Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

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Tiktok brings byte beat to the forefront again, and it also makes the outside world take a closer look at this eight-year-old company, which is worth hundreds of billions of dollars and is still racing at full speed.

At a time when the outside world is generally attracted by Tiktok, few people pay attention to another byte-beating video software-watermelon video. In today's impression, watermelon video is just a video player embedded in Jinri Toutiao.

But for byte jumps, this video software is the "groundbreaking" of Toutiao video applications. However, with the rise of Volcano Mini Video and Douyin, the backward watermelon video began to move into the long video field in order to avoid direct competition with other sister products, thus opening its expansion in the long video field.

Since the beginning of this year, watermelon video is constantly moving in the field of long video. During the epidemic, watermelon video spent 630 million yuan to win the copyright of "embarrassing mom", which led to speculation about whether watermelon video is playing "Youai Teng" attention; others say that according to the layout of watermelon video, watermelon video in the video content community, it seems to be more like foreign well-known video community YouTuBe.

Watermelon video this "chaotic" positioning, in the current long video scuffle appears to be quite "inappropriate", but it is consistent with the "boundless" byte beating style, which may be the unique place of watermelon video.

Expanding watermelon video

As one of the three short video applications of note jump, watermelon video has adjusted the original short video development path in principle and replaced it with the content production idea of the combination of PGC and UGC; in product design, it has been replaced by personalized content recommendation home page, accurate content recommendation and user feedback mechanism. Today's watermelon videos are closer to YouTuBe, both in content production and product design.

In fact, from the date of the birth of watermelon video, the target is YouTuBe. However, with the continuous development of the platform, watermelon video began to deviate from this goal. For example, in addition to the short video content, Watermelon Video has also opened a new long video program, the screening hall, which includes a number of classic old dramas such as "shining Sword" and "Family with Children".

In addition, in the content library of watermelon video, documentaries, movies, children, animation, Hollywood and other major categories have also become part of this long list. In addition to old dramas, watermelon video also spares no effort in purchasing new dramas.

At the beginning of the year, when offline cinemas were collectively closed and New year's files were withdrawn, watermelon video spent 630 million yuan to win the free broadcast right of "embarrassing Mom", revealing the desire of watermelon video for the new drama IP. At the end of last month, Watermelon Video won the exclusive broadcast rights of the popular music variety show "The Voice of China 2020" in a high profile, once again demonstrating its ambitions for long video content.

As a result, watermelon video has entered the hinterland of Youai Teng. However, judging from the current actual situation, this statement does not seem to be sufficient.

It is not the logic of "Youai Teng"

For a long time, because of the wide content audience, high topic degree and unique charm, network variety has become the content field that the major video websites compete to squeeze into. Because a good variety show can drive the multiplication of platform users and the rapid growth of platform paying users.

Therefore, in order to stimulate the growth of paying users, video platforms such as iqiyi and Tencent launch a large number of online variety shows every year. The effect is indeed obvious. Iqiyi and Tencent have received a large number of new paid members because of popular online variety shows.

But the entry of watermelon video is undoubtedly cross-border robbery. After all, watermelon videos are free and advertising-free, which is simply a "dimension reduction blow" for these paid platforms, and some people even exclaim that watermelon videos have entered the hinterland of Youaiteng. However, from the perspective of the content ecology of watermelon video, it does not seem to be completely tenable.

First of all, watermelon video in the long video content layout, the depth and breadth are not as good as "Youai Teng". After all, for a long video platform, whether it has a "moat" depends on whether the content asset is unique. At present, the long video content of watermelon video, whether in breadth or depth, is difficult to compete with "Youai Teng", and platform users are seriously "aging" and low willingness to pay, which fundamentally determines that its competitiveness is not as good as "Youai Teng".

In fact, according to Gong Yu, president of iqiyi, "the pattern of the long video platform has been basically determined, and the newcomers are basically hopeless." The reason for this conclusion is that Youai Teng has firmly controlled most of the online film sources, and they are far stronger than their competitors in terms of online content assets and the number of paying users. That's why Watermelon Video launched free long videos, but it didn't affect the continued growth of paid members of Aiyouteng.

Secondly, from the revenue model, watermelon video is also far from the "Youai Teng" revenue model. Take iqiyi as an example, its member income in 2019 is close to half of its total revenue, but Watermelon Video has not launched a membership model so far, and its long video content is basically ad-free.

From the current form of realization, watermelon video is more likely to realize short video content rather than long video content. Therefore, the logic of the two is fundamentally different. The revenue model of short video content advertising is closer to the revenue model of YouTuBe.

It is still far from the Chinese version of YouTuBe.

So, watermelon video has a chance to become a "Chinese version of YouTuBe"? In reality, the gap between the two is still not small.

The YouTuBe model is "user consumption content-content platform realization-creator content realization", and the core is the content realization ability of platform advertising. The stronger the advertising cash ability of the platform, the more incentives can be given to creators, the more incentives, the more high-quality content can produce more high-quality content, and the more high-quality content can attract more users to enter the platform, thus forming a positive cycle.

From the perspective of specific content production, that is, the first wave of seed users is attracted by the way of user production of content (UGC); after the first wave of content creators, the platform shares revenue through advertising, encouraging users to become PUGC users, or even OGC users, thus producing better content and attracting more people to join, thus generating more advertising revenue and forming a commercial closed loop.

So far, YouTuBe has more than 2 billion monthly active users, almost the same as the social network FaceBook, but the growth of Watermelon Video, which has only 130 million monthly active users, has begun to slow.

According to public data, the DAU of watermelon video reached 40 million in early 2018, but in September 2019, the DAU of watermelon video rose to 50 million, and it took nearly a year to grow by less than 10 million, and the growth has declined significantly, which also reflects the imbalance between content consumption and content production on the platform.

"fundamentally, the content production and consumption of the platform are separated, the content creators of the platform go for money, while the content consumers of the platform only consume and do not participate in creation." The relevant practitioners said.

This means that the first flywheel that drives the rotation of the short video content community has not been fully rotated, and the stamina is already insufficient. This may also be the reason why the watermelon video has not started too much commercial realization so far.

Is it wavering or on its own?

For watermelon video which makes both long video content and short video community, the outside world thinks that it is wavering, but in my opinion, the content layout of watermelon video is more appropriate to be described as a school of its own.

As mentioned in the previous analysis, watermelon video is not enough to compete with Youaiteng in the field of long video, and there are many weaknesses to match YouTuBe in the field of short video. No matter from the point of view of single long video content or short video community content platform, watermelon video takes an unusual path, and even looks like something different from the outside world.

But if you look at it from another perspective, the logic of the development of the headline video content itself will be greatly changed. As Zhang Yiming said, the purpose of Toutiao search is to promote Jinri Toutiao DAU; Toutiao to do watermelon video, which is also based on its own development, and the content and form of the video is only the result of adjustment according to the situation.

For example, watermelon video first made short video content, and later found that users who watched short video content were also interested in the long video content involved, thus expanding the long video section and forming a "short band long" content-driven strategy.

By the same token, the open live streaming function of watermelon video is also based on the needs of users for live broadcast interaction. Generally speaking, watermelon video as a content community, there is no specific setting who as an example, to make business development of the only logic is the needs of users, this is the watermelon video "self-contained" evolutionary logic.

Of course, there are risks to being "on your own". In the long run, whether the "maverick" watermelon video can walk out of a characteristic development road remains to be verified, to be sure, the road is not smooth.

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

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