Bilibili Operation: Why does Bilibili want to make light videos?

On December 21, 2018, Bilibili quietly launched an official short video APP - Light Video. The official introduction shows that Qing Video is an original, high-quality short video community, where there are rich animation, comics, games, cosplay, Chinese style, music and dance, ghost animals and other high-quality talents and content. The usage and interface of Qingvideo are almost the same as those of Douyin. Unlike Douyin, Qingvideo uses swiping left and right to switch videos, and continues the barrage function. You can log in using your mobile phone number and Bilibili account.

The launch of light videos undoubtedly means that Bilibili will launch an offensive in the field of short videos. Bilibili's involvement in the short video industry shows that while it is consolidating the ACG industry chain including animation, comics, and games, it is also expanding into other fields.

However, the short video industry is currently facing fierce competition. With the rapid rise of software such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Volcano Video, and Xigua Video, the short video industry has become increasingly competitive. Weishi, which Tencent has invested heavily in, has also failed to find a way out. Recently, WeChat's video account, which aims to be a short content platform of a certain quality, has also quietly joined the short video camp.

01 Why short videos?

The 2019 "China TV Drama (Online Drama) Industry Survey Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") released by You Xiaogang, President of the China Television Drama Production Industry Association (hereinafter referred to as "China TV Drama Association") at the meeting showed that in 2019, the usage time of Chinese short video users exceeded that of long videos for the first time. The report shows that in terms of user scale, short videos have also reached the current 821 million monthly active users (MAU) at a year-on-year growth rate of 32%, while the monthly active users of long videos are 964 million. With the advent of the 5G era, the short video industry will usher in a new round of innovative competition.

Data source: iiMedia Research

In the past, we often received information in the form of text, pictures, long videos, etc. Compared with these contents that require some time to watch, short videos are time-constrained and must show people the most interesting and attractive content within the specified time. At the same time, short videos have richer content and convey information more effectively, which greatly satisfies everyone's time and psychological needs.

In terms of production costs, the shooting of long videos often requires post-editing, while short videos only require a mobile phone for a few tens of seconds to create unforgettable works, saving time and effort.

Nowadays, people's time is fragmented, and the duration of short videos is generally between 15 seconds and one minute. When you finish watching a video, you swipe the screen to automatically enter the playback of the next video. One after another, users unknowingly spend their time on the short video platform. The reason for this phenomenon is that the content of short videos is very stimulating, and each video is very short, which is not easy to cause fatigue in the viewer. Compared with text and long videos, short videos spread faster, convey richer content, and are more attractive to the public.

02 Why does Bilibili want to make a short video APP similar to TikTok?

• ByteDance -> TikTok
• Station B->Light Video

Founded in 2012, Bytedance has developed in just a few years a product matrix consisting of apps such as Toutiao (overseas version: Topbuzz), Douyin (overseas version: Tiktok), Xigua Video (overseas version: Buzzvideo), Douyin Volcano Edition (overseas version: VigoVideo), Wukong Q&A, and FaceU.

Toutiao (information) and Douyin (video) use recommendation algorithms based on user preferences, seize the fragmented time of users outside of WeChat and Taobao, and tightly lock users in, satisfying the needs of more users and grabbing more users' time. They have become ByteDance's right-hand man and shoulder the banner of ByteDance's revenue.

TikTok was launched in 2016, and its daily active users (DAU) in China have exceeded 250 million, and its monthly active users (MAU) have exceeded 500 million. The success of TikTok has made other companies that develop Internet video software jealous, and Bilibili, as a listed company, is no exception.

According to the financial report, in 2019, the average daily video playback volume of Bilibili reached 710 million, a year-on-year increase of 63%; the average monthly interaction number was 2.4 billion, a year-on-year increase of 141%; the average daily usage time of users was 77 minutes; this group of users' high usage time and high interaction data also reflects Bilibili's strong user stickiness. Bilibili's community ecology is an absolute advantage that other long video platforms cannot obtain. Relying on this advantage, Bilibili has great room for growth in light videos.

1. Grab the user’s time

Today's pace of life is faster and disposable time is less, so it is more cost-effective to watch more things in shorter videos than in videos longer than 5 minutes. In the information age, the most scarce resource for people is time, and our time is fragmented by apps such as WeChat, Taobao, and Weibo.

The more time users devote to a certain product during their fragmented time, the less time they will have for other products. How to make good use of these fragmented times and grab users' attention is directly related to the product's monetization ability. In the future, whoever can hold users' time will have the market.

2. Expand profit scope and expand product lines

According to QuestMobile data, as of June 2019, the user scale of the short video industry exceeded 820 million, with a year-on-year growth rate of more than 32%. Taking Douyin as an example, information flow ads and splash screen ads are currently the main sources of Douyin's income. On the Douyin homepage recommendations, on average, one short advertising video will appear for every fifteen videos viewed.

At present, the cost of Douyin's information flow advertising is about 200 yuan per thousand people. If calculated based on 1 million views of one post, it would be about 200,000 yuan per day. There is no limit on the number of Tik Tok videos each person can watch every day, so the more users watch more videos, the more ads each user will see, and more ads means more revenue. The short video model is accepted and recognized by most people, so Bilibili’s launch of the short video APP must be to seek greater benefits and adapt to the market.

3. Grab your own short video users

By comparing the user analysis of Bilibili and Douyin, it is not difficult to find that 60% of Douyin users have a bachelor's degree or above, mainly concentrated in second-, third- and fourth-tier cities, 90% are under 35 years old, and the gender ratio is 4:6, with women in the majority. In terms of age distribution on Bilibili, users aged 20-24 account for the largest proportion, and users under 30 years old account for 92%. Bilibili's user base is very young and is tending to become younger. Most of its users are students or new employees who have just entered the society.

The number of users is concentrated in first-tier or second-tier cities. Tik Tok has a wider audience, ranging from six-year-old children to seventy-year-olds. Bilibili is a diversified platform, and its primary audience is people who are interested in the second dimension, so most of its users are teenagers or middle-aged and elderly people who still have a childlike innocence.

Data source: Baidu Index

According to the data from iiMedia Research, the scale of China's two-dimensional users is expected to exceed 400 million in 2021. The continuous growth of the user scale has raised the commercial value of the two-dimensional industry. With the encouragement of national policies, the improving development environment of China's two-dimensional video industry, the improvement of the video industry chain, and the addition of live broadcast and e-commerce elements, the commercialization of China's two-dimensional video has been accelerated.

According to the data from iiMedia Research, vertical 2D video platforms represented by Station A and Station B are still the main places for 2D users to watch videos, accounting for more than 50%; nearly 60% of the netizens interviewed will pay to watch 2D videos. As a two-dimensional short video app, Qingvideo has its own exclusive users, allowing people who love the two-dimensional to have their own short video world.

If one day B station users really need a short video product similar to Douyin, then Qingvideo will be ready behind B station users at any time.

Data source: iiMedia Research

03 Will Qingvideo become Douyin one day?

In its early days, Tik Tok was a breath of fresh air in the short video industry. In addition to entertainment and comedy, people also shared their various talents, which was refreshing. After more than two years of wild growth, more and more people on Douyin have started to post videos without any bottom line in order to become Internet celebrities, engaging in all kinds of fraud, resulting in the emergence of some content with incorrect values, and even some of them are imitated by a large number of people, which has a subtle influence on the public. This is also one of the main reasons why most short video products currently receive negative reviews from users.

Major short video products have also been under strict supervision, seizure, and rectification. Under the vigorous rectification of the national government, they have begun to tend to increase content in the fields of education and knowledge. At the same time, the addition of technical screening can also reduce the generation of bad content to a certain extent.

No matter what company or what short video app it is, content supervision is a threshold that short video apps cannot bypass. Qing Video still has a long way to go in the future. I hope Qing Video can "stay true to its original aspiration and keep its mission in mind"!

Finally, as a loyal fan of Bilibili, no matter what Qingvideo becomes, I hope that this little broken station will not change!

Author: Xiao Zhao Miao

Source: Xiao Zhao Miao