Douban, the mobile Internet can no longer wait for your confusion

A few days ago, when I was chatting with some entrepreneurial friends, we talked about Douban. As loyal users of Douban, we all expressed regret that during the best time of mobile Internet, Douban lost its direction, or failed to find the right entrance to mobile Internet.

Although Douban has cast its net everywhere, launching apps such as Douban Reading, Douban FM, Douban, Douban Group, Yi Ke, and Douban Dongxi, except for the earlier Douban FM, the performance of the others can only be described as lukewarm. Yi Ke and Douban Dongxi, which Douban had high hopes for, have been even more disappointing.

In order to avoid causing other troubles, for example, the evaluation of people and things will be subjective after all, so we will only talk about data here.

First, let’s talk about the IP and PV index of Douban’s webpage. (Data source: Alexa)

Through Douban's Baidu Encyclopedia, we found the following data: In August 2012, the monthly number of unique users (UV) exceeded 100 million, and the average daily PV was 160 million.

According to Alexa, Douban has an average daily IP of about 2.85 million and an average daily PV of about 30 million. Since the data comes from a third party, there is a certain degree of error, so it is only for reference.

Let's make a horizontal comparison and look at the IP and PV index of Baidu Tieba in the same period:

Baidu Tieba’s average daily IP is around 78.88 million, and its PV is around 668 million, which is more than 20 times that of Douban.

OK, let's look at the data on the mobile side.

Since the number of APP downloads is often an internal company secret, we can only find out from third-party stores and compare it with similar APPs.

First, let’s look at the data from Android’s third-party app stores. Here we choose the representative ones: Wandoujia, App Store, and Baidu Mobile Assistant.

Wandoujia data:

Just select the main ones: Douban 200,000, Douban Group 1.47 million, Douban FM 8.34 million, Douban Movies 2.27 million, Douban Reading 1.46 million, Douban Moment 270,000, and Douban East and West 110,000.

App data:

The data is as follows: Douban 250,000, Douban Group 410,000, Douban FM 1.76 million, Douban Movies 540,000, Douban Reading 200,000, Douban Moments 110,000, and Douban East and West 46,000.

Baidu Mobile Assistant:

The data is as follows: Douban 490,000, Douban Group 1.37 million, Douban FM 4.41 million, Douban Movies 2.49 million, Douban Reading 1.41 million, Douban Moments 460,000, and Douban East and West 160,000.

The total number of users of the three major application markets is: Douban 940,000, Douban Group 3.25 million, Douban FM 14.51 million, Douban Movies 5.30 million, Douban Reading 3.07 million, Douban Moment 840,000, and Douban East and West 316,000.

This also involves APP retention rate, repeat installations, actual activations, etc. The data has to be cut at least in half, but for the sake of comparison, we will not consider these issues for now and still refer to the statistical data.

According to the Q1 report of iResearch International, App Store accounted for 17.10% of the market share, Wandoujia accounted for 10.90% of the market share, and Baidu Mobile Assistant accounted for 28.7% of the market share. The three together accounted for 56.7% of the Android third-party market.

Of course, I would like to state that this data is only a part of the download volume of Douban series apps. It is the final estimated total number. Interested friends can try to count it by themselves. I don’t know whether Douban officials are satisfied with this data.

Okay, let’s start analyzing them one by one.

First of all, the highest ranking is Douban FM, which is also the earliest APP launched by Douban. There are many outstanding independent musicians in it, which brings me many musical surprises. I used it from 2010 to 2014, and now I have switched to NetEase Cloud Music.

At present, music apps have basically integrated the functions of Douban FM, completed copyright standardization, established a profit-sharing system with musicians, and competed in lossless sound quality.

Nowadays, Douban FM’s main focus on discovery and sharing is no longer its exclusive advantage. The niche music, low sound quality, and inability to download can no longer meet the needs of users. For those who have high taste in music, I would recommend Xiami Music and NetEase Cloud Music.

More importantly, NetEase Cloud Music and Lizhi FM have already started the road of music socialization (not just sharing), while Douban FM is still FM.

Judging from the number of downloads, popular music apps have exceeded 100 million, needless to say. However, in terms of personalized needs for discovery and sharing, NetEase Cloud Music and Xiami Music have already caught up, and Lizhi FM is not convinced.

(Screenshot from Baidu Mobile Assistant)

Douban Group should have been ahead of Momo. Unfortunately, Douban Group’s mobile version did not pay enough attention to the social portal.

Why do I compare Momo with Douban groups? Because Douban groups are really Momo's teachers. When young artists used Douban to hook up, Momo was not even born. On the mobile side, both are location- and interest-based social networking.

For example: Momo Bar vs Douban Group, Activities vs Douban Local, Books vs Douban Reading, Movies vs Douban Movies...

However, Douban’s biggest mistake on the mobile side is that it did not copy Douban’s genetic advantage of “interest-based social networking” to the mobile side, but instead copied Douban Group’s PC side to the mobile side. (This is not a disparagement)

Today, Momo has been downloaded 39.33 million times on Wandoujia alone, far exceeding the 3.25 million downloaded by the Douban group on the three major app markets combined, and is ready to go public.

This is a screenshot of the Douban group’s homepage:

Baidu Tieba, on the other hand, has redesigned its entrance to meet the needs of mobile terminals, and has highlighted making friends and chatting on the homepage based on interests:

Therefore, the number of downloads of Baidu Tieba on Wandoujia alone reached: 22.24 million.

Here, I want to ask Douban officials, is your so-called user experience really for the users? Or are you just being stubborn? When have you ever considered the social needs of users on mobile devices?

Next, let’s look at Douban Movies. Douban Movies’ advantage lies in the loyal fans and reputation accumulated by Douban Movie Reviews. For example, when I watch a movie, I will definitely check Douban Movie Reviews to see the ratings.

However, in the offline 020 competition, Douban Movies' performance can only be described as tepid. Looking at the entire 020 market, Meituan, Nuomi, Dianping, Juhuasuan and others are fighting back and forth, relying on giants to divide up most of the local market share.

I admit that I went to Meituan to buy movie tickets after reading Douban movie reviews. Also, I really didn’t know that Douban movie reviews can be used to buy movie tickets.

In the vertical field of movie tickets, Maoyan and Guevara are doing publicity and promotion almost street by street. You can see related publicity of Maoyan and Guevara in prominent positions at the entrance of cinemas. Where is Douban Movies?

Even in terms of download volume, Maoyan's total of 7.56 million in the three major markets has exceeded Douban Movies' 5.3 million, which is a considerable gap. If Douban Movies does not take action, the gap will widen further.

Douban Reading. Douban Music, Movies, and Reading can be said to be the foundation of Douban. So how does Douban Reading perform?

First of all, I really like the Douban Reading icon, it's really great, but I uninstalled it after using it for a while. In short, there are not many books and the experience is not good. I can't stand the fact that Douban Reading often can't connect to the Internet for a long time, and there is still no night mode! (Is this considered dark?)

As a person who must have a reading app on his mobile phone, I have used Kaijuanyou, PalmReader, Dushuxing, and Anyview Reading. I used Anyview Reading the most before, but later Anyview A drive crashed and the online search was useless, so I had to uninstall it with great reluctance.

Currently I use NetEase Cloud Reader and Duokan. (I’m really not here to advertise for NetEase)

Reading apps, like music apps, have established profit-sharing systems with authors and publishers after copyright formalization, and have begun to focus on high-quality content and experience. As a predecessor, Douban has always done a good job in this regard.

However, as giants entered the market and up-and-coming players continued to rise, Douban Reading fell into the same predicament as Douban FM and stagnated. Nowadays, reading apps are basically developing in two extreme directions: one is comprehensive reading, including local reading, bookstores, magazines, self-media, subscriptions, etc., and the other is minimalist type, selecting high-quality content, such as ONE, Toutiao, Zhihu Daily, etc.

Let's compare it with NetEase Cloud Reading, which has 9.4 million downloads on Wandoujia, far exceeding Douban Reading's total of 3.07 million.

I am now using NetEase Reading to read and subscribe to Douban-related content. Will Douban officials punish me if they see this?

Douban Yike and Douban Dongxi were launched by Douban in May and June this year, respectively, and Douban has high hopes for them. As mentioned above, Douban Yike selects Douban's high-quality content and claims to be the first pure mobile APP, named "Yike".

Abei once said: "Many companies will do operations and let editors put forward good content, but Douban has not taken this path." "We never create topics or hype in the community. Up to now, there is not a single editor in the entire community." The launch of Douban Yike represents a change in Douban's operational thinking.

But how is Douban Yike doing? Six months later, the total number of Douban Yike on the three major platforms is 840,000, which is a bit embarrassing, but compared with Douban Dongxi's 316,000, it is still relatively good.

Douban has also given great support to Yike and Dongxi. They were recommended on Douban’s homepage and in Douban’s series of apps. Although they attracted media attention when they were first launched, they did not bring satisfactory results.

For Douban Moment, we compare ONE and Zhihu Daily, which have similar styles.

The total number of ONE on the three major platforms is 7.17 million, and Zhihu Daily is 3.91 million.

Douban Stuff is a way for Douban to commercialize. To put it bluntly, it has been floating in the cloud for too long and it is time to land. However, unlike shopping guide websites that focus on cost-effectiveness and rebates, Douban focuses on sharing and discovery, which is its specialty.

To be honest, I am still optimistic about this model. After all, with the success of Meilishuo and relying on Douban's more than 20 million related shopping groups, Douban's products should not have a score of 316,000 on the three major platforms.

First of all, Douban started too late. Now it is a shopping carnival for all the people. Social media has its own shopping guide attribute. When you open WeChat, Weibo, Momo and other apps, you will be bombarded with all kinds of shopping guide information.

Secondly, from the perspective of user experience, shopping itself is highly goal-oriented, unlike books and music, where there are surprises that can be encountered by chance. When users need a certain product, they must hope to find a high-quality, low-priced product quickly.

Finally, Douban Dongxi did not actually import the more than 20 million Douban shopping groups.

Because Douban divided itself into more than a dozen mobile apps on the mobile side, it also completely divided the user's usage scenarios - there is no connection between the apps, and it is difficult to jump to each other's functions.

For a long time, Douban users and industry insiders have expressed confusion and doubts about Douban's decision to dismantle Douban's functions one by one, but Douban has its own ideas. I will not comment on this here because as a stupid young man, I cannot understand the hearts of literary young people.

In August, many Douban users were telling each other that Douban had finally released Douban APP instead of Douban XX. Everyone on Zhihu was discussing this matter enthusiastically and were full of expectations for Douban APP. However, when Douban APP really appeared, everyone was silent. The gap between this and everyone's expectations was too big.

In the words of a former Douban employee: Its main functions are book, movie and music activity entries, entry-based chat rooms, entry collections, and a small number of personal homepages. It's really different from what you think.

The emergence of Douban APP did not connect the information and functions of each other's APPs. It simply integrated books, movies, audio, and activities, and cut off the most important Douban groups.

Of course, Douban App has only been released for 3 months, and will undergo certain changes along with Douban’s strategy. In Abei’s words: Douban App is not just a continuation of Douban on mobile phones, it is a new beginning.

The data submitted by the newly launched Douban APP on the three major platforms is 940,000.

Through the above series of data, we can see that Douban’s steadily growing mobile data did not outperform the logarithmic growth of other companies in the same period.

Anyone who has worked in the mobile Internet industry knows what these data mean.

In the fast-changing mobile Internet era, those who run slowly have already fallen behind. Even with high-quality users and content, Douban still failed to seize the opportunity in this race.

In addition, according to the iMedia Research report, a single user uses an average of eight apps per month. Apart from essential apps such as instant messaging and life services, there is limited space left for entertainment and leisure apps. The report also points out that influence can only be discussed when the number of installed devices of a single app reaches more than 50 million.

In August 2011, Douban completed its C round of financing of 50 million US dollars. At the same time, Momo was officially launched. Three years later, even Momo is going public...

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.