Upgrading the PGC industry chain Zhang Chaoyang: We are playing a good game and Sohu will explode again

Recently at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Sohu Inc. Chairman and CEO Zhang Chaoyang was made a big fuss by the media because of a coat with torn threads, and the media believed that Sohu was a bit lonely.

The next day, at the third Sohu Video Producer Conference, Zhang Chaoyang, still a straightforward CEO, responded openly, "Reporters have the right to write all kinds of things, I won't comment. Regarding the coat, I have a lot of coats, this is my favorite, I wear it often, I bought it on a business trip in New York before, I really like it, I wore it too much, I didn't notice the seam at the back."

He then said frankly: "Regarding Sohu, the layout in various fields is still good. Now it is a good chess game, and we will explode again."

How is Sohu playing a good game of chess?

"In three years, I will make Sohu return to the center of the Internet!"

As a veteran who has worked in the Chinese Internet industry for 20 years, Zhang Chaoyang publicly set such a goal for Sohu. There are only a handful of people who have witnessed the ups and downs of the entire Chinese Internet industry and persisted on their way through. Zhang Chaoyang is one of them. As a top student of science and engineering, he has a clear account book in his mind about Sohu's overall business and future direction.

At present, Sohu has four relatively clear business lines, and these four businesses are interrelated. Sohu News, Sohu News Client, PC, and Sohu Mobile. The main one is Sohu News Client, which is an information media; the second is Sohu Video. Many of the content of Sohu Video self-media is knowledge visualization and consulting content. In addition to watching online dramas, you can see more Sohu information in news videos; the third is Sogou Input Method, and Sogou is also the second largest search engine at present, targeting the direction of artificial intelligence; the last is Changyou, an online game that continuously generates cash flow.

In addition to e-commerce, Sohu's layout involves almost all areas of the Internet industry, and they are all interrelated. In the video field, its tentacles have already been deployed in the most popular directions now, such as PGC and live broadcast.

Zhang Chaoyang said, "As the Internet enters its 22nd year, what excites me is making good products and services and bringing value to millions of users. Sohu is turning into an engineer and product-oriented company, committed to creating value for users in terms of information and entertainment. In terms of information, Sohu News Client has been iterated seven times in two years, integrating editing flow, recommendation flow, channel settings, search scenarios and the latest social experience functions such as Fox Friends. In terms of entertainment, Sohu Video's "Wu Xin: The Monster Killer", "He's Coming, Please Close Your Eyes", "Assassin's Biography", "My Dear Princess" and the currently popular "Forensic Qin Ming" have attracted a large number of users. Changyou is another effort made by Sohu Group to entertain netizens. Sogou is our important contribution to the Chinese Internet in the dimension of machine intelligence. VR and other cutting-edge fields are also the focus of Sohu's investment, and Fox Friends is our new start in social networks."

After getting a good chess game, the rest depends on how the leader manages it, that is, the management and execution capabilities of the company. Judging from the past crisis management in the Internet industry, Zhang Chaoyang is a steady and highly emotional operator.

PGC strategy triggers a new trend in self-media

For the video industry, last year was a year of rapid rise of PGC, and the advent of the PGC era has ushered in a new round of competition among major video websites. Sohu Video has always been a supporter and flag bearer of the PGC strategy.

Previously, video websites have turned to PGC, gradually shifting their focus from the crude model of burning money to compete for copyrights to professional third-party production teams. While the PGC model has gained unprecedented attention and traffic, it has also gradually exposed the problem of homogeneity. For example, the popularity of WIFI and 4G has made PGC short videos overwhelming, and the content is mostly in the form of comedy, jokes, talk shows, etc. Once a program is successful, similar programs will immediately follow, which will cause aesthetic fatigue to users and reduce their favorability.

But the situation has improved this year, and we can find a large number of high-quality PGC content on video websites.

Zhang Chaoyang said, "In the past few years, Sohu Video self-media has grown to a very large scale, with daily traffic of tens of millions to hundreds of millions of traffic. In addition, many excellent producers have emerged in Sohu Video self-media in the past few years, because producers are the protagonists in Sohu Video self-media, and we build a platform for these producers to perform. Sohu Video strives to lead the era of online content, insists on strategic investment in original self-media producers, invests in video self-media on a large scale, leads the high-quality online content brand platform, establishes authoritative influence, and creates the industry's first video self-media producer platform."

In the future, Sohu Video will achieve strategic upgrades and comprehensively layout the PGC industry chain. Ma Yi, general manager of Sohu Video Product Technology Center and 56.com, revealed that Sohu Video's self-media has grown rapidly in the past six months. Currently, the number of Sohu Video's self-media has exceeded 4,300, the number of videos has exceeded 1.2 million, the number of columns has reached 26,000, the average daily viewing times are 100 million, the average daily number of viewers is 30 million, and the monthly platform playback volume reaches 3 billion.

Zheng Tao, director of Sohu Video's product technology center and editor-in-chief of 56.com, said that Sohu Video's overall strategic plan for self-media is to "dig deep vertically and seek innovation in change." In 2017, it will provide self-media producers with 1 billion in promotional resources, 100 million in advertising revenue, and 50 million in equity investment.

In the past two years, the vigorous promotion and support of video websites for both self-produced dramas and PGC has reflected a problem from the side: video websites are actively exploring new profit models besides copyright purchase and advertising sales to get rid of the criticized "money-burning model". In this exploration process, the enthusiasm of video websites for content production has been stimulated, and a large number of professional video content teams have been helped to grow, enriching netizens' entertainment needs for video content.

From the windbreaker incident, we can see that Zhang Chaoyang is a nostalgic person. Such people are often persistent. He believes that he will stick to the right direction, so he said, "We will continue the Sohu Video Producer Conference. Following the Sohu Video Producer Conference, we will see a future of unlimited innovation."

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.