Shulou(Shulou.com)06/01 Report--

When the tide comes and goes, online education is immersed in the carnival of capital games; when the tide is gone, many online educators are lost in the "way of money". As a result, the song of ice and fire also began to play in the field of online education.

On one side is the elimination of the small and medium-sized online education platform; on the other side is the stride forward of the head platform. In the first half of 2019, one to one boss received $350 million in round E financing, DaDa received $255 million financing from D-round, and NetEase youdao, which is frequently rumored to be listed in the United States, released five children's enlightenment course products and an intelligent word search hardware-NetEase youdao dictionary pen 2.0 a few days ago.

Behind the great progress, the giant's ambition is aimed at the ecology of the whole education industry chain.

"knowledge changes fate" has always been regarded as truth by the working people.

In recent years, with the help of user demand and Internet technology, the online education tuyere is getting bigger and bigger, and its market scale has also achieved explosive growth. More and more entrepreneurs and investment institutions begin to pour into online education, especially many platforms represented by 51Talk, VIPkid, DaDa and so on have entered one-to-one online English education.

However, unlike many one-to-one English online education, industry giants such as NetEase youdao seem to have greater ambitions for the education market.

As an educational technology company with technology-driven products, NetEase youdao has been expanding its educational landscape. Before the release of five children's enlightenment course products, NetEase youdao already has NetEase youdao dictionary, youdao cloud notes, Youdao children's dictionary, Youdao translator and other learning Apps;. At the same time, NetEase youdao also launched Youdao Translation Wang 2.0Pro, youdao translation egg, Youdao intelligent pen, youdao dictionary pen and other learning intelligent hardware. In addition, based on AI technology, NetEase youdao also launched Youdao Zhiyun, Youdao Zhixuan and other enterprise service platforms.

Roll out NetEase youdao's product library, and what is displayed in front of us is the online education layout of the trinity of "content + AI+ hardware", which mainly connects the online to offline experience closed loop through cloud services of paid live courses, learning Apps, intelligent hardware and one-stop AI solution, thus realizing comprehensive coverage of the upstream, middle and downstream links of the education industry. In view of this, NetEase youdao, which has 800m + users and more than 22 million daily active users, is aiming at the industry-wide chain of online education.

The five children's enlightening course products released by NetEase youdao are also based on this logic. Youdao maths focuses on cultivating children's mathematical thinking ability; music reading can really build children's reading ability; youdao children's English aims to improve children's English proficiency; and youdao Little Turing and youdao Kata aim to improve children's programming ability.

On the one hand, many different kinds of children's enlightening course products can meet the multiple needs of children's learning in an all-round way; on the other hand, many different kinds of children's enlightening course products can also enhance children's comprehensive ability in an all-round way. more easily welcomed by parents and students.

As all kinds of contestants pour into online education, the online education track is also gradually beginning to usher in grading.

Online education: traditional education genes to the left, Internet genes to the right

With the gradual elimination of more and more small and medium-sized platforms, the online education head platform is forming two camps: one is the traditional education gene company camp represented by the good future and New Oriental, and the other is the Internet gene company camp represented by NetEase youdao. And the logic of online education on these two kinds of platforms is obviously different.

Differences in product thinking:

The main purpose of traditional educational genetics companies to create online education products is to make up for the lack of online demand, so that students can not only study offline, but also listen to lessons online. For companies with traditional educational genes, they used to pay more attention to the teaching and research of offline education and the construction of teaching staff, which is their advantage.

And Internet genetic companies represented by NetEase youdao create products that pursue the ultimate user experience. NetEase youdao do online education, not simply to meet the basic needs of users to listen to online lectures, they want to build one "educational product" after another around famous teachers to really enhance users' online lecture experience in an all-round way.

Differences in the application of technology:

Traditional Educational Genetics Company, as a traditional offline company, although they had some shortcomings in Internet technology in the past, in today's information age, they also try to create better educational products by embracing new technologies such as artificial intelligence in local areas or in some specific teaching areas, such as not long ago. On the official release of intelligent hardware and intelligent learning system.

In contrast, Internet genetic education companies have begun to fully apply big data, AI and other new technologies to the field of online education. As mentioned earlier, NetEase youdao not only launched Youdao Translation Wang 2.0Pro, youdao translation egg, Youdao intelligent pen, youdao dictionary pen and other learning intelligent hardware, but also applied AI technology to a variety of learning APP, and launched an one-stop solution cloud service based on AI technology.

Differences in user thinking:

One of the most important reasons for traditional educational genetics companies to build online education products is the singleness and limitation of offline access channels, and they want to gain more users through online platforms. So the user thinking that they build online education products is flow thinking, and the online platform does help them get more users.

Different from the traditional educational genetics company, the Internet genetics company represented by NetEase youdao is more focused on how to maximize the creation of more value for users. Although Internet Genomics also creates online education products to attract more users to use their products, their logical thinking is that only by creating value for users will users use their products more frequently. In order to enhance the stickiness of users, they must continue to create more value for users.

From this point of view, no matter from the product thinking, or from the technology application and user thinking, the Internet genetic education science and technology companies represented by NetEase youdao have obviously different logic from the traditional educational genetics companies. And it is this different logic that has built a broad moat for NetEase youdao.

Behind multiple products: content, technology, users and brands are indispensable.

Behind the fact that NetEase youdao can make so many products and are sought after by users, in addition to the different logic, the most important thing is the competition barrier that NetEase youdao has accumulated over the years.

Content advantage. NetEase youdao CEO Zhou Feng once said: to do education is not to do e-commerce, not to sell things, so we do the content ourselves to ensure the core competitiveness.

In 2014, NetEase youdao launched fragmented and gamed light teaching models such as "Youdao School" and "youdao speaking Master" and began to test the waters of online education; in 2016, "youdao School" was officially renamed to "youdao Fine course" to upgrade its content. Today, NetEase youdao has completed the layout of all product lines, covering CET-4 and CET-6, postgraduate entrance exams, civil servants, overseas examinations, vocational ye qualification courses, and, of course, the core K12 all-discipline.

From the growing users and revenue data, we can see that NetEase youdao through scientific teaching and research system, in vocational education, quality education, K12 education and many other fields to create a huge boutique content, welcomed and loved by users, and the achievements in the course content has also become the cornerstone of the sustainable development of NetEase youdao.

Technological advantage. The combination of Internet, artificial intelligence, big data and education is the major trend of the future development of online education industry. NetEase youdao, which relies on NetEase, a big Internet group, has a great advantage in the blessing and auxiliary role of AI technology in online education.

In 2018, NetEase youdao CEO Zhou Feng announced the "TEACH" strategy at the first round of strategic financing conference: "T"-Tools, learning tool; "E"-Educator, teacher; "A"-AI, artificial intelligence; "C"-Content, course content; "H"-Hardware, smart hardware. Among them, the curriculum content and teachers have developed steadily, so AI is an important link in the follow-up strategic development of NetEase youdao.

A year later, youdao Zhiyun, a cloud service platform based on NetEase's youdao one-stop AI solution, NetEase youdao has launched a variety of AI-enabled online education products: AI recording system, AI handwriting assistant correction system, AI photo automatic problem determination technology, etc., as well as intelligent learning hardware such as translated egg, Youdao intelligent pen, youdao dictionary pen and so on.

NetEase youdao has repeatedly launched mature smart products that perfectly interpret its mission: to use new AI technology to make language, study and work easier and more effective. Today, based on advanced AI technology, NetEase youdao has taken the lead in the field of online education. In addition to a number of intelligent hardware products, a variety of its learning software optimizes the user experience with AI, which greatly improves the learning efficiency of users.

User advantage. Public data show that: at present, the total number of users of NetEase youdao products has exceeded 800 million, and the number of daily active users has also exceeded 22 million, making it the largest Internet education brand in China.

Based on its huge user base, NetEase's new youdao product is easier to get users through existing channels. From the point of view of user sources, the users who tried to use youdao boutique courses at the beginning mainly came from NetEase youdao Dictionary, because NetEase youdao Dictionary is more well-known, has a solid user base, and has a strong diversion ability, while the user sources of other youdao intelligent products are also based on the transformation of loyal users accumulated by NetEase youdao in the past.

In addition, the user database based on a large number of users can better feedback product problems and upgrade user services. NetEase youdao can use artificial intelligence and big data technology to collect users' learning habits, learning methods and other multi-dimensional information to form a user database, and then match suitable teachers and students, students and courses, students and teaching methods to plan the optimal learning path for users, so as to improve users' learning efficiency and optimize product service experience.

All in all, the user advantage of NetEase youdao is directly reflected in that it can help brand marketing information accurately reach users and attract more users for the diversion of new products and with the assistance of user database in a short time.

Brand advantage. As the saying goes: a famous teacher makes a good apprentice, the popularity of a brand determines its ability to attract money, and the promotion of brand awareness is closely related to product experience.

From the beginning of NetEase's youdao dictionary to today's dozens of product matrices, NetEase youdao has been refreshing a new height in the online education market with its strong technical strength and unswerving user-centered product concept. At the same time, NetEase youdao has accumulated a profound brand advantage, and its user recognition and recognition are very high.

From the perspective of the whole online education industry, NetEase's excellent youdao course content and leading AI technology have established his brand status in the online education industry, and the advantage of brand effect directly affects the number of users or sales volume of the product. Therefore, NetEase youdao's brand advantage, the most intuitive embodiment is to bring more consumer groups.

The next decade of online Education: the AI era

In the next decade, the scale of online education will be considerable. According to the statistics of the "Market Prospect and Investment Strategic Planning Analysis report of China's online Education Industry" released by the prospective Industrial Research Institute, the size of China's online education market reached 281 billion yuan in 2017, an increase of 26.7 percent over the same period last year. The size of China's online education market exceeded 300 billion yuan in 2018, and is expected to reach 387 billion yuan by 2019. It is predicted that China's online education market will reach 466 billion yuan in 2021.

On the one hand, the imbalance of educational resources between third-and fourth-tier cities and first-and second-tier cities is a long-standing problem in China's education, while the emergence of online education makes people see the hope of balanced educational resources. it is predicted that the growth momentum of the market scale of online education in China will remain steady in the future.

On the other hand, with the advent of the 5G era, technology-driven online education will become more and more popular. The large bandwidth brought by 5G creates conditions for the optimization of video and voice, and solves the problem of real-time communication and interaction between teachers and students at the present stage. In 5G environment, teaching products can support scene-based "one-to-many" teaching, maximize the influence of teaching content, and solve the problem of real-time communication and interaction between teachers and students.

The breakthrough of Internet technology provides a new growth point for the online education market. With the support of technology, online education begins to move towards the deep water area, especially the emergence of AI technology makes up for the shortcomings and shortcomings of online education. The integrated development of artificial intelligence, big data and education can enable online education products to simulate the "human way of thinking", better assist teachers in teaching and homework correction, and help students learn courses and obtain materials. Let technology become the best learning assistant for teachers and students.

From blackboard to projector, offline to online, information technology represented by cloud computing, big data, Internet of things, artificial intelligence and so on will be more and more widely used in the field of education. The next decade of online education must be the era of technological victory, especially the core technology represented by AI.

For the online education of traditional educational genetics companies and the online education of Internet genetics, their fate will also usher in a real watershed. Education companies, as Internet genes, obviously have greater advantages in technologies such as AI. For NetEase youdao, they will usher in the best development opportunity of online education in the next decade.

(official account of Liu Kuang / tr. by Phil Newell) ID:liukuang110

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