Hupu APP Product Analysis Report

This article conducts product experience and analysis on the " Hupu " APP from five aspects: strategy layer, scope layer, structure layer, framework layer, and presentation layer. We also took "Tencent Sports " as a competitor and compared its core functions with Hupu's own characteristics, and finally put forward iterative suggestions for the new version of Hupu.

1. Product Overview

1.1 Experience Environment

1.2 Product Name

Hupu’s current full name in the App store is “Hupu - Basketball, Football, Games and Movies”. Hupu was founded in 2004 and its original name was "HoopCHINA Basketball Forum". It is a community focused on basketball. Later, Hupu began to add football, e-sports and various entertainment sections. The current "Basketball, Football, Games, and Films" comprehensively demonstrates the scope of Hupu community content, and also highlights Hupu's transformation from a sports community to an "interest community for 100 million young people."

1.3 Product Logo

Hupu’s new logo was launched on iOS version 7.5.4 on April 13, 2020. The logo is designed as "Hupu + JR", changing HUPU to Hupu, returning from English to Chinese, which means putting JR on the shoulders. The future of Hupu will be written by JRs together. It expresses Hupu’s importance to JRs. JR has two meanings. One is a humorous interpretation of "bitch", and the other is a warm symbol of "family". Although JRs may argue about some things, they will always be a member of the Hupu family.

1.4 Product Introduction

"Real, interesting and warm, an interest community of 100 million people" is the introduction of Hupu's latest version. “Young people’s interest community” is the introduction of Hupu version 7.5.1. It can be seen that the new introduction has been changed to "community" and a series of adjectives have been added, which more accurately reflects Hupu's product positioning. From "young people" to "100 million people", the age range has been weakened, the number of users has been strengthened, and the scale of Hupu has been demonstrated. "Authentic, interesting and warm" reflects the unique Hupu community culture built by JRs. "Interest" represents the richness of Hupu's content sections, ranging from sports, e-sports to entertainment content. Hupu has also developed from a "global sports information app" to its current community-based interest content platform.

2. Product Experience Analysis

2.1 Strategic Level

2.1.1 Product Positioning

Hupu is an interest community for 100 million young people. The community content covers various sections such as sports, e-sports, and entertainment. It also has all kinds of latest event information and data. It is the spiritual home for hundreds of millions of sports fans, game fans, and movie and television fans.

2.1.2 User Requirements

2.1.2.1 User Profile

1) Age distribution

Young people aged 20-29 are the main core users of Hupu, accounting for 66.62%. Hupu's sports, competitive and entertainment communities are more in line with the tastes of young people who have a competitive spirit and love new things. Compared with older people, young people have more energy and time to be active in the community atmosphere of Hupu, express their own opinions, watch various sports games, and communicate with other JRs.

2) Geographical distribution

Hupu's users are mainly concentrated in the southeast region, with the largest number of users in the southeastern coastal provinces. In addition, Sichuan in the southwest region also has a high search index. Guangdong, the Yangtze River Delta region and Beijing have leading user data, mainly because the region has a developed economy and abundant university and corporate resources, which attracts many young people to study and work hard. Young people in economically developed regions are also the user group with the greatest monetization potential.

3) Gender distribution

While the gender distribution of all apps on the Internet is relatively even, the gender distribution of Hupu users is a major feature. Among them, male users account for 90.95%, which explains why Hupu Pedestrian Street is also known as the "Straight Men's Street". Hupu started out with basketball, and the subsequent expansion into football, e-sports and other sections are also mostly of interest to men. Men like sports equipment more than women, so this gender distribution is not surprising.

2.1.2.2 User needs

The Hupu user demand map between 2020/04/06 and 2020/04/12 is as shown above. It can be seen that the keywords with strong correlation and rising search trends include "Hupu PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" and "Hupu Community", while "Hupu NBA" shows a decreasing trend in popularity. It is speculated that this is mainly due to the suspension of the NBA and other competitive sports during the epidemic, which has led to an increase in the popularity of e-sports content, and also further highlighted the "community" attribute of Hupu.

Based on Hupu's product positioning, its user needs can be divided into two aspects:

1) Basic needs - event information

With the development of the economy and the country's support for sports, users' attention to sports continues to increase. The development of mobile Internet has made it possible for users to watch various competitions and read first-hand information anytime and anywhere. Hupu has the most timely pre-match and post-match reports, as well as massive and comprehensive sports data and e-sports news. On Hupu, you can learn about event information, see real-time data, share professional opinions, and give objective ratings to meet users' needs for timely and in-depth understanding of events. This is also one of the basic functions of sports platforms.

2) High-level needs: community culture

In addition to watching events and reports, users need to exchange relevant views on the platform. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Hupu's community carries users' social needs, respect needs, and self-actualization needs. Social interaction corresponds to active and rich communication, respect corresponds to harmonious and civilized communication methods, and self-realization can be reflected through growth systems such as reputation provided by Hupu. Users make friends and win the respect of other JRs by expressing their opinions and helping others in the Hupu community. Users' sense of belonging to the Hupu community is also an important factor in improving user stickiness.

2.1.3 Market Background Analysis

2.1.3.1 Current Development Status of Sports Industry

In recent years, our country has strongly supported the development of the sports industry. The "13th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Sports Industry" issued by the General Administration of Sport of China points out that by 2020, the total scale of China's sports industry will exceed 3 trillion yuan, the added value of the industry will account for 1.0% of the gross domestic product, the added value of the sports service industry will account for more than 30%, and sports consumption will account for more than 2.5% of the per capita disposable income of residents. The scale and quality of the sports industry continue to improve, and the level of sports consumption grows steadily.

The "2019 PwC Sports Industry Survey Report" released by PwC shows that the global sports market is expected to grow by 6.4% in the next 3-5 years. The report noted that digital media copyrights are expected to be a key driver of overall growth, with a growth rate expected to reach 9.7% over the next 3-5 years. In addition, e-sports ranked first in terms of revenue growth potential for two consecutive years, while among traditional sports, football and basketball still lead in terms of revenue growth potential.

With the guidance of policies and economic growth, people pay more and more attention to sports. The development of mobile Internet, high-definition live broadcast, 5G, immersive viewing, and smart wearable devices has brought new technological platforms to the sports service industry. From live broadcasting and relaying systems to e-commerce services for sporting goods, the integration of the sports industry with entertainment culture and traditional industries is becoming increasingly in-depth. However, the proportion of added value of my country's sports industry in GDP is still lower than that of developed countries. This also shows that there is sufficient room for growth in the development of my country's sports industry. However, we must take into account the process of population aging, which may affect the final peak of the industry to a certain extent.

In the 2019 Chinese sports user consumption statistics, the proportion of users' consumption on sportswear and sports equipment ranked at the forefront, which also shows the huge commercial potential of the sports goods e-commerce business.

2.1.3.2 Market competition

Currently, Internet sports service platforms mainly focus on event dissemination and the creation of community platforms. Among them, event IP copyright is a must-have for major sports platforms. Compared with Internet giants, Hupu’s disadvantage in NBA event copyright is very obvious. However, due to the long-term accumulation of users and the cultivation of community culture, Hupu has the most distinctive sports community platform. Hupu has introduced various entertainment sections, expanded the user range, and created its own offline event IP - King of the Road. In terms of e-sports, Hupu also has strong competitiveness. In addition, with the development of e-commerce, major sports platforms are competing to open e-commerce portals, such as "Shihuo" launched by Hupu and "Sports Mall" launched by Tencent Sports.

In the independent device ranking of sports information apps, Tencent Sports ranked first and Hupu ranked fifth. Due to the large number of suspensions caused by the epidemic, the month-on-month growth rates of these products were all negative.

In the App store sports (free) ranking trend chart, we can see that Hupu, Tencent Sports, and PP Sports are at the top. The rankings of Hupu and PP Sports are very close, with no one better than the other. Before March 12, 2020, Tencent Sports ranked higher than Hupu most of the time, but after March 12, Hupu's App ranking was higher than several other products. It is speculated that this is because after mid-March, the epidemic broke out on a large scale abroad and a large number of competitions were suspended, which had an impact on the rankings of apps for live broadcasts and replays of events. Hupu has its own community advantages, high user stickiness, and its current positioning is more towards a sports and entertainment interest platform, so its ranking does not fluctuate much.

In June 2019, ByteDance invested RMB 1.26 billion in Hupu, holding a 30% stake. The two parties have launched comprehensive cooperation around content interoperability and collaborative services for content creators, aiming to enable information to create more value for users. While ByteDance is expanding its business types, Hupu has also continued to emphasize its community attributes, gradually expanded its product sections, and started the vigorous development of short video content and information.

2.2 Scope Layer

2.2.1 Core Functions

1) Event Information

Hupu's event channels are very comprehensive, including news, schedules, live broadcasts (pictures, videos), and very comprehensive team, player, game data, etc. for basketball, football, e-sports, and its own event IP "King of the Road". These channels meet the viewing needs of every sports user. In addition, the quality of Hupu’s event news is very high and has been widely praised. At the same time, users can choose their home team to get better information and viewing experience.

Taking the NBA as an example, its current event content includes five columns: hot discussions, news, suspension progress, schedule, and data.

The Hot Topics section mainly contains posts related to the NBA community from users, allowing JR to learn about what everyone is talking about recently regarding the NBA, and it is more life-oriented.

The news section is more inclined towards professional and latest information.

The schedule column displays the teams and times of the competition in a clear list. Click to enter the live broadcast, guessing and other pages.

The data column includes various data lists of teams and players, and provides a search function to allow users to better understand the team.

Due to the copyright of event IP, Hupu can only provide users with live text and picture broadcasts of many heavyweight matches such as the NBA and Premier League. However, with the popularization of 4G and measures such as reducing traffic fees, the advantage of saving traffic in live text and picture broadcasting is becoming smaller and smaller. In addition, 5G is being deployed rapidly, and companies that own copyrights can explore technologies such as immersive video in the future. This will inevitably cause more users to be lost due to live broadcast issues. However, Hupu has accumulated a large number of users in the process of controlling news quality and deepening its community and data information, forming its own product tone and high user stickiness. Therefore, after watching live broadcasts on other platforms, users usually choose to communicate in the Hupu community, so Hupu’s positioning as an “interest community” is crucial.

Secondly, Hupu created its own event IP "King of Passersby", cooperated with CBA, added e-sports, entertainment and other sections, and also attracted many users.

2) Community section

Hupu’s unique community culture is the key to retaining new users. The community section carries a series of social operations such as user posting, commenting, sharing, following, etc. Hupu's topics such as "Pedestrian Street" and "Wet" are community sections that have become popular. Users in the community have their own exclusive titles, JRs. Meeting JRs on other platforms will create a unique sense of intimacy and belonging.

Hupu’s “Community” navigation tab is located at the center of the entire navigation bar, reflecting the importance of the community section. For the community, Hupu has made very clear vertical classifications to ensure that users can choose the circles of their interest to share and communicate, thereby enhancing the user's social experience. In recent years, Hupu has continuously expanded its social section, covering sports, e-sports, film and television, entertainment, digital, automobiles, etc., satisfying all types of users, making Hupu's community not only a sports community, but also a life community for JRs. Here you can make friends, answer questions, relieve boredom, find equipment... The competition will come to an end temporarily, but life will not.

In terms of details, Hupu provides many options for the sorting and filtering mechanisms of post comments, allowing users to more conveniently view comments in the way they like. In addition, the unique "light up" and "light down" mechanism is different from the "likes" of other social platforms, adding recognition to the Hupu community. And "bright" is more in line with JRs' tone than "really great". In addition, when viewing a post, just click the comment tab to jump directly to the comment section. The humanized product design makes Hupu’s community functions more complete and attractive.

In terms of user incentives, Hupu has set up a reputation system and a level system. The contribution of this JR to Hupu can be judged by the reputation value. The reputation value has also become an exclusive attribute of JRs, which has a sense of the underworld.

3) Video area

Short videos are currently the hottest trend, occupying most of the user traffic. For Hupu, which emphasizes community, introducing short video content is a reasonable choice to improve user retention, usage time and stickiness. In June 2019, ByteDance acquired a stake in Hupu, giving Hupu a convenient entry into the short video field. Hupu has added a "Video" tab to the primary navigation bar, presenting content in the form of video streams and vertically classifying videos through channel columns, allowing users to watch them conveniently. After entering full screen mode, swipe down to watch unlimited streaming videos.

However, at present, most of Hupu's video content is moved by users from other platforms, and when moving, you only need to enter the original video link, which is very convenient. However, the quality of the videos moved varies, and some of the content is quite vulgar. Hupu also provides users with the function of shooting and publishing videos, but the shooting style can only be selected from the original camera. The format is too simple and cannot achieve the purpose of encouraging original creation on the platform.

2.2.2 Features

1) Equipment Identification

There was originally a special page for "Knowing Goods" in the navigation bar of the Hupu APP, but the layout was later changed due to business differentiation. Currently, Hupu’s e-commerce is concentrated on the “Shihuo” APP. However, you can still click on "Equipment" in the "Channel" column on the Hupu recommendation page to enter the equipment area.

The equipment library is connected to the equipment mall, and equipment identification can be done by inviting appraisers using Hupu coins. Hupu’s cargo identification is authoritative in the industry and therefore highly respected. On the identification payment page, users can get a free identification opportunity by sharing it with friends. Such small incentives can effectively achieve the purpose of product promotion and attracting new customers.

2) Community question answering mechanism

If a new Hupu user wants to post a hotline during a live match, he or she must first answer questions in the community to ensure that the values ​​are consistent before he or she can officially become a JR.

The difference is that previously new users needed to answer questions before posting or replying on the Pedestrian Street, but as far as the new version experience is concerned, there is no need to answer questions when posting the first post, and the community test page will only pop up when a hotline is released.

The advantage of the question-answering mechanism is that it purifies the community, filters out inappropriate users, and at the same time allows users to understand the rules of the Hupu community through questions. The disadvantage is that it raises the threshold for ordinary users to join Hupu, which may reduce user retention to a certain extent. Therefore, it is speculated that the changes triggered by the question-answering mechanism are intended to balance the relationship between user quality and quantity so that users can have a better community experience.

2.3 Structural Layer

Hupu uses five navigation bars to distinguish the functions of each page. Under each page, there is a "channel" navigation bar for users to select the vertical field channel they are interested in and read information. And the channels on each page can be selected and sorted by the user to better improve the user experience.

• The "Recommendations" page displays the content of each channel in a personalized manner in the form of a graphic and text information stream.
• The "Events" page includes information, news, schedules, data, etc. on various sports and competitive games for sports enthusiasts to view and search.
• The "Community" page includes the Follow and Topic columns. In the Topic column, you can enter different topic circles according to your preferences and communicate with like-minded JRs.
• The "Video" page is a collection of various video content and information. After going full screen, you can scroll down infinitely to refresh new content. You can adjust the video time progress by sliding your finger left and right on the screen. There is also a barrage function.
• On the "More" page are personal profiles, related settings, and some Hupu gadgets and games.

2.4 Framework Layer

2.4.1 Recommended Page

2.4.2 Event Page

2.4.3 Community Page

2.4.4 Video Page

2.5 Presentation Layer

The overall UI design of Hupu APP adopts red and white tones, which is very simple. Red represents enthusiasm and youthful vitality. At the same time, the tab for each topic on the community page has a cute and recognizable anime logo, which not only fits the content of the topic but also reflects Hupu's spirit of keeping up with trends and fashion.

You can switch between different channels directly by swiping left or right on the recommendation and video pages. It is very convenient and the sense of design is reflected in the details.

3. Competitive Product Analysis

3.1 Competitive product selection

Hupu started out as a basketball community, but the NBA copyright was acquired by Tencent Sports, resulting in direct business competition. Secondly, Tencent Sports has also been developing its community section and has launched the Tencent Sports Mall to explore sports e-commerce. Whether in terms of core functions or target users, Tencent Sports is quite similar to Hupu and is Hupu's strongest competitor. Therefore, Tencent Sports was chosen as the competitor this time.

3.2 Basic Information Comparison

3.3 Competitive Product Function Structure Diagram

The primary navigation bar of Tencent Sports is divided into 4 tabs: Home, Schedule, Community, and My Page.

• The homepage uses a secondary navigation bar to vertically display different sports categories, and the categories can be added, reduced, and sorted. Popular matches will be displayed under relevant categories, and the match status will be displayed: highlights, replays, live video, live text and picture, ongoing, etc., which is very intuitive. In addition to popular competitions, there are also related news information and post recommendations.
• The schedule page contains a wide variety of sports events, and includes schedules, rankings, lists, and video highlights of previous games.
• The community page allows users to communicate with each other within the circle of their interest. Ordinary posts are in text and picture format, while the trendy community under the "Wow" column can publish video content. Under the "Wow" column, there is a small program link that jumps to the trendy product trading and identification platform.
• The "My" page can access personal homepage, member center, etc. There is also an entrance to the sports mall. The entertainment center includes game pages and fun activities.

3.4 Analysis and comparison of core functions

3.4.1 Live broadcast and schedule information

Tencent Sports signed a five-year exclusive Internet copyright with the NBA in 2015, and has the live broadcast rights for multiple e-sports events. The rich video live broadcast and highlights resources have greatly enhanced the appeal of Tencent Sports to sports fans. At the same time, Tencent Sports has a very complete range of event types. In addition to basketball, football, and e-sports, it also has live video resources for volleyball, F1 racing and other sports. It can be said to be one of the most professional sports media resource platforms.

The right side of Tencent Sports' schedule interface will clearly mark the game type, including live video, live text and picture broadcast, highlights, replays, etc. Allow users to have a clearer understanding of the event viewing experience. However, due to the disadvantage of event IP copyright, Hupu does not have such a rich variety of live broadcast types, so it cannot compete well with Tencent Sports in the field of event live broadcast.

In terms of user experience, in addition to presenting the schedule in list form, Tencent Sports also has a more intuitive schedule calendar, which allows users to understand the closeness of the event and arrange their time from a more macro perspective.

3.4.2 Competition Information

In terms of event information, Tencent Sports' event news and related posts are concentrated under the event category on the homepage. Among them, articles and news from sports accounts will appear in the form of lists, while users' related posts will be presented in the form of graphic and text information streams. The cross distribution of the two makes the interface a bit cluttered. At the same time, various advertisements, recommended information, etc. will be interspersed between information flows, which is not conducive to the user's viewing experience. However, the recommended follow-up column can give high-quality content providers moderate exposure and encourage users to produce content.

Compared with Tencent Sports' mixed information of articles and posts, Hupu's classification of news articles and user posts is clearer, making it easier for users to distinguish and choose information sources.

3.4.3 Community Section

1) Circles and Topics

The number of topics in Tencent Sports circles is smaller than that of Hupu, and most of the topics in Tencent Sports circles are sports-related, with fewer circles of life and entertainment types, making it suitable as a sports community. Hupu’s topics cover a wider range of fields and are suitable as a lifestyle community.

Tencent Sports’ circle navigation uses the top bar, while Hupu uses the side bar. In the circle module of Tencent Sports, the logo, name, number of fans, and a very direct follow button will be displayed, allowing users to follow with one click and clearly understand the number of followers in the circle. Hupu uses popularity in the topic module to tell users how popular the topic is, which is a different measurement standard than Tencent Sports.

2) Comments section

The comment section of Tencent Sports posts is presented in a building-within-a-building format, which makes it clearer for users to view the replies. Hupu also has a building-within-a-building format, but there is no preview of the comments within the building. In addition, there are also quote-reply comments along with the building-within-a-building, which makes the experience of ordinary users viewing comments somewhat confusing.

In addition, at the bottom of the comments, Tencent Sports will prompt "Brother, it's really over this time", which is very humorous and in line with the tone of young people. However, even though male users account for 90% of Tencent Sports users, there are still about 10% female users, so there is a probability that such prompts will not be suitable for the scenario. For Hupu, the bottom of the comment area of ​​its posts will display "It's the end, more exciting content recommended for you", allowing users to continue scrolling down to view posts without having to exit and then re-enter. However, the rhetoric was a bit too formal, and it was changed to one that was more JRs-style, allowing people to feel the youthfulness and liveliness of Hupu.

Hupu's operations in the comment area are more diverse. For example, the comments can be sorted "only by the original poster". In addition, the "light up" and "light down" methods give users more feedback options, which is very unique. Tencent Sports’ commentary operations are more conventional.

3) Posting and browsing operations

There are two posting operations on Hupu. One is to click on the upper right corner, and the other is to click on the floating icon on the topic page. The posting interface for both clicks is the same, and you can post text, photos, videos, and voting content. Tencent Sports’ community posting has a very interesting design. When you click on the popular columns on the community page, two floating windows will appear above the lower navigation bar, one with text and one with pictures, prompting users to post text and pictures here. The floating window prompt under the "Wow" column has become a camera icon, which can be used to publish pictures, videos and other content. When it comes to the follow column, the floating window has become pictures and texts. This design is very interactive and gives users a clear idea of ​​the format of the content being published.

When browsing posts on Tencent Sports, posts are presented in the form of a picture and text information stream. The picture content is enlarged to highlight the key points while attracting users to click. In addition, under the popular columns, the "follow" symbol appears in the right-hand sliding area, guiding users to interact by following. In addition, advertisements and personalized recommendations for columns that users are interested in will be placed in the information flow. Such settings can greatly stimulate users' desire to explore, form a good social interaction model, increase the chances of users clicking and following, and also motivate users to produce high-quality content.

In terms of the user rating system, Tencent has certified sports accounts, which are more like big Vs in the community and are also prone to generating fan effects.

In summary, in terms of guiding attention, Tencent has the "Follow tab on the right", the "One-click follow tab in circles" and the "Recommended user column" in the information flow, making the process of users following other users more convenient. However, if you want to follow a user on Hupu, you must go to the user's personal homepage before you can click to follow. The process is relatively cumbersome, and the probability of users following others will be reduced during the page clicking process.

4) Personal homepage

For personal pages, I selected sports account users of Tencent Sports and users with a reputation of more than 9,800 in the Hupu community for comparison.

The personal page of Tencent Sports includes four columns: video, posting, replying, and circle. At the top is the user profile column, including nickname, fans, following, likes, certification, level and introduction. The background picture can also be set by yourself. In addition, the blue "Follow" icon is very conspicuous and can attract users to click and follow. There is an obvious sharing tab in the upper right corner of the screen, where users can easily share their homepage with others.

• In the video column, the content is presented as a video information stream, and the larger display screen makes users want to click and watch.
• The content UI design under the post column is somewhat similar to the picture and text information flow of Weibo, with the pictures enlarged to highlight the key points.
• The reply column is more like the interface when forwarding a public account in WeChat Moments, highlighting the information of the original post and clearly showing the content of the user's reply.
• The circle column includes the circles that the user follows, allowing people who click on the user's homepage to quickly understand the user's preferences.

Overall, Tencent Sports’ personal homepage has a clear focus and many customized operations, which is enough to attract users to click on content, share, and follow. The entire design is relatively youthful, and text, pictures, and videos can all be well displayed.

At the top of the Hupu personal page are the user's avatar, nickname, reputation value, level, number of days since joining Hupu, number of likes, number of recommendations, people he follows, and people who follow him. The background image is an enlarged and blurred version of the avatar and cannot be customized. The font size of "Follow" is small and not particularly noticeable. Clicking the “…” in the upper right corner will only blacklist the user and will not allow sharing of the homepage. And it is obvious that even though the user has a very high reputation and a lot of likes, there are only 8 people following him.

Posts are only displayed in the form of text in the reply, post and recommendation columns. Apart from the extremely attractive title, other content is unlikely to arouse users' desire to click. Secondly, by randomly clicking on the homepages of Hupu users, we found that the number of news comment columns has always been 0, so the existence of this column does not seem to be very necessary. On the contrary, the topics that the user follows can help JRs better understand the user.

Overall, Tencent Sports’ personal interface is more customizable and displays information in a more diversified way, which can attract people to share and pay attention. However, Hupu’s personal interface is rather monotonous and cannot attract users to click, share, or follow, and cannot provide incentives for creators.

In summary, in terms of the community section, although Tencent Sports has not yet formed its own community tone and has not yet possessed the same user sense of belonging as JRs, Tencent attaches great importance to the development of the community and is ahead of Hupu in terms of guiding attention, diversified post display methods, and incentives for creators. If Hupu wants to maintain its position as the product with the strongest community in the sports industry, it must develop and iterate more functions and operations that are conducive to the development of the community and users without changing its temperament.

4. Suggestions for version iteration of "Hupu"

4.1 SWOT analysis

Overall, Hupu needs to take advantage of opportunities to strengthen its advantages and make up for its disadvantages as much as possible in order to meet better challenges.

4.1.1 Competition

1) Provide high-quality and timely reporting of information and news;

2) Continue to build its own event IP and expand its influence;

3) Strengthen cooperation with CBA, sports-related variety shows and brands;

4.1.2 Community

1) Develop high-quality community content, motivate creators, and form a virtuous closed loop;

2) Strengthen content supervision, filter out vulgar and provocative posts, and maintain a good community environment;

3) Cultivate and develop star JRs from the Hupu community.

4.2 Version Iteration Suggestions

(1) Provide users with the function of deleting their own comments with one click. Since users' reply information will be displayed on their personal homepage, they may sometimes make typos when replying, or change their minds after posting. Providing the function of deleting your own comments can increase the error tolerance of replies and improve user experience;

(2) The comments on Hupu posts include both quote replies and comments within a building, which looks a bit confusing and affects the experience of ordinary users reading comments. Comments can be unified into a building-within-a-building format, using the popular reply preview of Tencent Sports, or the format of Weibo comment area;

(3) Add a follow icon to the recommendation, video, and post body pages to guide users to follow and create incentives for high-quality content creators;

(4) Change the posts in the topic area that were arranged in a text stream list format to a graphic information stream or video stream format on the recommendation page or video page, using pictures and videos to attract users to click and watch. At the same time, the replies, posts, recommendations and other content on users’ personal homepages are mainly pictures and videos. Refer to the design of Tencent Sports;

(5) You can consider replacing the “News Comments” column on the Hupu personal homepage with the “Topics” column or the “Album” column. The number of "News Comments" columns for most users is 0, and it seems that due to data maintenance issues, even if you click on the user's homepage from the news comments, the number of "News Comments" is still 0. The role and click-through rate of this column remain to be discussed. But the "Topic" column can help new users better understand the user's preferences. The "Album" column can be used as a private space for JRs on Hupu to share their life scenes or favorite pictures, or as a collection of videos and pictures posted by users in posts, deepening the sociality between users;

(6) Currently, most of the content in Hupu Video section is copied from other platforms, leaving insufficient space for original content. When users choose to shoot, there are no auxiliary original tools such as special effects, filters, and music. However, Hupu is not positioned as a short video community, so there is no need to add too many fancy settings, but you can refer to the post-production of short videos on WeChat Moments. In WeChat, you can perform four operations on the short videos you shoot, namely: add emoticons, add text, add background music, and perform simple cropping. These four operations are enough for users to perform simple video processing, which can motivate JRs to create original works to a certain extent.

(7) Added the function of changing the background image of the personal homepage; added a red background to the white "Follow" tab to make it more obvious and in line with the color style of Hupu; in addition, in addition to adding to the blacklist in the "...", a button for sharing the user's homepage was added to increase the user's communication path;

V. Conclusion

As a community focusing on sports content, Hupu’s biggest disadvantage is event copyright. However, Hupu's "Pedestrian Street" has a large number of highly sticky JRs. It is these users that give Hupu its own characteristics and make it the product with the strongest community in the sports platform. JRs discuss games, watch news, and share their daily lives on Hupu. These users are willing to pay for Hupu's derivative businesses, such as sports e-commerce. Therefore, Hupu's product "Shihuo" has received a lot of attention, allowing Hupu to take a step further in exploring e-commerce business and broaden its business model. In June 2019, ByteDance invested in Hupu and began to enter the sports industry. Hupu also took advantage of the short video trend to launch a video section, enhance its community attributes, and changed its profile to "an interest community of 100 million people."

Compared with Weibo and Tieba, the biggest difference between Hupu is the user groups. The proportion of male users of sports products is much higher than that of female users. Hupu Pedestrian Street is even known as the "gathering place for straight men", and these JRs have a very strong sense of belonging to Hupu. As competition for event copyrights becomes increasingly fierce, it is imperative for Hupu to expand its community. Today, Hupu carries JRs on its shoulders and moves forward together to discover more high-quality content, develop Hupu's characteristics, discover a bigger world, and carve out its own space.

Author: A door

Source: Yizhimenmen