National K song product analysis!

As people's lives become increasingly fragmented, traditional KTV can no longer meet people's needs to sing and relieve stress at any time. Online K song social software has emerged, and Kuaishou is undoubtedly the leader among them. In recent years, due to the rise of short video gameplay, more of users' fragmented time has been occupied, and traditional online karaoke has also encountered development bottlenecks. At the same time, more and more new forces in the differentiated market are also challenging the status of Kugou. Faced with internal and external troubles, how can Kugou break the impasse? This article will analyze the current situation and future development trends of Kugou and share them with you.

This article will analyze from the following aspects:

1. Product function structure
2. Competitive product analysis
3. User Analysis
4. User research
5. Functional analysis and optimization
6. Summarize

01 Product Function Structure

The author divides Kugou into six business modules, namely: music, social, business, messaging, search and personal , and lists in detail the important services and functions included in each business module.

National K song function structure diagram

02 Competitive product analysis

There are many people who like music, and I am one of them. Sometimes when I’m walking on the road, I’ll suddenly think of a melody, and then I’ll immerse myself in it and hum it involuntarily. Of course, instead of humming casually like this, once I have time, I will choose to invite three or five friends to go to KTV to let loose.

However, with the quickening pace of life and the increasing pressure of life, there are fewer and fewer opportunities to go to KTV. Either I don’t have time or I can’t make an appointment with anyone. If you buy a device and play it at home, it may disturb others or you may not be able to choose the song you want to sing in the music library. Is there no way to sing karaoke freely without being restricted by time, place or equipment?

One time when I was browsing my space, I accidentally saw a friend sharing a song he sang. I clicked on it and listened to it. The sound seemed to have been processed. Then I paid attention to this software called "Kugou", and found it to be a great tool for singing karaoke, which can sing, tune and share songs all in one go. Gradually, more and more people around me use it, including young people as well as some grandparents. And whenever the topic of mobile karaoke is mentioned, the first thing that comes to people around me is basically Kugou. This also made me start to think, why such a small karaoke software can be loved by such a large number of people?

2.1 Product Positioning

During the analysis process, I found that long before the birth of Kugou, there was already a karaoke software called Changba on the market, and the number of registered users had exceeded 100 million. Its business and functions had become more complete and stable at that time, and it seemed to have formed a dominant and unstoppable situation.

However, karaoke is still a social activity after all, and you can never imagine how powerful people in the social circle are. Kugou has also fully grasped the advantages of social networking, making full use of the huge and mature social circle built by its two major social software - QQ + WeChat - and the powerful music library provided by the online music player QQ Music as a resource support for karaoke, timely synchronizing new popular songs from current music talent shows and variety shows, quickly gaining a large number of users and achieving a counterattack against Changba.

Since then, Kugou has kept up with the current trend and gradually added live broadcast and short video UGC services. It has also continuously updated its gameplay and launched short videos, karaoke rooms, microphone grabbing, and so on. The positioning of Kugou has also evolved from focusing on karaoke and providing users with a better online karaoke experience in the early days to focusing on karaoke social networking and being more inclined towards user entertainment experience . Now, Kugou uses the slogan "You are actually very good at singing" to serve people of all ages who love karaoke, meeting their needs to sing anytime and anywhere and socialize with others through karaoke.

2.2 Competitive product selection

When it comes to the popular K-song apps on the market, most people’s first reaction is Kugou and Changba , which are also the two major players in the current K-song social software.

With the awakening of copyright awareness in China, the copyright issue of music when singing karaoke becomes increasingly important. Therefore, behind the karaoke software, it is best to have a music player software with rich copyright resources as a foundation. At the same time, this type of software can also make full use of the user resources attracted by its copyright to create a mature social circle.

Based on the above considerations, Kugou Changchang, which is owned by the same company as Kugou Music, was selected as one of the competitors for this analysis. But for young people, who have been exposed to music since childhood, quite a number of them already have a certain music library accumulated, and they do not necessarily need a ready-made music library. At the same time, they are more concerned about experiencing life and enjoying the fun of socializing. For them, new things can stimulate their interest more, and making new friends through music is also a good social experience. Therefore, the product Yinyue is also included in this competitive product analysis.

In summary, the author selected Changba, Kugou Changchang, and Yinyue as competitors for this analysis.

2.3 Business Distribution

Business distribution of WeSing and its competitors

The above is the business distribution of WeSing and its competitors. It is not difficult to see that Kugou, Kugou and WeSing are similar in business distribution and functions. They are all based on copyrighted music , supplemented by community social networking, live streaming and other business assistance. However, due to different user resources, their focus is slightly different. Yinyue, on the other hand, has taken a different approach, focusing on karaoke entertainment . At the same time, relying on the young people's love of socializing, it has also accumulated a lot of user resources.

2.3.1 Core Business

WeSing, Changba and Kugou all strive to create an online version of KTV , so the services and functions they develop are first focused on karaoke-related parts. After the karaoke function is improved, a variety of social functions and gameplay are added; Yinyue explores a new development model, directly focusing on social entertainment business, and providing young people who love music with a brand new entertainment experience.

2.3.2 Entertainment Function

Most people regard karaoke as a form of entertainment in their spare time, but the songs themselves have the problem of being repetitive. Considering the fragmentation of entertainment time nowadays, a considerable number of people lack the energy to sing a whole song, which has caused new problems and challenges for the traditional KTV singing method. With the rise of short video UGC, a good solution to this problem has emerged. In addition, fast singing, fragment singing, and Kugou singing competitions, plus Yinyue's singing-in-progress and team PK competitions, are all good karaoke entertainment modes that can meet the needs of karaoke and entertainment and relaxation at the same time, and therefore can gain more support and recognition from users.

2.3.3 Commercialization

In terms of commercialization, the systems of Kugou and Changba are relatively complete, including product VIP services and online shopping malls, as well as the development of offline physical KTVs , connecting online and offline to form a complete business system. It is worth noting that Changba’s commercial services also include music services, indicating that it is trying to add some professionalism to its entertainment offerings.

In contrast, the commercialization of Kugou Changchang only has a sporadic recharge and exchange system for singing coins and beans. It is speculated that it may be squeezed by the two giants, resulting in the remaining market share of the traditional online K song model being small and difficult to monetize. Because Yinyue has focused on the differentiated market and avoided the competition from the two giants, it has been able to gradually improve and develop its VIP system and mall system. Its monetization capabilities are worth looking forward to.

2.4 Development History

The development history of Kugou and its competitors

The above is a summary of the development history of Kugou and its competitors. It can be seen that:

In the early stages of Kugou's development, Changba had already matured, with three rounds of financing and 100 million users. It seemed impossible to catch up. However, it was Changba's relatively mature development model at the time that provided a reference for Kugou, allowing it to quickly improve the basic business functions of its own products in karaoke. At the same time, Kugou took advantage of the social user resources of QQ+WeChat, used social product users to drive traffic, and quickly topped the social K song field. Afterwards, Kugou gradually changed from an imitator and follower to a leader in terms of functions. It is ahead of other similar products in the two major functions of short videos and singing quickly. Its positioning has also gradually changed from the early online KTV to social entertainment KTV.

When Kugou Changchang was developing, WeSing and Changba had already become the two major oligopolies. Although it also has copyrighted music as support, considering its current market share, it should explore a personalized development path like Yinyue and occupy a share of the differentiated market . To this end, Kugou Changchang developed singing competition and judging functions, and used Kugou Music accounts to attract traffic, apparently trying to seize the young people's market, but the results were not ideal. At the same time, although the currently popular short videos were added to its business, due to its late start (July 2018), it could not form a strong competitive relationship with Kugou and Changba, and missed an opportunity for development. How to find breakthroughs in the future is a question that Kugou Changchang needs to consider.

Yinyue’s development has taken an extremely entertaining route. When they lacked copyrighted music and found it difficult to provide accompaniment music, they simply jumped out of the traditional development path, using karaoke as a medium, focusing on karaoke PK entertainment and stranger networking, with young people as their target audience. At the same time, we cooperate with entertainment programs to seek promotion and pursue ultimate entertainment. This approach worked very well in the early stages of its development. However, two subsequent delisting incidents exposed its shortcomings in commercial development and management, which may have led to a decline in its evaluation. To make matters worse, the two oligopolies, Kugou and Changba, added a singing-for-promotion mode and also intended to adjust in the direction of entertainment and social networking. At the same time, they used their huge number of users to crush the other apps, causing a bottleneck in their development.

2.5 Data Performance

Data source – Analysys Qianfan

2.5.1 Number of active users

By estimating the scale of the APP from the number of active users , it can be found that Kugou stands out among the four APPs, and is 2.5 times that of the second-ranked Changba. When Kugou first entered the social K-song field, Changba was the only dominant player. This was mainly due to the huge social resources on Kugou. However, due to their late start and the over-powerful competition from the two major karaoke social software oligopolies, Kugou Changchang and Yinyue have only reached a scale of millions. But considering that the two oligarchs are too powerful and Yinyue's good performance in the differentiated market among young people, this data can still be said to be good.

2.5.2 Industry Monopoly Rate

In terms of industry monopoly rate , Kugou also takes the lead. At the same time, the two giants, Kugou and Changba, have a combined monopoly rate of nearly 80%, which is closely related to the two companies' complete online and offline business systems. As far as the current karaoke social market is concerned, it is almost impossible for new products to impact the status of Kugou and Changba in the traditional karaoke social field in a short period of time. Therefore, it is necessary to switch tracks and consider differentiated markets.

2.5.3 Average number of daily startups per person and average daily usage time per person

Comprehensive analysis of the average daily launch times and average daily usage time shows that the trends of these two data are basically the same, but in Kugou Changchang Heyinyu, there is an "inverted" phenomenon, that is, the launch times and usage time do not match. The analysis is as follows:

1) In terms of average daily usage time per person , Changba and Kugou ranked first and second, with an average daily usage time of about one hour per person for both apps. The average daily usage time of Kugou Changchang and Yinyue is only around 20 minutes, which is nearly three times less. Nowadays people's entertainment time is very fragmented. Yinyue, which focuses on karaoke entertainment, has core competition modes such as singing competition, which takes about ten minutes per round. Kugou Changchang's singing competition, arena judging and other modes can even take as short as a few minutes.

In comparison, traditional karaoke takes four or five minutes to sing even one song, and it is often difficult to sing continuously for dozens of minutes. Logically speaking, this short and fast entertainment karaoke format should be more popular with the public, but the result is not the case.

Personally, I speculate that this is because the functions and services of Kugou and Changba are more comprehensive and the user experience is stronger. When users get tired of self-creation, they can also watch other people's videos and listen to other people's songs, which will unknowingly make users stay in the software for a longer time. On the other hand, Kugou and Changba have a huge user base and a larger social circle. For the same social function, the larger the circle and the more resources, the better the usability for users.

2) In terms of average daily activation times per person, Kugou and Changba are both ranked in the top two, which is not surprising. But it is worth noting that Kugou Changchang and Yinyu. Kugou Changchang has a lower number of startup times but a longer usage time, which shows that users are relatively satisfied with the current functions of the product. However, the high number of Yinyue startup times did not lead to an increase in usage time. We speculate that the product may have some functional problems or a poor user experience (bugs, etc.).

2.5.4 Average Monthly Usage Days per Person

In terms of average monthly usage days per person , Kugou Changchang unexpectedly topped the list. It is speculated that this is because the ranking tournament gameplay added by Kugou Changchang that month is relatively novel. In addition, it is also surprising that Changba is at the bottom of the list. I personally speculate that this is because in the second half of 2019, Changba has not had any breakthrough functional updates. Although the number of users has not decreased substantially, the user attention has declined to a certain extent.

Based on the above two points and making further speculations, I personally think that current users may have a certain aesthetic fatigue with karaoke social software. Simply moving traditional KTV online has become a commonplace model and users are no longer buying into it. The novel and entertaining gameplay that breaks away from the traditional circle is what users are more looking forward to.

2.5.5 Next Month Retention Rate

In terms of next-month retention rate , only Kugou and Changba have relatively stable data performance. However, Kugou Changchang and Yinyue did not calculate this data due to the small number of new users. The increase in new users not only relies on the acquisition of new users through operational activities, but the sharing fission of old users is also an important source. Since Kugou and Changba have a large user base and strong fission ability, the two new products are naturally no match for them. But on the other hand, it also shows that Kugou Changchang and Yinyue need to work harder on operational activities and product functions.

In general, as software with a long development history and relatively mature business system, Kugou and Changba both started with online KTV, which has accumulated a large number of loyal users for them. Therefore, whether in terms of market share , user stickiness, usage time and frequency , it is unmatched by other karaoke social software. However, in terms of innovation in entertainment functions , the impact of new products really makes people worry about Kugou and Changba. In this regard, the two major K song social network oligopolies need to be vigilant and make timely adjustments and responses.

2.6 Summary of advantages and disadvantages

Summary of the advantages and disadvantages of Kugou

As summarized above, the advantages and disadvantages of Kugou. It can be seen that its biggest advantage lies in the social relationship chain . In addition, the online + offline karaoke social business system , which has been accumulated since the early days and is currently relatively complete and mature, has also laid a solid foundation for its subsequent development. Rich music copyright resources are also its advantage.

But at the same time, its social advantage is also a hidden danger. On the one hand, the social chain behind QQ+WeChat is beyond the reach of other software, which has also led to Tencent's universal formula of "borrowing" + "drawing traffic" in its products, which has been criticized. This approach may seem glamorous on the surface, but in fact it reflects a lack of independent thinking and innovation, which will result in the product itself lacking the "core" of the main business, that is, differentiation .

As the market is currently stabilizing, if you want to make further breakthroughs, you must find new breakthrough points. However, the traditional karaoke social model has caused aesthetic fatigue among some users. At the same time, new forces in the differentiated market will occasionally use new karaoke entertainment models to impact its existing position. For example, when Yinyue was first launched, it really gave Kugou a cold sweat with its entertaining karaoke gameplay.

On the other hand, due to over-reliance on social chains, it will lose its development direction. When encountering problems, it often thinks of continuing to use social media to solve them instead of improving the functions of the product itself. But this approach can create a vicious cycle . For example, many users have reported on the quality of recordings and the use of robots to post comments. Another example is that if you want to increase your personal attention, the most common method is to increase your followers.

In addition, old users who have published more works have higher starting scores for their works due to their high levels, so their works are displayed relatively high on the front of each page. However, the quality of the works does not completely match the display position, which will cause trouble for new users. All these have brought a less friendly user experience.

Therefore, how to maintain the existing social advantages while continuing to explore new growth points in the industry and clarify the key points of its own functionality are areas that Kugou needs to consider carefully in the future.

03 User Analysis

3.1 User role map

3.2 User Profile

04 User Research

4.1 Research Purpose

This survey mainly starts from four businesses: karaoke, social networking, entertainment, and commercialization , taking into account both ordinary users and anchors. It aims to discover potential user needs, verify whether the direction of function optimization is correct, and provide a basis for the subsequent design of detailed optimization plans.

This survey was conducted in the form of in-depth voice interviews , with each interview lasting 20-30 minutes. Based on the user portrait, the author found 6 typical Kugou users through friends and classmates for research interviews.

4.2 Research Questions

4.2.1 Basic Information

a. Age

b. Already working/studying in school? Where is your work/school located?

c. How did you learn about Kugou? How often is it used? How long does it take each time?

d. How many of your relatives and friends use Kugou? Which of them are frequently used?

4.2.2 Specific usage scenarios

①Karaoke

a. What modes (a cappella, fragmentary singing, etc.) are generally used for karaoke? Which karaoke mode do you use more often in your current personal recordings? What is the reason?

b. When recording songs, do you use any external equipment to record sound effects? After recording, do you upload it directly or process your own voice? If you use sound effects, do you have any preferences?

When looking for accompaniment for a cK song, do you usually search with precise words or by category? Have you used voice recognition? Will the accompaniment used be screened?

d. Have you ever listened to the works you recorded again? Have you ever had the experience of re-recording your work repeatedly?

e. Have you ever practiced singing? In what situations is it usually used?

② Social

a. After recording a song, is it shared only on Kugou, or is it pushed to social accounts such as QQ and WeChat?

b. Have you ever encountered “robot users” on the platform? Compared to your friends, who interacts with you more? Have you tried to clean up/filter out these comments?

c. Have you viewed the short videos/audio works of other users on the platform?

• Browsing: How often and for how long? Compared with karaoke, which function is used more frequently?
• Not browsing: Why?

d. Are you watching the live broadcast on Kugou?

• Viewed: How often did you view it? Are there any hosts or viewing experiences that left a deep impression on you?
• Haven’t seen it: Why?

e. Have you used playlists? The current playlist has been changed to a floating window in the lower left corner. Compared with the previous playlist pinned to the top, which one do you prefer and why?

③Entertainment

a. Have you ever used the mic grabbing game in Kugou? How did you learn about this gameplay? How often is this tactic used? Generally speaking, when you are singing along, how many songs in the music library that you are familiar with?

b. If there are two features to be launched on Kugou among the following four options, which two would you prefer? What's the reason?

1. Who is the big star : Mix the original singer and three or four imitators' voices into one song, and let you guess which one is the original singer. If you guess correctly, you will get points. Otherwise, the imitators will get points. The points can be exchanged for flowers and other rewards. You can choose to guess or sing;
2. Karaoke levels , each level requires you to sing 3-4 sentences of a certain song. You can unlock the next level if you meet the score requirement. If you fail repeatedly, you can start practicing or invite friends to help you pass the level;
3. Karaoke ranking competition : Individual/team mode, select a classified music library, and users can also choose to add 1-2 familiar songs to the competition. The gameplay includes singing a song segment/drawing according to the lyrics and singing the song segment correctly. Success will add points, and failure will not add points. After each game, the winner will get points, and at the end of the season, they will get corresponding rewards according to their rank;
4. K-song Arena : Users can authorize the platform to include their works in the arena library. Each time the same segment sung by two people is played, the user selects the better one and the author is rewarded with flowers. A ranking list is given based on user judgments, and rewards are given to the top few every month. Users can also choose to challenge the charts and upload their own songs.

④ Commercialization (VIP)

Have you opened a VIP account?

• Activation: When was VIP activated? The reason for opening? Have you encountered any problems after activating VIP?
• Not activated: What is the reason?

4.2.3 Competitive product usage

Have you used other mobile karaoke apps?

• Usage: Which ones have you used? Through what channel did you learn about it? How often is it used? How long is each use? What functions are mainly used?
• Unused: Is there anyone around you who uses these products? Would they recommend these software to you?

4.2.4 Anchor

a. When did you start being a live streamer and why?

b. How often do you broadcast live? How many people usually watch the live broadcast?

c. How is the content/theme of each live broadcast determined?

d.During the live broadcast, was there anything that happened that you still remember vividly?

e. What kind of interaction do you have with fans?

4.2.5 Others

In addition to the above questions, is there anything else you like/dislike when using Kugou?

4.3 User Interview Results

4.3.1 Basic Information

4.3.2 Specific usage scenarios

①Karaoke

② Social

③ Entertainment

④ Commercialization (VIP)

4.3.3 Competitive product usage

4.3.4 Anchor

4.3.5 Others

4.4 Research Summary

A total of 6 users participated in this survey, mainly living in Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions. Among them, 1 is working, 1 is doing internship, and 4 are studying at school. All six of them are avid users of Kugou. Three out of the six users learned about and started using Kugou after being recommended by their friends , and the other three found it through online searches .

The six users surveyed have at least 10 people around them who also use Kugou, and among them, the number of people who use it frequently ranges from 1 to 6. To some extent, it can be explained that the atmosphere and environment of karaoke are related to their current usage.

All six users started using Kugou in 2015-2016. When they have free time, they usually use it for about an hour every day, which is a very high frequency. However, when they are busy, they may not have time to pay attention to it and may just go online to take a look. This is related to the nature of social karaoke software such as Kugou, which is not like other music players or UGC short video software that can occupy users' fragmented time. But because of this, it is even more evident how much these users love singing.

The following are the user needs found after the specific usage scenario survey:

4.4.1 Karaoke

Karaoke is the foundation of any Karaoke social software. In general, these six users have used most of the karaoke methods currently provided by Kugou, and are not limited to the accompaniment singing in traditional offline KTVs. One of them is currently learning ukulele, so he prefers to record his own singing and playing songs a cappella.

In terms of karaoke sound effects , all six users have certain pursuits in this aspect, rather than just playing around for entertainment. Among these six users, five have the habit of using headphones to record songs, one of them even bought a microphone on the Kugou Mall specifically to improve the sound effects of singing, and one would record repeatedly until he was satisfied with the sound effects. There is also one person who has the highest requirements. He will use recording software to record vocals for some published works and send them for post-processing. When using some of the special sound effect adjustment functions that come with Kugou, everyone has developed their own ways and will make adjustments based on the style of the song. Of course, two of them have also formed their own personal preferences for the use of sound effects.

Regarding the selection and quality of accompaniment , we interviewed the last two users in the survey after optimizing the questions and found that they were very purposeful and searched directly without using the voice recognition function on the software. However, the two users disagreed on the selection of accompaniment: one would simply select based on the male and female versions, while the other rarely did so. Both of them said that they had listened to the works they had released before, but they disagreed on whether to re-record the works they were not satisfied with. One said it was not a big deal and would re-record, while the other felt it was unnecessary because they would have new songs they liked.

As for the singing practice mode in the software, both participants said that they rarely used it and felt that the function was rather useless and of no substantial help for karaoke.

4.4.2 Social

Among the 6 people surveyed, 2 have the habit of sharing their works on WeChat Moments, but not very often. They mainly do so to interact with friends, or to share their works and wait for their friends to praise them. The other four prefer to entertain themselves and only publish their works within the Kugou software, and some even record their works but do not publish them. It can be seen that online karaoke not only satisfies social needs, but also meets personal entertainment needs, which is a win-win situation.

When interacting with friends , everyone likes to comment and send gifts. One of the users will also pay attention to his or her new fans, and will follow back if the user has posted a lot of works. There are also 2 users who like to use the karaoke room mode to sing karaoke with their friends.

However, the platform is currently filled with a large number of users who are suspected to be "robots" who will post some strange comments from time to time and send you flowers or follow you. All six users encountered this situation, but to varying degrees. One person had a more serious situation, even containing pornographic information, and felt harassed. The other two encountered more serious situations and also had some troubles. The other three rarely encounter this type of user because they interact more with their friends. Two users said they would clean up these robot interaction comments regularly .

As for other user works on the platform, one user surveyed so far uses it to the same degree as singing karaoke by himself, and the other five users do not pay much attention to it, but there are slight differences between them. Two of them said that they do not listen to other people's works or watch short videos, and the purpose of using the software is just to play with friends; one said that he basically does not watch short videos, but occasionally listens to other people's singing of the same song before recording his own song; one said that he only watches the first part of the works in the push; and another said that he did not even know there was a short video function.

As for live broadcasting, all six are not very interested in it , three of them seldom watch it, one of them started paying attention because he became a host, another one goes to support his friends, and the other one thinks there is nothing special about it, so his attention has decreased. Among the other three, two said they were not interested in the live streaming business, and the other one said he had no idea that Kugou had a live streaming function.

In addition, regarding the use of playlists , the author also conducted a survey on the last two users interviewed after optimizing the questions. The results showed that both of them said they would use it. As for the change of adjusting the playlist from a fixed top to a movable floating window in the lower left corner of the screen, the two respondents had a big disagreement. One said that it looked good in terms of style, while the other said that it affected his ability to view software information and that he would accidentally touch it from time to time, making the user experience not pleasant.

4.4.3 Entertainment gameplay

As the main entertainment method of Kugou, 6 surveyed users said that they have used this function , and they all learned about it and used it when the function was first launched on the software. But as time goes by, only one user still uses this function regularly. Among the other five, four rarely use it now, and one still uses it but feels bored of it. At the same time, the experience of not being able to grab a microphone also makes her unhappy.

In response to online users' feedback that "there are a lot of unpopular songs in the mic grabbing session", 4 out of 6 users agreed. The main reason is that the current song classification in the mic grabbing session is very rough , and is only divided according to the era, without a detailed classification method such as language, singer, type, etc. The other two said they did not have such a feeling, and the majority of them would still be able to sing after a competition.

Based on the entertainment methods of various competing products, the author has formulated 4 entertainment methods for users and asked them to choose 2 from them. In the end, Plan C's Karaoke Ranking Competition received the full 6 votes , and all 6 votes expressed that they liked this mode similar to the mobile game ranking competition, which was more exciting and convenient to play with friends.

Next were Plan B Karaoke Challenge and Plan D Karaoke Arena , both of which received 3 votes. Users who support plan B said they like the level-breaking mode, and also want to expand their music library and improve their singing skills through this mode. However, the three who were not interested in this plan said that the level mode program was too complicated and difficult to use, and there was nothing special about it. It was just a simple level-breaking game and was not attractive enough to them.

Supporters of Plan D said that this ranking model is more exciting, and they also like the feature of rating users, but they are also concerned about the quality of users' works . The three people who opposed said that there were a lot of cases of cheating on the works on the platform, the quality was uneven, they didn't want to hear that "noise", and they couldn't learn anything from this model.

4.4.4 Commercialization

VIP is a relatively important part of the commercialization of Kugou, and it is currently the only user-oriented, purely online monetization method. Among the 6 users surveyed, 3 have activated the service and are currently using it. The three people who opened it all mentioned that they could receive extra flowers .

In addition, one person said that he activated the account because he wanted to use more special sound effects to make his works rank higher; one person said that he initially activated the account because he wanted to use the submission function, but later felt that this function was not very useful and was no longer the reason for using VIP; and another person said that in addition to receiving a large number of flowers, he served as the leader of the family and had to purchase VIP.

The three users who have not activated the VIP account said that they are aware of the functions that come with VIP, but they all feel that the free services currently provided by the platform are sufficient and there is no need to spend money to activate VIP. One of them had experienced the VIP provided by the platform, but did not spend money to activate it later. He only occasionally spent money to buy K coins and interact with friends.

4.4.5 Competitive product usage

In addition to Kugou, 6 users said they knew about Changba , and 4 of them discovered and used Changba through the Internet/APP store, another one used Changba on the recommendation of a friend in Kugou, and the remaining one said that since all his friends were using Kugou, he also focused on using this karaoke software, but he also had friends around him who used Changba and Yinyue.

Among the five people who have used it, one uninstalled it because it had too many functions and he didn't know how to use them, one gave up using it because not many friends used Changba, and one said that although Changba's sound quality and sound effects are better than Kugou, he is still used to using Kugou. In addition, 4 users have used Yinyue , mainly using the game functions such as singing and ranking competition. There are also two users who have used apps such as Kugou Changchang and Changya , but Kugou Changchang only uses the PK gameplay , while Changya mainly uses the singing and playing function .

4.4.6 Others

In addition to the above issues, 6 users also felt that there were other areas in which the platform was well developed. For example:

• The function of intelligent tuning is gradually being improved
• The song library is relatively complete and the accompaniment is clear
• The karaoke room mode provides a space for entertainment for friends who are isolated at home during the epidemic

However, some users complained about the following issues:

• There is a limit on the number of people who can use the microphone at the same time in the karaoke room mode
• Official/self-built competition judges and various rankings are all traffic-oriented , relying on flowers and K coins to get to the top, rather than purely relying on the quality of the user's work.
• The anchor level is low
• When re-recording a certain sentence during karaoke, it will cause obvious incoherence
• The last few sentences of the song are often encountered when singing for the first time or singing in segments, which is a poor user experience.

05 Functional analysis and optimization plan

5.1 Optimization ideas

Based on competitive product analysis, user survey results, and user feedback from public channels, we can find that Kugou has the following problems in terms of karaoke, community, commercialization, and entertainment:

• The platform generally uses the number of flowers/K coins to measure the quality of a work, resulting in unequal quality and ranking of works on the platform's major charts and competitions, which greatly affects the listening and usage experience;
• The platform has few entertainment functions. The song classification granularity of the current song library is coarse, and there are many unpopular songs, which leads to poor user experience.
• The functions provided by VIP are relatively useless, and most users are not willing to pay for it;
• Robots are everywhere on the platform, and users are troubled

Based on the problems found above, the author proposed the following optimization ideas, which are organized into the following mind map.

National K song-function optimization mind map

5.2 Karaoke Optimization Solution

Problems:

A large number of users have reported that the quality of the works in the platform's dynamics is worrying. If you want to solve this problem fundamentally, you can consider improving the quality of users' works. However, each user's singing level varies , and improvement is personalized.

Optimization ideas:

1. Add a song evaluation function to guide users to sing a song, test their singing level, and give suggestions based on the user's level.
2. After the evaluation is completed, when the user chooses the accompaniment for subsequent karaoke, the accompaniment fit score will be given according to the user's singing skills, and ranked from high to low.

5.2.1 Song Evaluation Entrance

The main entrance to the evaluation is on the Karaoke tab page. Other tab pages will have activity promotions to guide users to conduct evaluations. When users open the software, they first enter the "Dynamics" tab page. In the advertising area between the "Friends Update" and "Search" function areas of the tab, a fixed activity promotion is displayed as the evaluation entrance, as shown below:

Evaluation Entrance-Home Page

The karaoke homepage also adds an activity push entry, between the karaoke mode and the recommended accompaniment, as shown below:

Evaluation entrance-K song tab page

5.2.2 Song Review Page

The user clicks on the activity promotion ad from the dynamic/K song tab page and jumps to the evaluation homepage , as shown below:

Song Review-Home

On the evaluation homepage, click the "Start Evaluation" button to enter the song selection page for the evaluation. The songs recommended on the page are first selected from the songs that the user has listened to in QQ Music in the past three months . If there are no suitable songs for evaluation/the user has not listened to the songs in QQ Music recently, popular evaluated songs selected by other users will be used as recommendations. If the user does not want to sing in the recommended song, he can manually search for the song he wants to sing. As shown below:

Song review-song selection

After the song selection is completed, jump to the K-song-snippet singing function interface, perform the clip singing, and the scores are counted by the system. If the user exits in the middle , the next time he enters the evaluation, he will automatically select the last selected song and start the evaluation of the segment. Users can also choose to give up the last selection and re-enter the song selection page.

After the singing is completed, the evaluation results of the user's singing are given based on the backstage system calculation, as shown in the figure:

Song Review-Result

In addition, after the user completes the evaluation, the system will save the user's evaluation results, and the user can choose to view it by himself, as shown in the figure below: Among them, ordinary users only save the evaluation results of the last 5 times , and VIP users can save the evaluation results of the last 30 times . The evaluation results will be counted in the background to obtain the average singing level of the user. The more evaluation records, the closer the level analysis is to the user's real situation. At the same time, the accompaniment fit score is calculated based on the results in the evaluation history (see 5.2.3 ).

Song Review - History

5.2.3 Accompaniment fit

According to the user evaluation results, the system will count the user's evaluation history scores, and based on this, the accompaniment on the platform will be scored, telling the user the matching of his voice and accompaniment , so that the user can choose accompaniment that is more suitable for him. Users can click on the rating to learn more about the basis for rating .

Accompaniment fit-accompaniment search & rating basis

VIP users can click one-click optimization on the accompaniment page to automatically adjust the tune, speed, etc. of the accompaniment , so that the accompaniment is more in line with the user's singing level and enjoy a better karaoke experience.

Accompaniment fit-accompaniment optimization

5.3 Entertainment optimization plan

Problems:

The biggest advantage of Kuaishou is the QQ+ WeChat relationship chain behind it. Because the core functions and business structure of karaoke software are convergent, interaction with friends has become an important consideration for many users when choosing karaoke software. In addition to interaction, "playing happily" with friends is undoubtedly what many loyal users expect most. However, compared with other similar karaoke software, the gameplay of Kuang Kuo in entertainment interaction is relatively simple and has no advantages, so it is necessary to make some modifications to the current gameplay.

Optimization ideas:

1. Referring to the mobile game, the popular and exciting "qualifying competition" mode in the current mobile game is added, and the ranks and rewards are added. The core gameplay is based on snatching the microphone , allowing users to "play karaoke" together;
2. Optimize the songs and gameplay included in the current music library of snatching the snatch. On the one hand, ensure that most of the songs heard by everyone during the competition are familiar with, avoiding the "cold scenes" where no one answers quickly, and improving the user's entertainment experience; on the other hand, adding clue questions to the type of snatching questions makes snatching more intense and exciting and improve playability.

5.3.1 Qualifying

5.3.1.1 Qualifying Entrance & Home Page

The entrance to the qualifying competition is set on the "Sing Room" tab page . After the user clicks, he will enter the qualifying competition homepage, as shown in the figure below:

Qualifying Tournament - Entrance

When users enter the qualifying homepage , they can see their ranks in the current season, and can view rankings and tasks , or choose individual/team mode to start the competition. At the same time, the platform supports users to provide questions , as shown in the figure below:

Qualifying competition-Home & Ranking & Mission

The rules of playing are as follows:

• Mode: Individual (6 people) / Team (3V3) , you can invite friends. 12 songs/titles for a competition;
• How to play: Refer to the previous snatch mode, including: lyrics (giving lyric tips for missing text, and you need to sing clips)/ clue questions (a total of 3 prompts, one is displayed every 3 seconds, and you can snatch and answer questions during the prompt period. See 5.3.2 for specific rules);
• Ranking rules: divided into seven levels: bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, star glory, and king. Ranking is calculated in a quarter (usually 3 months). Different ranks have different rewards (flowers/K coins, etc.).

There are different levels in each rank, and you need to obtain certain points before you can advance to the next level. The level number I is the maximum level of the current rank, and the larger the number, the lower the level . The user rank is the rank name + the user rank level , such as Gold III, and the king level is named according to the number of stars , such as King 15. The number of levels and points required for upgrading are as follows:

Qualifying competition-ranking table

The points method is as follows:

Qualifying - Points Method

There are rank protection points for gold (bronze, silver) below. No matter what mode, no points will be deducted if you lose the game, only the winner will be added.

5.3.1.2 Clue questions

In addition, users can contribute their own strength to clue questions . The qualifying competition entrance provides a "question setting" entrance. After entering, users must select the question setting category according to the requirements, and provide answers to questions, clues and other materials to submit them to the background for review. If the review is passed, the user can receive the corresponding flower reward, as shown in the figure below:

Qualifying competition-Clues Questions

Users can view their question setting history , including records that are under review, passed and failed, as shown in the figure below:

Qualifying competition-clue question-setting history

5.3.1.3 Qualifying match

After the user selects the personal/team mode, enters the room and waits for the matched opponent. Friends can be invited to participate in the competition in the room. If the user does not invite 6 people (individual competition, including the user)/3 people (team competition, including the user), the system will combine 6 people to conduct the individual/team ranking competition based on the currently matching users. There is a homeowner in the room, and you can kick the user in the room out of the room. The homeowner is the user who turns on the room by default. After one game, the homeowner will become the first place in the previous game (individual game) / the winner's VIP (team formation, when multiple VIPs appear, the system will randomly decide one) . The effect diagram is as follows:

Qualifying - Matching Room

5.3.1.4 Qualifying Settlement

After each game, the points obtained by users are settled based on the performance of the authorities, as shown in the figure below:

Qualifying match-post-game settlement

5.3.2 Optimization of pounding function

5.3.2.1 Clue Questions

Added clues to the snatching model. The answers to this type of question include singer / song title / lyrics , and 3 tips for one question. The user will first know the answer type of this question, and then a prompt will be displayed every 3 seconds . Users can grab the question to answer at any time, and get 1 point for correct answers, otherwise other users can continue to answer questions, and the user cannot continue to answer this question. There are 3 chances of quick answers for each question. The quick answer process for this type is as follows:

Grab the wheat - clue question

5.3.2.2 Music library optimization

In response to the problem that the music library classifications of many users are too broad and there are many unpopular songs, it is planned to synchronize the music library of the national karaoke-related classifications with QQ music . After the synchronization is completed, it is ensured that the songs in the music library are played by all QQ music users in the past year .

5.4 VIP optimization solution

Problems:

The gameplay optimization mentioned an important reason for the survival of the national karaoke, that is, the relationship chain . In national karaoke, the core way for friends to interact is to give gifts, listening to music, live broadcasts, and dynamics are everywhere. Gifts include two types: flowers and K coins . Among them, flowers can be obtained for free by doing tasks, and K coins must be bought for money. Once there are more interactions and there are not enough flowers, you need to spend money to buy them. In short, flowers and K coins are hard currency in the interactive relationship chain of friends, and there is a certain market for K songs across the country. But in contrast, the current VIP function has two problems:

1. Additional functions are relatively useless. Even if VIPs can easily obtain more flowers, other functions are not "necessary needs" and are not very attractive to users;
2. One of the major purposes of users purchasing VIPs is to obtain a large amount of flowers, but the purchase of VIPs starts for a month and the price is not attractive enough.

Optimization ideas:

1. The VIP system is optimized, and the QQ music co-branded members are launched, and all K songs and QQ music members are collected in one place; at the same time, the 3-day/7-day short-term VIP is launched, which can also obtain a large amount of flowers for less money;
2. VIP increases privileges, and can optimize the accompaniment with one click based on the evaluation results, making the accompaniment more suitable for the user level.

5.4.1 VIP system optimization

The QQ Music co-branded VIP was launched, with the duration of both 1 month, 3 months and 12 months. The duration of QQ Music membership is the same as that of the National K Song membership . It also provides continuous monthly subscriptions , and the price reduction for the first time is as follows:

VIP-System Optimization

The price list is as follows:

VIP-Price List

5.4.2 Privilege Optimization

VIP adds the following privileges:

1. After the evaluation is completed, when searching for accompaniment, you can optimize the accompaniment (tuning, speed, etc.) with one click based on the evaluation results to provide accompaniment that better matches the user (see 5.2.3 for the renderings);
2. 3 points double cards are given in qualifying competitions every week (within 1 hour of use, the points you get are doubled). When grabbing the pound, you can add 2 familiar songs to the competition library, and at least 1 of them will appear . When multiple VIPs are present, ensure that 1 song of each VIP appears in the competition .

5.5 Achievement System

Problems:

From the Baidu search index, we can see that the current population of Kuaishou is under 19 to 25 years old. These people have one characteristic: they like to pursue beauty and personality . In previous research, there were two anchors. They both said that one of the motivations that attracted them to be anchors was the beautiful purple V logo. However, there are few decorative functions provided on the platform at present.

Optimization ideas:

The launch of an achievement system + avatar frame is to satisfy young people's love of beauty, and at the same time, it also gives them the capital to "show off" to communicate and interact with their peers.

5.5.1 Entrance

The entrance to the achievement system is placed on the personal information page . After clicking, you can enter the homepage of your personal achievements, as shown in the figure below:

Achievement System-Entry

5.5.2 Achievement System Content

Click on the personal information page - Achievement Center to enter the homepage of the Achievement System (Achievement Wall) , as shown in the figure below: This page can view all the Achievement Series set by the system & your completed Achievement Levels , and receive the Achievement Reward (flowers + points + Achievement Exclusive Avatar Frame). Click on the Achievement Series to see the detailed level of the Achievement Series (currently divided into 10 levels ). The page also displays your achievements points and the ranking of user achievements in friends/systems.

Achievement System-Achievement Wall

Achievement System-Achievement Series Details

Among them, the current design achievements series are as follows:

Achievement System-Achievement Series & Conditions Achieved

Click on an achievement series to jump to the achievement series details to display the information of the achievement and the rewards corresponding to the achievement ( flowers + points + exclusive avatar frame ). Users can set up small icons to display the achievement next to their personal nickname, receive the corresponding rewards for the achievement, and view the specific level of the achievement in the achievement series. As shown below:

Achievement System-Achievement Series Details

On the homepage of the Achievement System (Achievement Wall), click the Achievement Avatar frame and jump to the Achievement Avatar frame page to display the avatar frame corresponding to the achievements currently unlocked by the user. Users can view the currently unlocked avatar frame picture and set it to their own avatar at the same time. As shown below:

Achievement System-Achievement Avatar Frame

Users can click to view the achievements completion status of their national karaoke friends/other national karaoke users, as well as their current ranking information (friends/national) on the achievement homepage (achieving wall), as shown in the figure below:

Achievement System-Ranking List

5.6 Other functional details optimization solutions

Problems:

In addition to the above mentioned issues, the most complaints made by user research and public channels are "robots" . There are interaction, comments, and live broadcast rooms everywhere, and the most common thing for ordinary users is the robot in the comments of their works . In addition, a large number of users have reported that the quality of the internal works of the platform is worrying, and the works ranked high in various places are brushed through flowers and K coins. Clicking in to listen is simply unpleasant and has a great impact on the user experience.

Optimization ideas:

1. The sorting method of the work display increases the ranking of the work scores and adds the user's scoring function , and users can rate other users' works;
2. Users can set comment permissions and batch delete existing comments

5.6.1 Work sorting method & user scoring

The sorting methods of works in the dynamic are changed to two types: user (singer) scores and popularity . By default , the sorting method is arranged in descending order of user scores . Users can choose the sort method themselves. After the user uploads a work, if the song accompanies it, the system will automatically give the initial score of a work based on the song score. Users can rate other users' works that have been listened to. If the user listens for less than 10 seconds , scoring is not allowed . The backend will count the scores of works by all users on the platform, calculate the average score , and display them next to the user's works, as shown below:

Work sorting & user scoring

5.6.2 Comment permissions & comment batch deletion

For robot users, in the platform's personal settings - privacy rights - works related , "Stranger Permissions" are added to set the operation permissions of strangers on the user's works. At the same time, in the Message-Comments section , add the "Batch Delete" function to delete all strangers' comments with one click to avoid disturbance. As shown below:

Stranger rights management

Batch delete comments

06 Conclusion

From early challengers and imitators to today's king of Ka Song social software, Ka Song has fully utilized the relationship chain constructed by Tencent's two major social software, plus the unique function of being one step ahead, attracting many loyal users. But in recent years, national karaoke has undoubtedly encountered a development bottleneck. On the one hand, its own functional optimization speed has slowed down. On the other hand, there are constant challenges from latecomers. They either use newer gameplay or huge gaps in differentiated markets to impact the status of national karaoke again and again, which really scares the national karaoke in a cold sweat.

But even so, the author still believes that national karaoke will still be difficult to shake in the future. In Ka Song social software, social attributes are undoubtedly a major key. On this point, no one can deal with it for the time being. But even if you hold the cards in your hand, you cannot act hasty. In the future, Kuaishou still needs to make good use of existing user resources, think about better ways to play, and better improve user social experience in details, so that users can truly play music and enjoy the fun of music socialization with friends.

Author: Listen to the wind

Source: Listen to the wind

Related reading:

How can Kugou improve the conversion rate of paid members?

Case analysis: How does Kuaishou achieve user growth?