social topics. In addition to videos, the content format also includes graphic content; and Drama Headlines can be regarded as content that encompasses all forms and topics of the above two businesses. The three overlap in content form and topics, making it difficult to provide users with a simpler product UI.

8) All three products provide video content, membership services and live broadcast services on PC or web pages, but do not involve other businesses.

5. Development History

Youku is the earliest developed product among the three. In the past, what impressed us most about Youku was that it was a content creation and sharing platform. All those on the Internet who love creativity and love sharing content can showcase their works on Youku. This was the value of Youku in the past. In 2007, Youku began to integrate other official video websites; in 2010, Youku went public; in 2011, Youku began to build the largest video content library on the entire Internet. Judging from its subsequent development history, Youku’s choice is to remain just a platform, increasing its carrying capacity by cooperating with other film companies or professional video production teams to create more user value.

IQIYI seems to be a competitor that has taken a different approach in the video product industry. It went online in 2010 and started to create self-produced online video content in 2011, seemingly accumulating experience for the subsequent self-produced video content industry; but even with this "pioneer" awareness and experience, it cannot get rid of its dependence on popular video content such as "Running Man". Facts have also proved that these popular video content has indeed brought huge traffic to iQIYI.

Let's take a look at Tencent. Its starting positioning is the same as the previous two. All of them were launched in front of people as a mass entertainment video product. In comparison, Tencent Video is more like a speculator, but a successful speculator. Tencent Video introduced British dramas and Hong Kong dramas to fill the gaps in the market at that time. In 2015, Tencent established Penguin Pictures. Penguin Pictures has made a comprehensive strategic layout for video content, investing in the production of movies, TV series, animation, variety shows, and even one-person creation. The essence of building a professional team is to output higher-quality content.

6. Data Analysis

Combined with the above table, we analyze iQiyi and its competitors:

1) In terms of user scale, iQiyi has 550 million monthly active users, Tencent Video has 460 million monthly active users, Youku Video has 420 million monthly active users, and the total number of users on the entire network is about 1.01 billion (Analysys Qianfan data); the three products have more than 400 million monthly active users, accounting for more than 53% of China's video users, indicating that most netizens are willing to watch videos as their form of entertainment; in terms of industry exclusivity, the exclusive users of iQiyi and Tencent Video are both around 100 million.

But iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video are backed by the BAT Big Three, which to a certain extent represents that the three have relatively huge resources and funds to support their development; although iQiyi has always been at the top of the comprehensive video list, the gap between the three is not particularly large; in a development period with a relatively large user base as the foundation, combined with the target user groups of the three, iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video are likely to form a situation of mutual checks and balances, and launching high-quality film and television works, popular variety shows, and self-produced dramas or variety shows may become one of the three's more long-term strategies, and they have always been at the top of the video industry.

2) Combining the two data of average usage time per person and average monthly usage days per person, users basically use the product for 1-2 hours a day; 1-2 hours just fits in with the length of 1-2 episodes of a TV series or variety show or almost a movie, and from the perspective of monthly usage days, 6-9 days include the number of weekends per month; therefore, it is more in line with the characteristic that long video entertainment requires relatively complete and long free time; combined with the average number of daily startups per person in monthly usage, the three products were opened 5.47-6.98 times, and this opening frequency is contrary to the viewing habits of long videos; therefore, to a certain extent, it shows that most users have sufficient stickiness to the product, or it is related to the community business or short video business provided by the product.

The average usage time and average monthly usage days of the products reflect that Tencent Video is better than iQiyi. Possible factors include that Tencent has cooperated with communication operators to launch special brand mobile phone packages, which have attracted users to use Tencent Video to a certain extent. Promotional services such as free membership for bank credit cards have also had an increasing effect on user usage. Youku Video's next-month retention rate is higher than the other two, which may be related to the content. Due to limited data, only a rough preliminary analysis is made here.

In general, as comprehensive video products, iQiyi, Tencent Video and Youku Video are all products with relatively mature product functions. The data also shows that all three products have a relatively large user base, and all three products come from the largest Internet companies in China.

Therefore, the author still believes that, judging from the above operational data, the important factor in the success or failure of the competition among the three still lies in the content.

7. Summary of advantages and disadvantages

3. User Analysis

1. User Map

2. User Profile

4. iQIYI User Survey

We conducted in-depth interviews with five users who have used iQiyi for more than three years in an attempt to find a basis for finding function optimization suggestions based on actual conditions. The survey results are as follows.

1. User interview survey results

2. Research Summary

iQiyi - an excellent video playback "tool" that should be more fun.

iQiyi has many services or modules, including copyrighted content, long videos, short videos, social media, and shopping malls. Although the services are "all-encompassing" and cover almost all forms of Internet life, the connection between people is always a strong connection, while the connection between people and content is a weak connection.

If iQiyi relies solely on copyrighted content to maintain user stickiness, it must buy all the copyrighted content, which is obviously impossible, and each IP requires huge creativity and cost to support it; therefore, in my opinion, the simultaneous development of video entertainment and social media may be an important means for iQiyi to maintain its leading position in comprehensive video activity.

Judging from the UI of iQiyi, "Video in a Moment" and "Discover" are in more prominent positions. "Video in a Moment" mainly contains long and short videos, while "Discover" mainly focuses on social media such as Bubble Circle and incorporates content such as celebrity entertainment. Therefore, users can be divided into these three main categories.

When copyrighted content is promoted in the form of a hot topic, it can attract a large number of users who come for this hot topic, but it may also be quickly abandoned by users due to the cooling of this hot topic. This is also reflected in the research process. This hot topic may not be liked by every user, just as iQiyi may not be loved by all netizens. Even users who have used iQiyi for three to five years may not be deep enough sometimes.

Therefore, even if it has become an excellent video playback "tool" and is good enough, iQiyi has not been able to be comprehensive enough. If the video content is diverse, should the gameplay also be diverse?

The author believes that yes, content platforms, apart from the need to have excellent content quality, also need to be fully prepared for "players" of UGC content in the field of comprehensive videos; from another perspective, it is indeed just a tool, so perhaps we can start by making it easier to use and more fun, and prepare for the introduction of more high-quality content.

Old users have not yet touched the depths that iQiyi has newly explored.

1) They are all old users, and they are not deep enough

Social division of labor has led to the continuous development of productivity, improved efficiency, and the continuous differentiation of various industries and subdivision of functions. As a part of society, the Internet industry is constantly subdivided into various fields, and users are also "going with the flow" and becoming diversified (this is getting off topic). However, it is not that users are not loyal, but a natural expression of "seeking profit and avoiding harm". Since it is entertainment, it is natural to go back and choose the way that can more easily bring happiness.

Judging from the users surveyed, they mainly spend their time watching copyrighted content and have little contact with other modules of iQiyi. Perhaps it is because under the influence of the overall environment, other segmented video vertical categories are being gradually optimized, which not only allows users to get more happiness, but also captures more users. While users satisfy themselves, they also allow the development of various video vertical categories.

Judging from the time they have been in contact, they are deep enough. However, if we are to consider them as the most loyal group who have a deeper understanding of each module, they probably cannot be considered as such.

Therefore, the author conducted an invitation test to screen out old iQiyi users who were interested in learning about long videos or had watched long videos of products other than iQiyi and had the habit of chasing stars, and then interviewed them.

Among the five users, the time of using iQiyi ranges from three to six years, four of them have no fixed usage time, and one user has the habit of using it every day; each usage time is more than one hour, which is in line with the length of a single episode of current TV dramas and variety shows; but the five users are more focused on watching copyrighted content, and rarely use "Sui Ke Video" and Bubble Circle, and three users believe that there are alternatives.

Therefore, although all services of a product cannot become frequently used services for all users, from the perspective of this survey, iQiyi can indeed meet the needs of users for watching videos and has a high user stickiness, and this user stickiness is based on the dissemination of hot spots and the maintenance of popularity; therefore, by optimizing the services of "Sui Ke Video" and Bubble Circle, it can further meet the needs of users for watching videos to a certain extent, and from the perspective of improving the community, increase the connection between users and enhance user stickiness.

Survey flaws: The sample size of this survey is small, and it only targets the new generation of post-90s users with relatively strong purchasing power. No survey was conducted on the post-00s user group, and it cannot represent the satisfaction of the needs of a large number of user groups.

2) Create better content to make integration more comprehensive

Judging from the feedback, it is often mentioned that the content of "Sui Ke Video" is not good enough. The author has thought about this issue for a long time. Is it because iQiyi does not have enough users and lacks "onlookers"? Is it because the presentation format of "Sui Ke Video" is not good enough? Have iQiyi’s current creators run out of creative ideas? Or has long video lost its market? Maybe it's just that there are more choices and less time.

iResearch Consulting's report "A Review and Exploration of the Value of Online Long Video Content during the China Epidemic Period in 2020" points out that under the extreme situation of the epidemic, the usage time of mobile Internet has increased, and the frequency and duration of online video use have increased significantly. As long as users are given enough time, they will still choose long videos; so in other words, in the white-hot stage of content growth, whether the content is "high-quality" has become one of the criteria for users to choose content; how to produce high-quality content, the internal driving force is the creativity of creation, and the external factors are the support of the network environment and platform; therefore, the author believes that in addition to the means of operation, becoming a creative tool that can provide the greatest help to creators is of certain help in creating high-quality content.

According to the regression survey results, four out of five users' preference for content depends on the quality or value of the content. Three users think that the content in "Sui Ke Video" is not good enough, and one user thinks that the quality of long video content has declined, the theme repetition rate is high, and the dubbing of the video is not good. As for the channel for receiving long videos, all five users said that they mainly use the "Sui Ke Video" module, while the "Hotspots" and "iQiyi Accounts" categories in the "Homepage" were ignored, and they were not even informed of the existence of these two categories until during the survey.

In terms of the extension of user demand satisfaction, for example, when users see a video or background music on a topic of interest and then go looking for other related content, there is an obvious disconnect; users will disengage from iQiyi in this process and may go elsewhere to meet their needs, reducing their stay time on iQiyi.

When talking about screen projection, one user mentioned the experience of watching videos with his girlfriend. In addition to increasing the visual effect, screen projection can also be an important means of sharing. Therefore, in terms of sharing, screen projection requires a TV, which is a rather harsh condition for most young people today. A function similar to "invite friends to watch together" for simultaneous online viewing may make up for the gap in "sharing".

The comprehensive video apps of iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video all have the function of capturing GIFs or clips, which can help users record or save some good memories when watching videos; or the services in this regard can be more diversified. In terms of sound, it can be processed into mobile phone ringtones, dubbing or BGM for long or short videos; for the clip part, it can imitate the wallpaper engine and output it as dynamic wallpaper for mobile phones or PC desktops.

However, most surveyed users did not express any demand in this regard. Among the five users surveyed, only one user had tried to publish video clips, and said that there was a lack of secondary editing process, which reduced the user's sense of control over video editing.

3) “Bubble Circles” and “Circles”

The "Circle" service looks like a star-chasing service, but in fact it is more like an Internet cultural gathering place centered on star-chasing culture, a bit like social media, and also has the shadow of a community; while the "Bubble Circle" focuses on star-chasing services. The “Circle” service has indeed enriched iQiyi’s graphic and text messaging formats, but most of the top creators in the Circle have stagnated in posting content.

In addition to information, community "activities" are the highlight. Community activities are not published in the traditional form of pinned posts, but are placed together in specific "activity" modules, and each activity is included together in the form of double #topics, making it more prominent.

When chasing stars as a healthy hobby, it is more like a process of fans finding like-minded people. People with the same interests gather together, which is essentially a social behavior. In addition to finding like-minded people, perhaps "fans" also want to do something for their idols, such as constantly updating the idols' exciting content in the "communication area", participating in the idols' offline activities and interacting with the idols.

The author believes that perhaps the profile of the idol can also be co-created by the "fans". The power brought by a person's "like" behavior cannot be ignored. Some senior fans may even know their idols better than the staff of iQiyi who operate the circle of their idols. The survey shows that two users believe that the celebrity profiles in the bubble circle are not detailed enough. Therefore, the celebrity profiles can be co-created by "fans", highlighting the characteristics of the celebrity from the perspective of "fans" and increasing the sense of belonging of "fans".

4) Membership payment status

In this survey, all the users surveyed have recharged their Gold VIP memberships, and one of them has recharged their FUN membership. The main reasons for recharging their memberships are to watch copyrighted content and skip advertisements. User payment for content and advertising revenue have always been important means of monetization. Although users who recharge their memberships satisfy the needs of unlocking paid content and skip advertisements, they still cannot escape another form of advertising that requires them to actively close "membership recommendations".

In this survey, two users felt that "secondary" advertising affected their usage experience; one user felt that there were too many members; and one user believed that there were not enough copyrighted content.

Ads inserted during videos themselves have an impact on the user's viewing experience, and part of the reason for paying is to reduce the impact of this viewing experience; however, if "member recommendations" appear in the original ad position, users will assume that it has the same impact as in the past, which is to reduce the user's viewing experience; therefore, consider adjusting the position of "member recommendations" to a position that will not affect the user's viewing experience.

V. Functional Analysis and Optimization Plan

User research attempts to find the iQiyi that users imagine from their hearts from the user's perspective. However, users are just users after all, and it is impossible to provide a complete product blueprint that is suitable for all users. Or, for products that have users and product designers, it is better to explore users' potential needs while meeting user needs, making the product more complete.

The author also tried to think about iQiyi from the perspective of a product person, and found roughly three directions: better tools, more emphasis on sharing, easier to find content, and more attractive circles.

The following will carry out functional analysis from these three aspects and give corresponding optimization solutions:

1. Better tools

iQiyi is positioned as a comprehensive video product. Its content types include copyrighted content, long videos, short videos, celebrity entertainment, and even pan-entertainment and entertainment media content developed simultaneously in various fields. However, apart from the copyrighted content that has been deeply cultivated, most of the content has not been developed in depth and is still in a relatively primitive situation where the amount of content is exploding but the quality is not good enough.

The following points are summarized:

Currently, the growth of Internet content has reached a white-hot stage, and the bonus period of content consumption has ended. However, the content growth rate is still very high, the audience is still large enough, and users still have a large demand for content. However, there has been a phenomenon of new forms driving out old forms. When the "total national time" is certain, long videos are easily abandoned by users, and short videos or content that can be regarded as satisfying to a certain extent are given priority. Moreover, users' taste for content is gradually being "trained". In addition to being fashionable and avant-garde, they also pursue depth in content.

With equipment upgrades and performance overflow, the functions of tools can also become diversified, just like the concept of mini-programs. It does not become a low-quality and useless Swiss Army knife, but derives more possibilities and meets the needs of more users under the same carrier. Impurity does not mean it cannot be wonderful. iQiyi can form diversity in content while providing users with a platform that is not just for viewing, but also a better creative space. Therefore, iQiyi can further improve every aspect of content creation.

Optimization suggestions: Improve the content creation process, and add a direct editing process to the process of capturing video clips; add the function of identifying BGM or sound to the video, and be able to save BGM as video material.

1) Cut the clip and enter the editing directly

The library contents are protected by copyright. If the selected content includes the library contents, the maximum length of the published video can be 5 minutes. If the selected videos only include local videos, the maximum length of the published video can be 60 minutes. (From iQiyi’s release time description)

After selecting the clip: (General process: Save-Edit-Publish)

Save the clip and enter the editing stage:

After the clip is saved, the editing stage enters the material selection stage, and the captured clip is selected by default and loaded automatically; after the video is loaded, the video can be loaded. Exiting during this stage will return you directly to the video screen.

Preparation stage:

The work preparation stage includes video editing and the selection of cover images, titles, texts and topics.

You can add materials again at any time during the video editing stage. During the process of adding materials, the modified operations on the video will be saved, the page will jump to the material library page, and after selecting the new material, press "Next", the new material will be automatically added to the end of the original material; other operations are performed according to the current version.

After the video editing is completed, the copy editing stage will begin. A maximum of 60 characters can be entered for the title, and a maximum of 500 characters can be entered for the copy. You can also enter no copy. Content topics are not mandatory. Topics that do not match the topic name may be deleted by the administrator (from the topic selection instructions for iQiyi work releases). Clicking the Previous button in the above process will return to the previous page.

Works published:

After the work is published, the above screen prompt will pop up. The prompt box will automatically disappear after 1 second and return to the creation center page.

2) Identify BGM in the video

Enable recognition:

Click the function key in the upper right corner of the screen, and the timeline will be segmented and highlighted, indicating that there is bgm that can be saved in this time period. At the same time, the Identify BGM function key will be highlighted; click the highlighted segment on the timeline, and a prompt box will pop up, prompting you to save the bgm as material in the material library of the Creation Center or open it in other ways.

Process the BGM after identification:

There are two main ways to process BGM: one is to save it to the material library, and the other is to open it in other ways - search for the music on the site/forward it/open it with a third-party app.

Select "Save to Material Library" to save the selected music as material and jump directly to the material library. At this stage, click the page return button to return to the video playback page and continue watching the original video.

Exit recognition:

Return to the stage where BGM can be selected, click the lit BGM recognition function key again to exit the function.

other:

2. Pay more attention to sharing

During the survey, it was found that users seem to have an impression of iQiyi in their minds that iQiyi is a well-known product, and everyone knows it; therefore, at the fork of iQiyi, whether to know iQiyi is not the key question. The key question is whether "I" have the qualifications to look at certain copyrighted content or whether to pay; therefore sharing plays an important role in breaking this dilemma, and the current sharing model cannot effectively break the dilemma of whether iQiyi is selected by users.

Although different regions separate the distance between people and cut off the direct physical contact between people, the birth of the Internet has given us the basis for spiritual interaction, the development of communication technology has made communication closer, and we can communicate with people thousands of miles apart, and even become friends.

The development of railway transportation has brought convenience to people's lives. One hour and a half hour urban circles are formed one after another. Distance may no longer be a problem in the future. What forms "obstruction" may be the lack of possibility; online social networking has made up for the possibility of people "contacting" with each other to a certain extent, and social APPs provide people with more opportunities to find closeness between people (cited in "Social Psychology"). "Social Psychology" tells us that geographical distance is not the key to becoming friends or liking each other, but more importantly, functional distance, that is, the frequency of intersecting life trajectories.

When iQiyi provides young people with a common cyberspace, it meets the ease of inducing likes - it is easy to send private messages or follow them between users, and as a video platform, most of the users who can gather must like to watch videos; this happens to be the possibility of intersections between users with life trajectory.

In addition to satisfying the spiritual self-satisfaction needs to a certain extent, sharing also gathers people, providing people with opportunities and places to discover functional distances, and providing a foundation for online social interactions; sharing also enriches entertainment methods such as long-distance couples who have to separate interpersonal relationships from the two places for certain reasons.

As an important part of iQiyi's commercialization, it is particularly important to consider more commercialization factors when modifying it. The content exclusive to the three top users of iQiyi, You and Tencent is that these three top "players" compete for important resources for paid users; on this "battlefield" of the market, consumers have a certain degree of profit-seeking. Users who have paid (with members activated) do not have the ability to pay to a certain extent, but that consumers have consumed on a platform A and then went to a platform B to consume. However, consumers after consumption on a platform A may be less difficult for consumers to consume on a platform A than for the consumer to consume on a platform B. The "advance consumption" model is an example; therefore, the author believes that in this aspect of user conversion, it can also be filled by sharing this behavior, but it is not for unconsumed users to convert, but to improve the reconversion of old users.

Optimization suggestions:

Add the "Invite to Watch Together" function to improve the efficiency of sharing.

1) Copyright content together with permission requirements design

Become a paid user:

• Users who have the copyrighted content to share must be paid members. The sharing behavior is not affected by the membership period, including monthly, collection or annual users; sharing can only be carried out during the membership effective period, and expired members do not have sharing permissions.
• Copyright content buyout: The right to view copyright content that users can purchase. Users after purchasing copyright can watch and share the copyright content without being restricted by membership period and rights. (Current movie tickets)

Share restrictions:

• The shared content is not limited to copyrighted content, and the sharing function can also be used for free content.
• The sharing time of different copyright content varies. Popular content on iQiyi’s homepage cannot be shared; content with a duration of less than 60 minutes can be viewed; copyright content with a duration of more than 60 minutes must be paid for sharing, and this payment is only limited to the same episode shared; after buying out, it is not subject to the provisions of this article.

Rewards paid in sharing (the “sharing” mentioned below is for paid sharing only and does not include buyout):

• Member growth value rewards, sharing behavior can reward users' member growth value.
• Coupons Class I, including shopping coupons in malls and coupons for other categories of members.
• Coupon Class II, this coupon is a member coupon, which can deduct the fee for membership and is only used to give away other iQiyi users.
• The redemption value of the movie voucher, sharing can generate the redemption value of the movie voucher. The redemption value is accumulated to a certain number and can be used to redeem movie voucher. There are two types of movie voucher transmission: the random and designated formats; the random sending form is similar to the lottery, and the required redemption value is low; the designated viewing voucher can be used to specify the viewing value of a movie that requires a viewing voucher; both forms of movie viewing are for movies that require a viewing voucher.

2) Invite users

The way to invite users is to share the link. After the invited user clicks on the link, he prompts to open the iQiyi app and join "Watch it together"; users who accept the invitation need to have an iQiyi account and log in and install the iQiyi app, without other restrictions.

3) Join "Watch together"

After friends join the room where they "watch together", they watch the same video together and the viewing progress is consistent. Watching the room together is not disclosed in iQiyi. Other users cannot enter the room together from other links shared. There is a limit on the number of users joining the room together (the maximum design limit for this is 10 users).

To watch the room together, only the video played in the room selected by the homeowner members. The homeowner members can use the room settings to adjust the video playback progress for ordinary members; the settings that are not shared by the video include brightness adjustment, volume adjustment, and full screen. Homeowners can set the default video and video clarity when ordinary members enter the room to watch together. In actual situations, the corresponding settings can be enabled according to the user's member activation situation. The functions that are no longer available in the mode of view include speed adjustment, timing off, public screen barrage, VR mode, only view TA, and skip the opening.

When watching the room together, no longer displays the public screen barrage. The content displayed on the private screen barrage is the chat records of the room members. Room members can set the display position of the barrage and whether to display the chat record details (if it is not displayed, the chat situations generated in the room are prompted by the system).

Permission to open:

No permission to open:

4) Watch the chat room together

The chat room function retains the modules included in the current version of private chat. On this basis, the chat page adds the video introduction, picture-in-picture, viewing settings together, synchronizing progress buttons, and starring in the bubble circle.

Video introduction:

Picture in Picture (reselectable videos to play):

Let's see the settings together:

Starring Bubble Circle:

Synchronous progress:

When exiting "Watch Together", a prompt pops up and returns to normal playback mode.

3. More attractive circles

Circles are one of the ways for users to vent their interests. Although celebrities are launched as a product to a certain extent, from the perspective of products, they are no different from other objects of interest, but people can have better interactions. In a healthy process of chasing stars, in addition to being a social process of understanding likes, social channels such as circles often become a psychological place where "fans" can place their own mood of chasing stars; therefore, in this psychological place, it is particularly important whether "fans" have enough sense of belonging.

The "circle" should be a relatively closed place that does not affect the addition of new traffic, which is a bit like juan, not quan; the current iQiyi bubble circle is more like a square, with strong public areas and users have little stickiness to the circle.

The author believes that this relatively closed attribute comes from the fans' sense of belonging to the circle. Improve fans' sense of belonging to the circle, so that "fans" can stand from their perspective, express their love for their idols in a form that forms a balance of thinking consensus with their idols, and let "fans" build their own psychological place for themselves.

Optimization suggestions:

• Set the specified fan permissions to allow fans to participate in the editing of celebrity profiles;
• Add "bubble history" and "bubble achievements" to record fans' little things on iQiyi's star-chasing journey.

1) User editing celebrity profile

The introduction of the Circle Stars is provided by iQiyi official. Some users can edit the introduction of the celebrity, and the editing permissions are divided from the identity of the circle friends. The main standards are high activity and great contribution.

The number of content published by high activity, the number of content reads, and the length of time the circle is added, but there are weights between the standards. The weights mentioned above are decreasing from left to right.

The contribution refers to the number of high-quality content, the number of people invited to the circle, and the activity level. The above three points also have weights and are decreasing from left to right. According to the activity and contribution as the standards, the divided circle owners, administrators, and "experts", "big guys" or "celebrities" among the certified users can edit and review the edited introduction content. Novice among the certified users can also participate in the editing of the content, but there is no review authority.

Judgment of file editing permissions:

When a circle member clicks the file editing button, he judges the user's permissions. Users with permissions can directly turn on the file editing function; users without permissions prompt "You have no file editing permissions", permission requirements, and the progress of the user's current reaching the permission requirements, and guide users to reach the permission requirements to improve user activity.

Permission to open:

No permission prompt:

Archive information editing process:

The operations of archive editing include editing archive information, changing circles and cover pictures of archive pages, and reading drafts. Editing archive information includes modification, addition, deletion, and search functions. The editing process can preview the information content and save the editing progress draft; replacing the circle cover image can upload custom pictures; reading the draft can open the last pause and save operation to continue editing the archive.

Edit the file:

File modification:

Add pictures:

Add title:

Add subtitle:

Add text:

Add entries:

Reduced content:

search:

Save draft:

submit:

Preview:

Exit without saving and publishing:

2) Circle history

The "Fan Home Page Lv4 (Show Actual Level)" below the celebrity avatar can enter the "Fan Home Page" page. This page is modified based on the fan level description page in the current version. The display content includes the user's basic information, the Bubble Circle Level and the upgrade status, and mainly displays the content of three parts: Bubble History, Bubble Achievements, and Fan Value.

Bubble history:

Open the "Fan Home Page", and the page displayed by default is "Bubble History".

In the "Bubble History" paging, it mainly arranges in time and reverse order, recording the number of days the user joins the circle, date of joining the circle, sign-in status, posting status, participating in topics and activities, and interactions with commemorative value, such as achieving the first achievement and receiving a medal.

To a certain extent, the journey can be seen as collecting traces of their star-chasing traces for users in the bubble circle, hoping to give the star-chasing users the meaning of the memorial album.

In addition to records, you can open to view specific participation in each record displayed.

Open the check-in calendar when check-in situation;

• High-quality content release record opens personal content release updates;
• Topics and activities to participate in opening up personal topics and activities to participate in records;

In these subdivided pages, users are further guided to guide them to participate.

Bubble achievements:

Bubble achievements are packaged in a form similar to tasks (tasks in electronic games), and divide the various interactions in the bubble circle, and record the user's activity in various aspects such as watching videos, postings, viewing posts, and content interactions. After completion, they are given certain positive feedback, such as unlocking the medal, thereby increasing the user's sense of accomplishment to complete to a certain extent.

The achievement system is actually one of the ways to guide users to be active. It can enhance the purpose of users' active interaction in the bubble circle by designing the achievement completion conditions; in unfinished achievements, in addition to displaying the instructions of the completion conditions and the rewards given, guidance is also required to enable users to actively contact the content.

Fan Value:

The posting process mainly records the historical posting of an individual in a certain circle. The cumulative posting pages are arranged in chronological order. The high-quality content is selected according to iQiyi's standards, and the high-quality content in historical postings is arranged from high to bottom according to the reading volume.

The "Fan Value" paging is modified on the current version of the "Cumulative Fan Value" page. At the end of each week (every week arranged by the calendar in reality), adding "Inventory" allows users to get more direct access to the content displayed in the inventory.

VI. Conclusion

During the investigation, users' answers about iQiyi often make me feel that iQiyi is just a player.

At the end of the writing, the question that lingers in my mind is still the one that lingers in my mind. After these optimizations are made, isn’t iQiyi a tool? But aren’t people used to treat useful and valuable inanimate bodies as tools?

However, iQiyi should not just make a tool, it needs to deliver more value; all optimizations, to a certain extent, are to better serve users and improve product value, which is the starting point for the author to give the optimization plan.

However, the focus of the optimization solution is not enough except for delivering value; value is often relative, and there is an object, and "useful" is for a certain object; therefore, it is particularly important to determine the user portrait. We need to know what group our users are, and what characteristics this group has, what they have, what they lack, and what we can give; by understanding the user, we will better find what can satisfy the user in the scene. In order to find the user psychology of movement in relatively static scenes.

In the analysis of the demand scenarios in this chapter, I try to first describe some of the more realistic user psychology, so as to find a more reasonable endpoint for the functional optimization solution.

"Value" is the ammunition of the product, and the user psychology in demand scenario analysis is a sight that can help accurately hit the bull's eye - in order to strive to be as accurate as possible and purposeful as possible, not to make this optimization report a castle in the air.

Author: Wang

Source: Wang