As an audio product, Himalaya has attracted a large audience with its rich variety and high content quality. Many users also post their own audios on it, forming a diversified content production model of PGC+UGC+PUGC. This article will analyze the Himalaya APP from five aspects, I hope it will be helpful to you.

1. Product Function Structure

1. Functional structure diagram

The core functions of Himalaya are divided into 5 modules:

1. Audio listening: The main functions are classification, recommendation, search and feedback of various audio content, as well as settings and feedback during audio playback.
2. Audio management: The main function is to manage the audio content that users have subscribed to, listened to, downloaded, and purchased. Users can also create custom listening lists to manage audio.
3. Community: A sharing community for text, audio, and video content. In addition, there are other forms of audio entertainment such as interesting dubbing, national reading, and karaoke.
4. My Account: Ordinary users use it to manage account information, membership, points, and personal content; anchors can use more functions after passing platform certification, such as daily data, income management, promotion, etc. In addition, multiple user preference settings in different modes are supported.
5. Settings: Connect to smart devices; user-defined settings such as push, privacy, listening preferences, and playback preferences.

2. User Path Map

Scenario 1: Listening to audio

Scenario 2: Publishing Audio

2. Industry Analysis

1. Market size

Since the birth of platforms such as Himalaya and Lizhi in 2013, the online audio industry has experienced an upgrade from a radio model to a comprehensive audio platform, from one-way listening at the beginning to a platform that combines learning, making friends, and entertainment. It has also achieved a multi-dimensional upgrade from filling fragmented time before bedtime and when riding in a car to developing into an ear economy.

In 2019, the market size of China's online audio industry reached 17.58 billion, a year-on-year increase of 55.1%, with audio entertainment, content payment, and advertising marketing as the main sources of income.

The online audio market has entered a stage of rapid growth since 2016, with a large influx of capital driving the rapid development of the industry. Thanks to the creation of high-quality content, the rich variety of content and the diverse forms of audio content, the online audio market has entered a mature period of steady development and is gradually entering the stock market.

Data source: iResearch

After years of rapid development, the online audio market has formed a "one super and many strong" situation.

The latest "2019 China Internet Audiovisual Development Research Report" shows that Himalaya's user penetration rate is 62.8%, ranking in the first tier; Lizhi and Qingting FM are in the second tier, with a user penetration rate of 33.5%. What cannot be ignored is that in vertical tracks other than online audio, the knowledge payment field, such as Duode APP and Zhihu, are also competitors of online audio.

2. Development History

From the development history of Himalaya and other industry leaders, we can see that:

1. The online audio industry has attracted the attention of capital, and major platforms have completed several rounds of large-scale financing. After years of development, the online audio industry has evolved from traditional audio and radio audio to a comprehensive audio entertainment platform.
2. Cooperate with copyright holders such as online literature and publishing houses to grab top IP resources and attract users to pay by using exclusive celebrity-recorded popular content. Explore new business models such as knowledge payment and live broadcast rewards. The problems of commercialization and copyright chaos have been gradually resolved.
3. Expand diversified content distribution channels. In addition to traditional mobile and PC terminals, reach ecological cooperation with manufacturers of smart devices, car-mounted equipment, smart homes, etc., develop a full-scenario audio ecosystem, and further expand the coverage of audio users.
4. Through marketing activities such as sponsorship program advertising, voice actor recruitment plans, and the launch of audio platforms on "Double 11", major platforms are competing for resources such as users, anchors, and high-quality content. Increase support for MCN organizations and anchors to jointly build a prosperous and high-quality audio ecosystem.
5. We attach importance to the new incremental market of parents and children, and launch content for teenagers and children, hardware equipment and children's content ecosystem solutions.
6. Since major platforms announced their listing plans in 2018, Lizhi was listed on the Nasdaq in the United States in January 2020, becoming "the first stock in China's online audio industry." It can be seen that major players in the industry are seeking to go public to obtain more financial support to achieve leapfrog growth.

3. User scale

But judging from the data, the audio industry still has a lot of room for development.

According to iResearch Consulting data, in 2018, China has become the country with the largest number of audio users in the world, with the user scale of the online audio market reaching 377 million. Currently, the mobile Internet user penetration rates of music, games, and online videos have reached 89%, 82%, and 74%, respectively, while the penetration rate of the online audio market is only 45.5%.

After several years of development, thanks to high-quality content and ecosystem construction, the user scale of the online audio industry has grown steadily, and major platforms are also expanding their ecosystems on multiple devices such as mobile terminals, smart speakers, and smart wearables.

However, compared with other rapidly growing areas of the Internet, such as short videos and live broadcasts, online audio is a relatively "slow-heating" industry. It was not until the opportunities of voice interaction and fragmented time consumption came that capital began to form awareness, and the ear economy also had a lot of stories to tell.

The Forward-looking Industry Research Institute predicts that the user scale of the online audio industry will continue to grow steadily in the future, and the future growth points of the industry will lie in the penetration of multiple scenarios, the expansion of multiple terminals, and the demand for seamless listening between terminals. The online audio industry is still a blue ocean, and industry players will gradually move into the second half of the competition.

4. Business Model

After years of development, China's online audio industry has become more mature and has formed a business model consisting of audio entertainment + content payment + advertising marketing + hardware equipment sales.

According to Analysys Qianfan data, in 2019, the highest share of revenue in the Internet audio market came from audio entertainment, namely income from user tips. The second largest share is content payment income, which mainly comes from membership subscriptions and one-time buyouts of audio content. The second largest source of revenue comes from advertising, hardware equipment, and peripheral derivatives.

In 2016, Himalaya partnered with the then popular variety show "The Debaters" to create the platform's first paid program "Speak Well", and sales exceeded 5 million on the same day.

In 2017, Qingting FM invited Gao Xiaosong to launch "Aidianjing Guide", which became Qingting FM's first self-produced paid audio program. 2016 is known as the "first year of knowledge payment", and pure knowledge payment products such as "Get" were born. The online audio industry has explored a new path to commercialization, while also launching a battle for IP and digital copyrights. The launch of high-quality audio content by major platforms and the rise of the "knowledge payment" trend have also increased users' willingness to pay for content, becoming one of the main contributors to industry revenue.

Data source: iResearch

In terms of advertising and marketing, the online audio field has greater advantages. Data shows that in addition to traditional graphic ads, banner ads and information flow ads, audio platforms have also inserted audio ads such as voice-over ads and audio patch ads, and users generally believe that audio ads are less disruptive and can leave a deeper impression.

Data source: iResearch

Lizhi, which is in the same industry, avoided the content payment dispute between Himalaya and蜻蜓FM and took a unique approach in the audio live broadcast track.

Lizhi believes that for users, online audio is more of a social way to maintain emotional connections than a tool for advanced learning. For users of live audio streaming, the core needs are emotion and sociality. With social interaction as the bond, user loyalty will be higher.

From the data, we can see that in 2019, audio entertainment accounted for 40% of the online audio market revenue, which has surpassed content payment, and the main component is user reward income.

Judging from the results of the report, the host's voice characteristics, professionalism and content quality are the main factors that make users willing to give rewards. In addition, the host's companionship and personal charm will also attract users to give rewards.

In 2019, the average annual reward amount of users was 777.4 yuan. Overall, the consumption amount was relatively high, more than three times the average consumption of content payment.

Data source: iResearch

In addition to the above main business models, Ximalaya is also exploring other directions:

1. Financial services: Launched co-branded credit cards with China Construction Bank, Hua Xia Bank, etc., as well as loan products "Wanda Puhui Wan E Loan" and "Xinwang Bank Good Man Loan". The benefits of purchasing financial products include happy points, memberships, discount coupons, autographs from authors of popular novels, etc., which monetize the huge traffic and membership resources.
2. Sharing rebates: Users can share rebates when purchasing paid products, which encourages users to promote products on their own initiative. Establish "Knowledge Ambassadors". After users become Knowledge Ambassadors, they can save money on their own purchases and earn money by sharing. Through a commission mechanism, new users are attracted and activation is promoted, allowing users to become promotion ambassadors of the platform.

3. User Analysis

1. User Data

According to the iResearch Qianfan Report, the number of monthly user launches increased by 73.8% and the monthly user usage time increased by 95.2% in 2019 compared to 2018. It can be seen that both user stickiness and usage depth have been greatly improved.

Among the data, the decline in user data from June to September 2019 was related to the rectification of audio content in the second half of the year. At that time, all major audio platforms were removed from app stores and could only be downloaded from Apple's APP Store, resulting in a decrease in user data instead of an increase. As for the decline in February 2020, the author speculates that it is related to the impact of the Spring Festival and the epidemic.

In the latest ranking of launch times and usage time in March 2020, Himalaya still occupies the leading position, with Lizhi and Qingting FM in the second tier.

Interestingly, Lizhi, which belongs to the second echelon, has twice as many launch times as蜻蜓fm, while the two apps have almost the same user usage time. From this, we can see that users open the "audio live broadcast" mode of Lizhi more frequently, the usage time is more uncertain and more fragmented.

Gender and age distribution: Males account for 66.1%, twice that of female users. In terms of user age structure, users aged 36-40 are the largest force, followed by users aged 24-30. The young and middle-aged group aged 24-40 accounts for 80% of the total users.

As for the fact that the proportion of men is twice that of women, I speculate that there are two reasons:

1. Content type: The most preferred program types by users are audiobooks, history and humanities, crosstalk and sketches, which are more in line with the preferences of men than women. Regarding paid knowledge content, the author referred to the user data of the Duode APP. The number of male users is nearly twice that of female users, which shows that men have a higher demand for knowledge acquisition than women.
2. Usage scenarios: Audio content occupies users’ fragmented time, such as commuting, lunch break, and before bed. Compared with men, women prefer to use fragmented time to watch TV series and variety shows.

Region and consumption capacity: Users in first-tier and super first-tier cities account for more than half, and people with medium-high, medium, and medium-low consumption capacities account for 80%. The two sets of data correspond to each other. Users in developed regions have higher consumption power, and are more demanding for knowledge and willing to pay.

2. User Profile

1) Xiao Chen/23 years old/female/senior student

After the senior year, there were not many courses in school and there was plenty of spare time. Xiao Chen likes to read fantasy novels very much and often stays up late to follow the series. Later, she found that her favorite audio novels were available on Himalaya. She found it very convenient and could be listened to at any time. The updates were also very timely, so she switched to listening to audio books.

As graduation is approaching, Xiao Chen has both expectations and fears about the workplace. He often listens to some workplace-related content on Himalaya, learns from the experience of his predecessors, and gets into the right state in advance.

2) Mr. Zhang/62 years old/male/retired employee

Lao Zhang has been retired for two years. In addition to visiting the flower and bird market, playing chess with Uncle Wang next door, and dancing square dance with his wife, Lao Zhang also likes to listen to Deyun Club's crosstalk on Himalaya.

Recently, his son bought a Xiaoya smart speaker for the family. Mr. Zhang doesn’t know how to use it, but his son taught him how to use it. By connecting it to Himalaya and using voice interaction, it becomes more convenient to listen to crosstalk at home.

3) Xiao Z/28 years old/male/Internet white-collar worker

Xiao Z works in an Internet company in Beijing. It usually takes him more than an hour to commute to and from get off work. In order not to waste time, Xiao Z listens to some IT and technology information on Himalaya on his way to work to keep up with the times. After get off work, I listen to some relaxing talk shows and jokes.

After working for 5 years, Xiao Z has some savings. Recently, he has become interested in financial management and investment. He pays attention to business and financial programs such as "Qi Junjie Looks at Finance" and "Hearing Wu Xiaobo" every day.

4) Xiaoke’s mother/32 years old/female/HR of a foreign company

Xiaoke is 3 years old this year and has started going to kindergarten. Xiaoke’s mother takes Xiaoke to kindergarten every day and then goes to work at the company. After getting up in the morning, Xiaoke will play some children's audio books on Himalaya while eating breakfast. When I return home in the evening, I will listen to some children's enlightenment classes with Xiaoke.

Xiaoke’s mother usually has various questions about her children’s education, so she also listens to the compulsory courses for parents related to children’s education and grows up with her children. The sleep-to-sleep stories on Himalaya also saved Xiaoke’s mother a lot of trouble.

5) Taobao girl/25 years old/female/customer service

Taomei has a cheerful personality and a sweet voice. Working as a customer service representative for a financial company, I found the work to be repetitive and boring, and the salary was not high. Taomei used to like listening to emotional radio on Himalaya. Later, when she was bored, she was browsing and saw an audio live broadcast. Taomei thought that she had a nice voice and liked to sing, so she became a certified anchor on Himalaya.

In the past six months, Taomei has been live streaming at home for one hour every night. Now she has some fans and can earn some pocket money. In the future, Taomei wants to focus more on live streaming and strive to achieve financial freedom as soon as possible.

3. Feedback collection

Based on the feedback from the application market, forums and user surveys, the following issues are summarized.

1) Audio playback

Problems:

• Audio playback order: The audio playback order is unstable and cannot maintain the user's original settings after the version update, which greatly affects the user experience
• Enabling skipping the beginning and end of the film is invalid
• Ad volume: Ad volume cannot be controlled and is often much louder than the audio, which seriously affects the audio user experience.
• "Network connection error, try again later" error occurs during playback
• The audio playback markup and note taking functions are no longer available in the new version.

Optimization suggestions:

1. For audio platforms, users' evaluation of the playback function is of paramount importance. If network errors, playback interruptions, or other problems occur during playback, attention should be paid first, otherwise this group of users will be lost to a large extent. The author searched for solutions to network error problems in the "Contact Customer Service" function and suggested adding a jump link in the function to provide solutions as soon as users encounter problems.

1. Secondly, the order in which the audio is played greatly affects the user experience. For programs with a play order, the system can modify the play order by default. Details including the user's playback records can be synchronized on different terminals and are not affected by APP downloads, uninstalls, or version upgrades. Regarding the problem of too loud advertising volume, it is recommended to obtain the volume settings of the device and adapt the advertising volume to the volume of the user's device. It is not difficult to solve this problem technically.

1. The function of skipping the opening and ending credits currently requires users to manually set the skip time for each album, which is cumbersome and not very smart. It is recommended to add the function of marking the opening and ending credits for the audio content (operated by the audio producer), and users can directly enable and skip it.

2) Advertising

Problems:

• App launch ads: There are ads when the app is hot-launched, which takes up too much time for interaction
• Too long: Audio ads are too long, sometimes even longer than the audio content itself, making them unbearable for users.

Optimization suggestions:

Reduce hot start ads and ads inserted between audio programs. Although users pay more attention to voice-over ads and audio patch ads, it also means that they cause more interference to users. The platform should make trade-offs on this point and find the balance that satisfies users while maximizing profits.

3) Membership and points system

Problems:

• Membership rights are not clear, and users do not know what content they can listen to after purchasing.
• Points are not practical: Points are used to purchase goods, but they have almost no deduction effect, and the goods still need to be paid for.
• Mall and customer service: slow delivery, delays; slow customer service response, slow follow-up, poor attitude, etc.

Optimization suggestions:

1. A good membership system should make users feel that it is worthwhile, rather than wondering why they need to purchase some content even though they have already paid. Therefore, the platform should make members’ rights and interests clear before users purchase, and which content requires users to pay a second time. And in various places where users have preferential rights.
2. Make points play a practical role. For a peripheral mall, since you want to engage in peripheral e-commerce, then orders and logistics must keep up. Don't let a disappointing shopping experience affect your product.

4. Product analysis and improvement suggestions

1. Optimize the calling function

"Call" is a function launched in Himalaya version 6.6.81. The purpose of calling is to accumulate popularity for the program and help the host's program increase exposure. Users can support the program by earning points, sharing and watching videos. Therefore, the Call value is also a content evaluation standard similar to ratings, playback volume, and comments.

Target user group: The target user group of the call function is mainly the anchor and his fans. Ordinary users are attracted by the host's program and support the host by calling out. After the host's program receives a call, the call value is converted into an exposure value to increase the exposure of the program. Since the ultimate beneficiary of the calls is the host, the host can encourage listeners to call through verbal broadcasts during the program, thereby increasing the exposure of the program.

Problems:

1. The call function page lacks activity-related instructions, resulting in new users not knowing the function of the call function even after turning it on or using it. The description of "How to get the call qualification" at the bottom of the page is inaccurate. Clicking it will jump to the event description page.
2. The call function page does not give users any feedback, such as whether the user has called the program and how much contribution the user has made to the program after calling the program.
3. The rules of the call-in activity are not complete. For example, details such as whether the points-based call-in can be repeated every day, whether the shared call-in is calculated based on the link or the number of all users, and what specific videos the video call-in refers to all need to be improved in order to bring about fair competition.
4. The anchor side does not provide the function of exchanging call values, and the exchange rules of call values ​​are also missing.

Core requirements:

1. Add activity descriptions on the call page to help users understand the significance of the call function and get feedback after making the call. This requirement applies to all users who use calling.
2. After the anchor's program is called, the call value can be manually converted into exposure; or the platform can directly convert the call value into an increase in exposure and inform the anchor how much the call value has increased the exposure of the program.
3. A user can only vote for the same program once. After voting, the user cannot tell from the page whether he or she has voted for the program before. The page should give a corresponding prompt.

Optimization suggestions:

1. The activity rules limit each user to making a call twice a day, so the left and right activity buttons in the call selection part of the page appear redundant. It is recommended to remove them and directly display the "1 time" and "2 times" buttons. The user's options will be highlighted and enlarged.
2. The prompt below Xiaoya, "Click Xiaoya to cheer for the anchor", is not enough to explain the activity. It is changed to "Click Xiaoya to cheer for the anchor and send him/her to the homepage" to help users understand the meaning of cheering and increase user participation.
3. A progress bar for the call value is added below Xiaoya. The progress bar is the same as the progress bar on the "Activity Description" page, which can intuitively let users feel the sense of accomplishment of calling. The progress bar does not display the specific call value and expected exposure value, because users do not need to understand too much complex data. The specific value of the call value and the exposure that can be redeemed only need to be visible to the anchor.
4. The prompt at the bottom "Picture and obtain the qualification to call" is inaccurate. The page that jumps to is actually an explanation of the role of calling and the three currently supported ways of calling. It would be more accurate to change it to "The correct resources for calling".
5. If a user clicks the "Call" button again for a program that he has already called for, the page will prompt "You have contributed N call points to the host, look forward to more programs from him~", which clearly reminds the user that they cannot call again.

2. Encourage user feedback

Incentivize feedback from users of purchased programs: Users who have purchased programs are the group of people who have the highest level of understanding of the program content, so it is necessary to find ways to incentivize users who have purchased programs to give reviews.

Currently, there are only two entry points for rating albums: the user subscription list and the album rating page.

The author suggests providing more entry points for album reviews and reminding users that they can earn points by writing high-quality reviews. However, considering the user feedback that "points have no practical effect", Himalaya should adjust the points system to make the points really play a role. This will motivate users to earn points and promote the healthy development of the platform.

Target user group: content paying users.

Optimization suggestion: Add the function "Earn points by commenting" in the list of users' purchased pages. Clicking it will directly jump to the "Post a comment" page, and the default rating is 10 points.

User negative operation feedback: For user negative operations, such as unsubscribing and unfollowing, the APP should provide a feedback channel to collect user opinions. Currently, this version only has the function of marking "Not Interested" or "Blocked" in the [Homepage-Recommendation List] to help the platform judge user preferences. The "Feedback" function is used to collect user feedback, but there is no feedback channel for the [Subscription] and [Purchased] albums.

Target user group: users who want to give feedback on the program but cannot find a feedback channel. Or users who think feedback is too troublesome and simply give up.

Core requirements: Users can easily provide feedback on subscriptions and purchased albums, and can provide feedback by selecting or filling in the form when canceling a subscription.

Optimization suggestions:

Remove the "Feedback" function from the more functions of [Homepage-Recommendation List]. Users do not have enough knowledge about the content recommended on the homepage and are unable to make much evaluation of the content. You can keep the "I've listened to it" option in the feedback to avoid recommending duplicate content.

Add the "Feedback" function in the [I Listen-Subscription] list and [Unsubscribe] list. User feedback will be collected by the platform and used as one of the platform's evaluation factors for the quality of content. It will also be fed back to the anchor, allowing the anchor to understand the user's true feelings and continuously optimize the content.

In the [I Listen-Subscription] list, click the More button to add the "Unsubscribe" option, and the same feedback process is also added here.

The feedback includes:

• I've heard
• Not interested in the content
• Poor content quality
• Poor content quality
• Background noise interference

3. Optimize snap and highlight mark functions

With the rise of knowledge payment and the launch of knowledge-based audio programs, more and more users are using audio platforms as learning tools. Then note-taking is a very important user demand that follows. For the platform, providing a note-taking function can increase user activity and stickiness, while accumulating high-quality user content; for users, it supplements user needs for note-taking and improves the user experience of recording learning through audio.

The author investigated Himalaya,蜻蜓fm, and荔枝, and found that most online audio apps do not have a note-taking function. The author speculated that the reason is: although the content of online audio apps is constantly enriched, and more and more paid knowledge programs are launched, they are still mainly based on pan-entertainment (from the perspective of the most popular content among users), so none of them have an online note-taking function. However, this will be a trend in the future, and Himalaya's Kacha note-taking function can be regarded as a test of the waters.

The Kacha function was launched in Himalaya version 6.6.66, which supports capturing clips during audio playback, adding videos and subtitles, and then publishing them to the dynamic status. Previous versions also supported the highlight marking function, which means marking a certain point in the audio playback as a highlight. You can mark it on the playback progress bar and click it to jump directly.

The version I am currently experiencing is 6.6.84, and the above two functions have been temporarily removed from the shelves and are being optimized and upgraded. The current version of the comment function also adds a timestamp.

The knowledge payment apps Dedao and Zhihu both have note-taking functions. Let’s analyze their functions:

• Get: The content of the Get APP is all PGC content, and the audio content is accompanied by a manuscript. Users can easily add notes by underlining in the manuscript. After the notes are generated, the manuscript highlights the fragments with the notes. Notes support setting tags (ineffective after personal testing) and whether to make them public. Public notes will be published to the "Knowledge City" and support a series of operations such as likes and collections. The Get APP also supports users to create customized notebooks, a function that other APPs do not have.
• Zhihu: Zhihu member columns are also PGC, but the content is richer, including Yanxuan columns, Live lectures, e-books, audiobooks, talk books and magazines. Except for audiobooks, which still require payment after becoming a member, all others come with manuscripts. Zhihu's note-taking function is also based on documents. Users can long press on the document content to highlight the content or add notes by underlining it. Notes can also be made public (published to personal updates) and synced to ideas (what’s the difference between this and making them public?), and support operations such as likes and favorites. Zhihu APP does not have a separate page for viewing notes. To view previous notes, you need to follow the path [Course-View Documents-My Notes].

After referring to the note-taking function of competing products and returning to Himalaya itself, we can draw the following conclusions:

• Himalaya's content is PGC+UGC, and the content types are numerous and complex. Most of the audio content has no transcripts, or the transcripts are simple (some hosts will provide outlines or pictures). Although writing notes on manuscripts is more in line with people's usage habits, due to the lack of manuscripts, the note-taking method based on manuscripts is not feasible for Himalaya.
• Due to the lack of content manuscripts, the function of obtaining manuscripts through audio content recognition is particularly important.
• Take notes based on the manuscript so that users can refer to the manuscript when reviewing it and use it as a benchmark. In the absence of a transcript, you should consider capturing the audio content as a reference to help users locate the source of the notes.
• On the one hand, the note function can record momentary thoughts and inspirations, mainly serving as a learning record; on the other hand, it can also be posted to dynamics or shared to circles, mainly serving as an interactive and entertaining function. The author speculates that this is also the reason why the previous Kacha Notes supported the production of videos.

Optimization suggestions:

• When taking notes, you can add more documents. In addition to manually inputting content (text, pictures, etc.), users can also copy the host's manuscripts and intelligently recognize content in audio.
• Optimize the display format of notes to meet the most basic and simple needs of users: you can listen to audio while checking notes.
• Notes support both audio and video formats. Audio is the most basic format and the default choice. Users can choose whether to add a video.
• Notes can be modified again after they are created, but notes posted to dynamic feeds cannot be modified and can only be posted again.
• The highlight marking function is integrated into notes. After a note is marked as a highlight, it can be indicated in the playback progress bar.

The following figure is a flowchart for using Kacha to make notes:

The entire process is from audio editing, video adding, and document adding to the publishing process. The specific process details are as follows:

Audio trimming: Add a "Click" button on the playback page. Click the button to jump to the audio capture page. Drag the audio capture box to control the capture length (5-30s). The "Add Video" button in the lower left corner can be used to add video to the audio. If not, the note will be saved as audio by default.

Video addition: Provides default video templates, and users can also upload customized ones. If the uploaded video is longer than the audio, the excess part will be cut off; if the duration is less than that, it will be played repeatedly.

Adding documents: Three ways to add documents are provided, and the content added in the three ways can be superimposed.

• Manual input: Users manually input content in the form of text, pictures, etc.
• Intelligent audio recognition: Intelligently recognize the content in the audio. After the recognition is completed, the user can manually correct it and add it to the document.
• Add from script: Copy the content from the host script. Content added from a document should be displayed separately from content added by the user.

Publish: By default, the note is saved to Kacha Notes and is only visible to yourself. You can also check "Publish to Dynamics" when posting (you can optimize and post to circles simultaneously later). After publishing, the note will be marked as "wonderful" by default (a mark is generated in the playback bar). The "wonderful" mark can be canceled in Kacha Notes.

KaCha Note List: The note list supports filtering and querying notes by audio/video and by album. Snap notes and highlights will be recorded. The original function list is displayed through a timeline. For audio content, only the start mark time is displayed, and you can start playing by clicking it; for video content, you can also start playing directly.

Optimization suggestions:

1. Note card list: Note cards distinguish audio and video by the shape of the play icon. Audio is a circular image, and video is a square image. The details on the right side show the summary of the note content in the first line, and the program title in the second line.
2. More: Click the More button on the right side of the note card to edit, delete, or unmark the note.
3. Filter by album: After filtering by album, the display style of the note cards is the same.

4. Optimize program lists and playlists

The playback of audio programs is similar to that of music apps. Users add programs to the playlist, and the system plays them according to the user's settings. The author compared the playback functions of Himalaya, the competitor Qingting FM and NetEase Cloud Music with similar functions, and found that there are big differences between audio apps and music apps:

1. All three apps can modify the playback order. Of course, this is the most basic function of the playback function. In order to meet the needs of drama programs, audio apps also support adjusting the forward/reverse order.
2. Both蜻蜓fm and NetEase Cloud Music have buttons to jump to the source of the content. On 蜻蜓fm, you can click "View Album" to go back, and on NetEase Cloud, you can click "Play Source" to jump back to the source page.
3. Each item in the playlist of audio apps supports downloading, while the playlist of music apps supports deleting music from the list. In addition, NetEase Cloud Music also supports collecting all the music in the playlist with one click.

Analyze the reasons for the above differences:

The duration of listening to music is short, flexible, random and repetitive. Listening to audio programs is longer and more coherent. Audio content generally comes from an album and is usually played from the album. In this case, users generally do not have the need to modify the playlist.

But in addition to albums, Himalaya also supports listening to singles. The content of listening lists is more scattered. Generally speaking, listening lists are created for similar content, and then content from different albums is added. This is similar to listening to music. Creating playlists in music apps is a very common operation.

The playback sources of music apps are scattered, so NetEase Cloud Music has a function to jump to the playback source. In addition to listening to music, Himalaya also has a one-click function to play selected content under each category, which is similar to listening to music.

Listening order: Satisfy the needs of users to aggregate specific program content according to their own needs and preferences. Typical users should be deep users who are no longer satisfied with the content organization form provided by the platform, but want to create content themselves. Usually users need to listen to enough content before they can create a listening list.

Optimization suggestions: Since Himalaya also supports listening to singles and one-click playback of selected content, which are relatively scattered audio sources, the author suggests drawing on the function of being able to modify the playlist at will in music apps to increase the ability to personalize the playlist.

In the album program list, the "Download" button on the right side of the program is changed to a "More" button. When expanded, it supports the functions of playing, adding to the listening list, downloading and sharing the program. This suggestion is mainly to facilitate users to operate single programs and add a program to the playlist.

The playlist supports dragging by long pressing the program title. Drag to adjust the program order and delete programs. After long press and drag takes effect, the deletion hot zone will be displayed at the top of the page. The program can be removed from the playlist by dragging it to the hot zone. This feature allows users to easily adjust the playlist content.

V. Conclusion

It took seven or eight years for the online audio industry to move from its development stage to a mature stage, and it finally explored a stable commercialization path. Compared with rapidly developing vertical fields, online audio can be said to be a "slow-heating" industry.

As a leading player in the industry, Himalaya has continuously improved its layout and enhanced the competitiveness of its platform over the past few years. Himalaya's user data also leaves other platforms far behind.

In terms of content, Himalaya took the lead in cooperating with high-traffic IP in 2016, opening the precedent for content payment. In terms of copyright, we have cooperated with copyright holders such as China Literature Group and CITIC Press to introduce popular audio book resources, which has become the most popular program type on the platform.

In terms of anchors, Himalaya has launched anchor recruitment and support plans such as "Ten Thousand People and Ten Billion" and "Live Broadcast Spring" to attract anchors to settle in and create a diversified content production model of PGC+UGC+PUGC.

The future growth points of online audio will arise in the children's ecology and scene ecology. With the arrival of the "two-child era", the audio market for children's content also has great room for development. As early as 2018, Himalaya began to layout the children's market and launched the Ximaoer APP, providing "listening" growth services for children aged 0-12. It involves many high-quality resources and accurately recommends the most suitable audio content based on age and gender to meet the needs of specific scenarios such as bedtime stories.

In the future, with the support of technologies such as IoT, 5G and voice interaction, new business opportunities will be brought to the online audio industry. With the popularization of audio content in smart homes, car-mounted devices and smart speakers, there will be a variety of smart terminals as the entrance to voice interaction, which will increase the coverage of audio users.

In addition to Himalaya's achievements and ecological layout over the years, exploring user needs, optimizing its own product functions, improving the mall and customer service system, improving user satisfaction, and building a good reputation are still the most basic product approaches.

Author: Norwegian paste

Source: Norwegian Paste