Product Analysis: A Brief Analysis of Bilibili Content Creation and Video Viewing

Table of contents:

Product Overview Demand Analysis and User Analysis Product Analysis Competitive Product Analysis SWOT Analysis Summary

1. Product Overview

1.1 Experience Environment

Experience model: Mi 6

System version: MIUI 11.0.5

Product version: 6.1.1

Experience time: 2020/5/27~6/3

1.2 Product Introduction

Bilibili, referred to as B station , is a cultural community and video platform where young people in China gather. It provides users with a good video creation environment, a large amount of high-quality OGV content, and a variety of products and services.

2. Demand Analysis and User Analysis

2.1 Requirements Analysis

1. Sharing needs: Content creators, or UP hosts, share their opinions or other content through videos or texts.
2. Entertainment needs: Content consumers, ordinary users, achieve entertainment by watching UP main videos or other OVG content.

2.2 User Analysis

Age distribution and gender distribution:

Bilibili has a large number of young people who have a good education, superior material conditions, high humanistic qualities, and high creative and expressive abilities. They continuously provide Bilibili with high-quality video content and activity. In terms of gender, the main users of Bilibili are male.

Geographical distribution:

Bilibili users are mainly distributed in Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai and other regions. These regions have more developed economies and more young people from outside the region. Young users are the main user group of Bilibili. At the same time, because the economy is more developed, the entertainment life in these regions is also richer, so there are more Bilibili users.

Interest distribution:

Judging from the distribution of interests, Bilibili users have a wide range of interests, and Bilibili also provides users with rich resources, and almost all needs can be met on Bilibili.

User activity:

According to the Q1 2020 financial report released by Bilibili, both active users and active UP hosts have increased significantly compared with the previous quarter.

3. Product Analysis

3.1 Product Features

Two major features of Station B:

1. As a UGC community, anyone can become a content producer as a UP host. Bilibili provides a platform for UP hosts to spread content.
2. Bilibili provides users with rich ACG content with strong two-dimensional attributes. However, in recent years, Bilibili has gradually developed from an ACG platform to a more diversified platform, introducing a lot of high-quality film and television content and learning resources. It is no longer a simple two-dimensional platform and is seeking to break the circle.

3.2 Product Structure

3.3 Functional Experience

3.3.1 User creation

As a UGC community, Bilibili provides users with a good creative environment. The following will analyze it from two aspects: content production and content management.

a) Content Production

As a video sharing platform, the starting point for content creation on Bilibili is not low. In addition to equipment, it also requires certain video editing capabilities. However, Bilibili launched a mobile phone submission function in July 2018, which greatly lowered the threshold for UP hosts to submit content. Users can complete video creation and submission through their mobile phones. Since then, Bilibili has continuously optimized this function, allowing UP hosts to easily shoot good-looking videos using their mobile phones, which has improved the UP hosts' enthusiasm for creation, increased their activity, and enriched the community content.

In addition to video creation, Bilibili also supports text production. UP hosts can create text in their columns, which further lowers the threshold for UP hosts to submit content and provides more possibilities for UP hosts' content creation.

On the one hand, UP hosts can create texts independently of video creation. On the other hand, UP hosts can combine their own or others' original videos with the OVG resources provided by the platform to perform secondary creation, thus achieving a closed loop of content on the same platform.

Bilibili places the entrance to content creation in the "My" column. Compared to the previous personal center that was opened in the form of a drawer on the left side of the screen, the entrance is wider and more obvious. Click "Publish" and four options will appear at the bottom of the page: "Column", "Filming", "Upload" and "Music Video".

(1) Column

The column is mainly for text creation. After entering, the latest activities related to column creation will scroll on the top of the screen. At the bottom, you can choose the column classification, cover format, and participate in activities. In more options, you can choose tags, column recommendations, reprint permissions and scheduled publishing functions.

In the text editing area, Bilibili provides commonly used text editing formats, such as highlighting, bolding, deleting, quoting symbols, dividing lines, etc. of title items.

Text editing has an automatic save function. For content that is not saved in the draft box, when the user suddenly leaves the interface, the text content will continue with the last edited content when it is opened next time. This is very user-friendly. However, Bilibili does not provide a preview function. It is speculated that this is because Bilibili believes that the content displayed in the text editing bar can replace the preview function.

Optimization suggestions:

In the actual experience, there is no corresponding quotation end function when using the quotation function, and the quotation function can only be canceled in the quoted text that is not needed later. Currently, the quotation format in the text editing format is upper quotation mark format. It is recommended to add lower quotation marks in the text editing format to indicate the end of the quotation, which will also make the text more visually complete.

(2) Shooting and uploading

In shooting mode, video can be modified and uploaded after shooting, while uploading is done by uploading local videos for video editing. Bilibili provides users with BGM, and users can also choose from their local music library. After shooting, users can change the speed, edit, add transitions, and add filters to the video.

In addition, Bilibili provides users with certain video editing tutorials, further lowering the threshold for video submission. This function is mainly for users who have certain hands-on skills and are willing to do it, but have limited other hardware and software equipment, or do not have much time to edit videos on the PC, and who are willing to become UP masters.

Optimization suggestions:

In the actual experience, the existing functions can basically shoot a complete video well. However, most functions such as transitions and filters are mainly aimed at satisfying the user's visual experience, but pay less attention to the user's auditory experience.

Therefore, Bilibili can make certain optimizations in the user's auditory experience and increase the possibilities of video editing. In the actual video editing process, marking is a common requirement. This function can improve the quality of the video to a certain extent. Therefore, the audio marking function can be added to the audio editing area.

The audio track is also displayed in the video editing area. For marked audio, the marked audio track is displayed. Users can edit the video according to the marked audio. In addition, you can add "add", "cut" and "delete" functions to make the video editing content richer.

(3) Music Video

For music videos, users select a template and then add several materials to generate a video. This method is extremely simple to operate, supports uploading short videos and photos, can quickly generate good video effects, and the entire video content is relatively short. This function is mainly aimed at users who have poor hands-on skills and hope to quickly shoot high-quality videos.

Optimization suggestions:

Because the main target users of this function are UP hosts who want to quickly produce good videos but are unwilling to perform more complicated operations on the videos. Therefore, compared with the richness of video editing functions, the richness of the material library is more important. However, the current material library has relatively little content, and most of the templates come from video submissions from UP hosts.

Therefore, a new option "Use this video as music video material" can be added to the UP host's video submission area. After the UP host checks this option, when the video's playback volume, likes, and coins reach a certain number, it will be judged as a high-quality video and enter the material screening stage, thereby achieving the purpose of enriching the material library.

b) Content Management

UP hosts can manage their creative content in the "My" creative center. The creative center is divided into the creative homepage, manuscript management, creative calendar and popular activities. The creative homepage can be used for manuscript management, fan management, and interaction management. There are also creative incentives, creative academy, task center, and creative calendar modules to motivate and guide UP hosts to submit their works. In addition, you can see the UP host's creative data on the creative homepage, and some creative guidance videos are recommended.

Manuscript management and the creation calendar can be directly accessed through the creation center, which reflects the importance of both. In manuscript management, UP hosts can share each manuscript, view data, publish and edit, delete manuscripts, and perform other operations. In the creation calendar, you can view the UP host's submission history, etc., and you can set FLAG to motivate UP hosts to create.

Optimization suggestions:

During the experience, the calendar selection requires selecting the year and month in the upper left corner to jump to the previous month or the next month, and there is no function to jump to other months by swiping left and right. It is recommended to consider adding a function to expand a month calendar and swipe left and right to move to the next month.

3.3.2 Content Push

The recommendation page on the homepage is the first page users see after entering Bilibili. The page is mainly divided into three parts: search bar, banner and push content. Users can search for the information they need through the search bar. The banner part is the column recommended by Bilibili for all users, which is played in a scrolling manner. It may include popular animation series, popular movies and TV shows, or some advertisements. The main part is videos recommended based on user interests. Long press on the video on the homepage to add it to watch later, provide feedback, or choose not to be interested.

The visual presentation of the remaining columns is generally consistent, consisting of banner + submenu + recommended content + list + theme recommendation. Each column will make corresponding additions and subtractions based on the characteristics of the column. For example, the popular area does not have a banner module, the anime chasing area adds my anime chasing column and anime chasing calendar, and the learning area does not have list content.

Optimization suggestions:

During the experience, when choosing to give feedback or not interested, feedback can only be provided in four aspects: horror and blood, pornography and vulgarity, disgusting cover, and title party/cover party. Not interested can only be selected through UP host, partition, channel and not interested, but cannot be selected for certain tags. For example, when I see content about a celebrity that I am not interested in on the homepage, these aspects may not meet my blocking needs. It is recommended to add a label blocking function to block more accurately.

3.3.3 Video Playback

In the small-screen playback interface, the video has the functions of turning on and off barrage and sending barrage. Below there are functions of following the UP host, like, dislike, coin, collect, and share the video. The upper right corner has options for small window playback, screen projection and more functions to meet the needs of daily video viewing.

The tags of the video are displayed below the video, and users can choose to like, dislike, delete, or report the tags. Below the tags are recommended related videos. The comment area is sorted by popularity by default, but users can choose to sort by time or popularity. For comments, users can also like, dislike, share, comment, or choose to follow the commenter.

In the full-screen playback interface, users can like, dislike, insert coins, charge, and share videos. In addition, compared to small-screen playback, the full-screen playback interface has additional functions such as setting barrage, playing at double speed, selecting clarity, and taking screenshots, which basically covers all needs when watching videos.

Optimization suggestions:

In the actual experience, basic needs for watching videos can be met, but because some UP hosts' video production technology is not yet mature, there may be no subtitles and the video may not be clear. At the same time, since some videos are moved and there are language communication barriers, we can consider adding a voice recognition function to support automatic recognition of voice to generate subtitles. Users can choose to turn on or not turn on subtitles.

At the same time, the mainstream users of Bilibili are mostly young people, most of whom have the need to learn. They look for learning content and various experience-based materials on Bilibili, so some people jokingly call Bilibili a "learning website." At the same time, Bilibili is also introducing a large amount of high-quality OVG content, which can also become one of the materials for practicing listening. Therefore, for the animation, movies and other content on Bilibili, it is recommended to add a subtitle switch button, and users can choose whether to turn subtitles on or off according to their needs.

In addition, the popularity order of comments on Bilibili is calculated through a combination of likes, dislikes and release time. However, for some popular anime series, there are malicious dislikes for high-quality comments, which push duplicate comments to the top. There is also the behavior of dislike for UP hosts' videos, which affects the viewing experience of the video to a certain extent.

Because the entry threshold of Bilibili has been greatly lowered in recent years, this is bound to lead to some changes in the community atmosphere. Maintaining the community atmosphere has become a new challenge for Bilibili. Therefore, it is recommended to raise the threshold for comment areas and tag dislikes, and limit the number of dislikes within a certain period.

Only users who have reached a certain level can click and downvote, thus reducing malicious click and downvote behavior. For users with a slightly higher level, because they have used Bilibili for a longer time, they love Bilibili more than low-level users and are more willing to maintain the community atmosphere of Bilibili. They will be more rational when it comes to criticizing others. At the same time, setting a certain threshold for clicks and limiting the number of clicks will make users more cautious about clicks and will also reduce malicious clicks to a certain extent.

4. Competitive product analysis

The main users of Bilibili can be divided into two categories: one is content producers and the other is content consumers. Therefore, the author mainly conducts competitive analysis from these two aspects.

4.1 Content Production

The author chose Xigua Video and Douyin Short Video, which also create video content for users, as the objects of competitive analysis in this part.

It can be seen that the content created by Bilibili is richer in form than Xigua Video and Douyin, but the entrance is deeper. Among the three, Douyin's creation entrance is the shallowest, and at the same time, Douyin has the lowest creation threshold among the three. Although Bilibili has launched a music video mode with a very low creation threshold, the deeper the entrance is, the less conducive to the promotion of this function.

In terms of video editing, Bilibili has more room for operation, but it does not have subtitle recognition function. In terms of audio editing, since Bilibili supports local video uploading, its music library is richer, but the operating space for audio is relatively weak. Bilibili has more advantages in both video publishing and creation management.

Therefore, in order to increase users' enthusiasm for creation, Bilibili can consider adding a shortcut for publishing videos on the homepage. Users who do not need this function can choose to hide it. In addition, it is recommended to enrich the operating space for audio in the mobile phone video editing function.

4.2 Content Consumers

Since the content consumption of Bilibili can be divided into PUGV content consumption created by users and OGV content created by professional teams through purchasing copyrights or self-production, the author chose Douyin, which is also UGC in nature, and iQiyi, which is mainly OGV, as the analysis objects.

In terms of content form, Bilibili's content is richer. From the perspective of PUGV, Bilibili has a large number of high-quality UP hosts that attract more users; from the perspective of OGV, the competition is about copyright and uniqueness. In addition to introducing high-quality and unique content, Bilibili's self-produced documentaries also cover different aspects, which satisfies young people's thirst for knowledge and curiosity.

From the perspective of content consumers, whether it is a UP host or an official account, users can communicate with content producers and give content producers certain feedback, which is conducive to subsequent content production.

In addition, both Bilibili and iQiyi have the barrage function, which allows users to communicate while watching videos, but low-quality barrage will also greatly affect the user experience. The quality of Bilibili's barrage is higher than other platforms, but with the increase in users, the quality of barrage has a downward trend. Maintaining a good community atmosphere has also become one of the challenges for Bilibili to break out of its circle.

Facing the four major video playback softwares, iQiyi, Youku, Tencent Video and Mango TV, acquiring users through copyright competition is one of Bilibili’s disadvantages, but it can build its own advantages through the uniqueness of its content and maintaining a good community atmosphere.

The uniqueness of the content lies on the one hand in introducing exclusive content and producing high-quality documentaries. However, because Bilibili also has a good creative environment, it can consider linking high-quality IPs with UP hosts, or holding related activities to encourage ordinary users to create and contribute content, which will become unique to Bilibili. To maintain a good community atmosphere, we need to improve the reporting and blacklisting mechanism so that users can have a good community environment according to their preferences.

5. SWOT analysis

Advantages

1. Most of the users are young people with high user activity and stickiness, and they have great consumption potential.
2. The platform is rich in content, and a large number of UP hosts provide fresh content for the platform. The introduced OGV content and exclusively planned content can attract users to watch on the one hand, and on the other hand, attract UP hosts to produce a new round of content.

Disadvantages

1. The original platform has a strong two-dimensional attribute, and the impression it leaves on people will limit its use by some users.
2. The main form of creative content is video, which still has a certain threshold compared to text creation.

Chance

1. There are a large number of young people with rich imagination and creativity, who can bring fresh energy to the platform.
2. Young people are more willing to pay for virtual items than people of other age groups. Even if their paying ability is temporarily weak, they are still potential paying users with long-term development potential.
3. Since most of the platform users are young people, it can attract other groups targeting young people to join the platform.
4. In addition to young people, users of other age groups have certain development potential.

threaten

1. With the increase in users, the community atmosphere and user etiquette have declined compared to before.
2. Many big UP hosts were attacked, which brought certain negative impacts to the platform.
3. The content richness of OGV is still far behind that of the leading platforms, and it is at a disadvantage in copyright disputes.

Summarize

Overall, Bilibili has been lowering the threshold for video creation as much as possible, but compared with other video creation platforms, the threshold is still slightly higher. Although OGV content is slightly disadvantaged in terms of copyright, the two have unique advantages when implemented on the same platform.

In the long run, Bilibili has great potential for development, but it also faces huge challenges. The increase in users will lead to a decline in the quality of the community, and whether Bilibili can maintain a good community atmosphere remains to be seen.

Author: ZWM

Source: ZWM

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