Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

As short video content becomes mainstream, video editing on the production side has become an important track for giants and capital to enter the game. 2020 can be called a small peak in the development of video editing tools: short video production platforms "to draw videos", "second Shadow Factory" and "No Goo Editing" have completed tens of millions of levels of financing; also in the same year, bilibili's must-cut, Tencent's second-cut and other supporting editing software came out one after another.

But two years later, video editing tools have reached a fork in the road.

Some people went up and grabbed tickets to the secondary market. For example, Xiaoying Technology submitted a prospectus to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in September last year, impacting the "first share of video clips". But some people go downwards, such as the VUE, which announced the shutdown on June 30 this year, has become a footnote to the end of the tuyere. While some people are still entering the game, for example, the Cyber Elephant Group, which has a little information, officially launched the flying scissors, an editing tool for medium and short video creators, in April this year, but so far it has not caused too much splash.

On the whole, video clips have gone from hot to quiet, and most applications survive as "tools" in a low profile.

In foreign countries, tool products can make a living by user payment like SaaS, Adobe and Office are typical representatives; while in China, the common commercial idea of the Internet is that products make a living by advertising and users use it free of charge, however, the innate attribute of "leaving after use" can not make users stay in consumer advertising for a long time, thus the contradiction of commercialization appears.

As a key part of the production of short video content, how can video editing tools open up the situation in a country where there is no paying soil? Apart from becoming a tool to leave after use, is there any room for development? Will there still be a chance for newcomers to enter the track?

Ecological supplement of Super App: when it comes to video editing tools, the products launched by Douyin, Kuaishou and bilibili are the first and most commonly used video editing tools.

Thanks to the "matrix" halo, the cold start of this kind of auxiliary clip App is not difficult. Usually, the short video platform will add the diversion link of the editing tool to the recommendation page of the content, and convert the users of the platform to the creation interface of the video editing tool in the way of "cutting the same money".

Therefore, the development of video editing tools is closely related to the "matrix". Under the traffic supply of Douyin's parent platform, clipping has attracted a large number of Douyin users from "audience" to "creator". From the user profile, the clipping is also similar to Douyin.

App Store photography and video free list top five image sources Qimai data short video platform for editing tools to drain, editing tools are actually providing convenience for creators, so as to encourage them to produce more content for the platform and feed the content ecology of the short video platform. In order to reduce the threshold as much as possible and achieve "anyone can create", editing tools have been continuously explored and upgraded in recent years.

The simpler the "fool" editing technique, the more widely and frequently it can be used.

Open several clips derived from the platform App, you can see that its main interface has "cut the same style", "template", "do the same style" and other functions. Ordinary users can create a complete short video by adding picture material in the way of template nesting, and click the "one-click release" button to release it without jumping to the platform. From creation to release, only need to "select template-add picture-release" three steps, the operation time and difficulty are greatly reduced.

The closer the content is to the hot trends in the station, the more it can trigger users'"conformity" creation.

When using editing tools for content creation, you can obviously feel the editing template, material, soundtrack, and duration, all of which follow the mainstream content forms in the short video platform. For example, the material bazaar page that bilibili must cut has a lot of ghost video material. Douyin clip templates are mostly "card videos", and the templates of Quick Shadow tend to be parody, funny and other styles. This is obviously in line with the content characteristics of the platform.

In addition to providing convenience for video editing rookies and pan-video lovers, editing tools have not forgotten the professional creators who can bring higher quality content.

At the beginning of 2021, the PC version was cut and released, which continues the simple and easy operation of the mobile version. At the same time, many professional features have been supplemented and optimized, such as supporting multiple video / audio track clips and automatic voice recognition to generate subtitles. Such upgrades have naturally attracted many creators who originally used professional editing tools such as PR. A UP master who is used to Pr video editing said on Weibo: only after using the cut and projection PC version can I find it really delicious. Creating simple videos can save a lot of time.

Clipping professional version pages exist because it is more for the main platform to enhance user stickiness and supplement content production, and there is not much cash flow and profit pressure. Almost all of these video editing tools are available for users to download and use free of charge.

However, thanks to the tight connection with Super App, editing tools are also exploring more commercial possibilities after rapidly accumulating the number of users. For example, there will now be VIP fees for screenings, and there will be paid courses for editing and so on.

There is a steady stream of support from the matrix, and after a certain amount of accumulation, we can explore more ways to play. Products do not have to worry about commercialization, as long as they can play the role of creating more and more high-quality content back to the short video platform. To sum up, video editing tools attached to the main body of the platform are much easier to "survive" in the industry.

Independent third-party tools: the main harvesting overseas market in fact, before the layout of large factories, the track of video editing tools was crowded with players large and small. Mobile devices such as Xiao Ying Technology were established in 2012; PC devices such as Love Editor and Wanxing Meow Ying (Wanxing God cut hands) were all launched in 2015.

The reason why these editing tools were able to make a rapid start in that year was also because they were simple, easy to understand and easy to use.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Adobe products entered the Chinese market, but due to the lack of domestic awareness of payment, no one is interested in authentic copies, and piracy and cracked versions are very popular. But even if it is free, Adobe products are isolated from a large number of ordinary users because of their long installation time, high requirements for computer configuration, and high professional barriers. At this time, the emergence of domestic software, such as love editing and Wanxing Meow Ying, is providing an opportunity for ordinary creators to use.

The interface of Wanxing Meow Ying is not as reliable as Dashu, and the first condition for the survival and development of such independent editing tools is to "make money".

Like most Internet products, there are two ways to commercialize such editing tools: cashing traffic and paying by members.

For example, love editing is realized entirely by flow in the early days. Users can download and use it free of charge, and the material of the video clip is also available for free officially, but the beginning and end of the exported video are strongly implanted with the brand name of "Love clip". The Wanxing Meow Ying software uses a membership system, and users can download it for free, but if you want to go to the end of the film, choose higher-definition picture quality and advanced editing functions, you need to pay to become a member. According to the official website, its monthly member is 29.99 yuan. Quarterly membership is 69.99 yuan, annual membership is 199 yuan.

It is true that cashing in traffic and paying for members are common business models, but if you want to strike a balance between these two models, you also need to strike a balance. If a strong brand name is implanted, it will directly affect the user experience; the tough means of payment will also disgust users and turn to look for other alternatives. For example, Aijie launched a payment function in 2020, paying 9.9 yuan to export videos, but after exporting, it had to spend 158 yuan to dynamically watermark. This payment model has also caused many users to complain on social platforms.

It is difficult to do at home, so most mobile players choose to go out to sea to find a way out.

Small Film Technology, VideoShow and Inshot are all representatives in this field. Among them, Xiaoying Technology, which hit the first strand of video editing tools, is one of the veterans who stepped on the sea craze. Founded in 2012 and launched with localized material in 2014, the first product, VivaVideo, quickly topped the Google Play Brazil video list. According to Xiaoying's prospectus, Xiaoying now has three editing tools: VivaVideo, VivaCut and TempoApp, landing in more than 200 countries, supporting 12 languages and reaching 1 billion downloads worldwide.

From the perspective of revenue composition, Xiaoying Technology is mainly paid by members, supplemented by advertising, that is, products are free but some functions are paid, which is consistent with most domestic products. However, what is quite different is that by 2021, more than 80% of Xiaoying's revenue is generated by users' paid subscriptions, which shows the willingness and ability of overseas users to pay.

Not only is it possible for more members to pay for cash, but there is also a lot of room for development of third-party editing tools after going out to sea.

Because compared with the domestic, YouTube, Twitter and other media forms are diversified, these platforms have not launched absolute "dominant" production tools, so different types of video editing tools can survive. Lexiu CEO Lin once said, "We don't focus on a single product when we make a tool matrix. There are about seven or eight video clips alone. With image clips and puzzles, there is still a lot of space."

Community players: looking for new value-added space in fact, whether it is "free to use" to attract users to download, or to introduce more new features to attract users to pay, the core of video editing tools is to allow users to use it frequently. Or keep it for a long time.

At this point, being a "content community" becomes a breakthrough: tools "use and leave", but content can attract users to stay for a long time and stimulate the initiative to join creation. social networking is a good way to increase user activity and keep it on the platform. The content community is the combination of the two, and there will be a mutually reinforcing effect, forming a unique community culture, such as Zhihu, Douban and bilibili.

Meitu, a photo editing tool, added a "community" interface in 2018, where users can share edited photos with one click to the "MT community" and share them with each other. At that time, the transformed community did bring huge dividends to Meitu-according to the 2018 financial report, as of December of that year, nearly 51 per cent of monthly active users had become social users of Meitu. Meitu platform images and video content achieved about 8 billion page views that month.

In March this year, Meitu launched the portrait video editing software Wink. Wink also follows Meitu's way of thinking: there are not only basic video clips and optimization tools, but also a large number of creators, and users can collect and download templates produced by creators, and can also continue to follow creators, which, in a sense, also has the attribute of content community.

At present, online advertising, VIP subscription and influence SaaS (Software as a Service), Internet value-added services, IMS (content marketing solution) are the main business of Meitu. The largest source of revenue is online advertising, accounting for 46%, which actually confirms the role of content community in promoting advertising revenue to some extent.

Wink interface, of course, to do content is essentially easier to know than to do, not to build a framework or add a page.

For example, VUE was favored by users in the early days because of its simple interface and excellent shooting and editing effects. After it was transformed into a Vlog community in 2019, it was also a "smooth wind", which not only attracted many head bloggers, but also was acquired by Tencent and supported by big companies.

However, with the rise of short video, VUE Vlog located in medium video is inferior to short video content in content richness and advertising realization, and the professionalism of content and the volume of users can not compete with long video, so the living space becomes more and more narrow, and finally ends in shutdown.

Whether it is to increase the attributes of the content community, or to completely transform into a content community, this actually puts forward more requirements for editing tools about the ecological construction of content.

Other players: All in Wechat, aiming at the video editing tools of the vertical category, there are actually some players who are specially aimed at the users of the vertical category. They do not compete head-on, but choose small incisions to make money, fighting for the big with the small; they do not do independent App, only rely on the Wechat ecology to survive.

For example, on behalf of players Kawa micro-card and small rice cake, are for middle-aged and elderly users to do music album production products.

Kawa WeChat is one of Quantum Cloud's official accounts. Users can click "album making" in the official account, then jump to the H5 page to make a music album video. Enter the picture, select the appropriate BGM, and export a video with both pictures and text. Such a simple and popular mode of operation is extremely suitable for middle-aged and elderly users. In 2017, the user attention of Kawa microcard has reached 20 million.

In addition to Kawa's microcard, the parent company Quantum Cloud has nearly a thousand accounts, most of which are making photo albums. Using music photo albums to attract middle-aged and elderly users, traffic settles to the official account and then turns on advertising. With this model, Quantum Cloud's revenue reached 129 million yuan in 2016, with a net profit of 87 million yuan.

The quantum cloud, which has such a strong liquidity, is quickly favored by capital. In 2018, listed company Hanye shares are priced at 3.8 billion yuan to acquire 100% stake in Shenzhen Quantum Cloud Technology Co., Ltd. But what is not so smooth is that after the news of the acquisition, the real number of fans and the originality of the content of the official account of Quantum Cloud have been repeatedly questioned by the market. The data show that only 8.5% of articles with original logos were added to the official account of Quantum Cloud in 2017. the scarcity of original content also means that there are risks in the continuity of the operation of the official account, and in the end, the acquisition was not successful.

Now the production of photo albums for Kawa's microcard has been shut down. However, search for "Quantum Cloud" on Wechat, and its official account "LULU Life" is still active, and users can still set up music albums on the official account.

Another popular music album player, Xiao Nian Cake, was founded in 2014. Starting with a photo-to-video Mini Program, it has accumulated 500 million users and 220 million monthly active users by 2021, of which more than 70 percent are over 50 years old.

When you log in to the video production Mini Program of Xiao Nian Cake, you can see that a reminder to guide and follow the official account is inserted in the album production process. If the user does not follow the official account, a pop-up reminder appears every time a music album is made, which precipitates the user in the official account and then relies on advertising to cash in. According to founder Li Hui, the monthly advertising revenue of Xiao Nian cake in 2019 has exceeded 10 million.

But this kind of players also face pain points: with the development and optimization of cutting and projection and other big factory tools, and the Wechat platform itself has also increased the photo album production function to fully meet the needs of users, simply making music album tools is easy to be eliminated, and traffic and revenue will be difficult to maintain. Therefore, now Xiao Nian Cake is also ploughing the track for the elderly, in addition to photo album video production, but also opened up the silver hair live broadcast business, to expand a more diversified commercial cash model.

To sum up, the Mini Program interface of Xiaomian cake shows that although video editing tools are only a "supplement" to short videos, there is no shortage of players who show their talents and stories of "making rich overnight". Some players can make a lot of money from humble video production of Mini Program, while some players can also occupy a place in the international market on their own.

However, on the back of the coin, there are many players who are born with a halo, but still fail because of problems such as commercialization. The short video market is unpredictable, and even the upstream of short video production is full of uncertainty.

In today's video clip track, whether new players or old players, perhaps only with differentiated positioning advantages to build a solid barrier, is the effective solution for long-term survival in the fierce competition.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: Zhenjian AlphaSeeker (ID:deep_insights), author: Zu Yang

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