The prospectus also shows that it has achieved an annual growth of 46%, which is not inferior even if compared with the overall advertising market.

So, what are the onlookers dissatisfied with? I think this may not be a pure product issue, nor is it all from the development dilemma of the content community. In this turbulent information rush shaped by Feeds, push, and the little red dot, users are wrapped in it, and they are holding them forward. Go away, so that you lose the omniscience perspective, and get used to and blindly follow the sounds that seem right.

Cognitive scientist George Lakoff once cited an example. If someone says “Don’t think of elephants” to you, then you will involuntarily think of elephants. Moreover, the more you tell yourself not to think about elephants, the more you can’t help thinking about anything related to elephants.

For the current content community, commercialization is the elephant. Products in the expansion period are preparing for commercialization. Product function changes are for commercialization, and operation activities are designed for commercialization. Globalization, even CEO speeches and interviews are paving the way for commercialization.

Over time, all product issues and content issues can rely on the argument that the pace of commercialization has increased. Recently, it has become politically correct to emphasize that the commercialization of the Internet community is not feasible. People are always used to comparing content communities and e-commerce industries, which are directly oriented to transactions, but in fact, whoever listens is deceived.

Zhihu is now at the moment when people are pulling their ears and shouting elephants. Commercialization has been demonized by the outside world into the sword of Damocles. But in fact, if you look at it, Zhihu’s balancing technique has been ranked on the Internet. The community is at the forefront.

So, for the current Zhihu, I just want to emphasize that since you choose to be a content community, then don’t always think about that elephant.

02

Zhihu dot

Back to the listing speech.

In the listing speech, Zhou Yuan didn’t talk much. The opening was a bit emotional, but at the end, he was simple, cautious, and a little humble.

Especially in the final definition of Zhihu, Zhou Yuan used a short sentence “service creator”.

The whole sentence is like this: Zhihu will anchor the dot of service creators, optimize the service inward, and expand the breakthrough outward.

If you contact the context, you may have a deeper perception of this. Knowing that after ten years of listing, it is finally time to face the needs of creators and users while accepting the review of the capital market.

This is undoubtedly a new historical starting point for Zhihu, but for users, the change is not obvious. At least at this moment, at the moment, there is no big ripple, even compared to the stock price fluctuations, Zhihu Almost users care more about Godzilla and King Kong who are more powerful, and how the Suez Canal boat jam can minimize losses.

This may seem a bit ruthless, but it fits Zhihu’s consistent tradition.Of course, I am more concerned about issues related to my interests. After all, the 100 shares of Zhihu listed are only sent to Zhihu Big V. As an ordinary user, my questions can be answered and my curiosity can be satisfied. enough.

So, from this point of view, those claims that Zhihu’s listing proves that the road to China’s Internet content community is difficult can almost cease. As long as someone asks, Zhihu has room for survival, and there is room for survival, short-term conflicts. It won’t make people anxious for a long time.

Moreover, the Q&A community is different from the general content community. From the establishment and extension of user relationships to the breakthrough and stability of user relationships, there is a smooth path between this series of actions.

For example, if products such as Station B and Xiaohongshu are topical essays, then Zhihu’s Q&A community is a propositional essay. The former is a topic system, and users have to filter the content and publish it by themselves, but the title of Zhihu It is limited, and the background is also limited, which solves the problems of content production and content consumption at the same time. In content production, users ask questions first, Zhihu respondent writes answers based on the proposition, and produces content. After getting more approval, Zhihu respondent will be more actively producing content.

More interestingly, content creators in other communities may lose natural traffic due to misjudgment of creative topic selection, but in Zhihu, a treasure respondent who is capable and answers the questions seriously, Basically, you will not be overwhelmed. Under the question system, the good answers will go to the high praise together with the good questions.

We mentioned earlier that the average circulation time of Zhihu content can reach 8 months, and the average circulation time of the problem is 18 months. Among them, high-quality content will be repeatedly activated during the circulation time, and long-tail content Will continue to circulate.

So, even non-V respondents like me will continue to gain exposure because of a single high praise question.

Essentially, the essence of the Q&A community is a kind of intelligence and help, which can solve very concrete problems of the questioner. Moreover, the more specific and in-depth question and answer, the higher the value. Looking deeper, the end of the problematic community may not only go to knowledge payment, but become a library in a virtual space, the digital version of 100,000 Why.

From this perspective, we can understand why Zhou Yuan positioned the “service creator” as the dot of Zhihu in his listing speech.

Because only in this way, Zhihu will not decline due to the natural aging of community products, but can always maintain vitality, even if it can’t occupy the daily life of users at all times, it can also stabilize the monthly life.

03

From 0 to 1 to IPO

In a speech on the tenth anniversary of Zhihu, Zhou Yuan once said: “Internet companies in a period of rapid development are prone to the risk of “three modernizations”-passivation of environmental perception, aging of the corporate body, and weakening of innovation capabilities. But face to askQuestion, what should be done is not to explain, only to solve. “

Zhou Yuan who said this passage is actually very unlike the literary youth and idealists described in the media. The geek thinking of programmers still exists in him.

This concept is as interesting as the geek bar’s slogan. The so-called “open source spirit never dies. Without information, there is no future.” This is also true when applied to the content community.

In fact, many years ago, Zhou Yuan emphasized that “community is a special digital product with its own growth rhythm.” This is also the reason why Zhihu can be distinguished from a type of knowledge-paid product. In contrast, Zhou Yuan is not like a pure entrepreneur. Strictly speaking, he is more like a technical worker with media attributes and a somewhat idealistic content creator.

I still remember an answer he once wrote. The topic was technology and society. The core of the discussion was, what contradictions did the development of science and technology and technology companies have with society? And how will it be solved in the future?

This answer focuses on sharing his views on intelligent systems. In his opinion, “Accurate recommendations cause us to only see specific topics. It is difficult to jump out of this information circle and cause the echo bucket effect.”

Including the ending given by him at the end, it is also very in line with the temperament that a programmer who has been a reporter should have: “Don’t indulge in short-term happiness, but become a mouse that only touches the electrodes to death.”< /p>

Through his answer and sharing for so many years, we can more or less get a glimpse of Zhou Yuan’s positioning of the boundary of Zhihu. Compared with other platforms, such as Kuaishou and Station B, every penny earned is the monetization of user value, but knows that it is not, and it can’t be. If the knowledge community makes money by playing emotional cards, it can retain it by emphasizing emotional links. Users, it is no different from selling chicken soup for the soul.

Although investors have repeatedly emphasized that Internet companies have no intermediate status, investors who invest in content communities will most likely not think that way. Take Zhihu as an example, the reason why this ship was favored by investors ten years ago was never because it could incite users.

Wang Hua, the managing partner of Innovation Workshop, talked about the reasons for investing in Zhihu when Zhihu went public. He said: “At that time, the Internet market environment was contending, and the entertainment community of various games was particularly hot but growing. Barbaric, we assessed that it is risky to build a platform that accumulates high-quality content in such an environment, but Kaifu and I both feel that Zhou Yuan is very willing to do this, and it is in line with our institutional temperament, so we quickly decided to invest in angel rounds. Later, I voted for 4 consecutive rounds.”

The implication is that the past story is that Zhihu goes from 0 to 1 to the IPO. The future story does not necessarily force Zhihu to change its own model. In fact, the Chinese content community can go out of China. Features.

This is a lot like Bilibili surpassing NicoNico. Station N is almost the same station N, and station B has become Ji Community, NicoNRich media products from ico and YouTube.

Correspondingly, Quora in the United States is almost the same Quora, and Zhihu has become the “China’s largest question-and-answer online community” and “China’s top five comprehensive online content communities” described in the CIC survey.