What is the boundary of today’s headlines?
From the headline number, short video, to question and answer, micro-headlines, to recent searches, the word “boundary” does not seem to be the headline for today. presence.
At the live-action conference held on November 15th, the headline of the 7-year-old headline publicly disclosed its product logic for the first time, summarizing the evolution of the past years with “one horizontal and one vertical”: “one horizontal” is as rich as possible. The content genre, “one vertical” is the distribution method as much as possible.
“We hope to build a best universal information platform around the mission of ‘connecting people and information, promoting creation and communication’.” Today’s headline CEO Zhu Wenjia said, “Our mission is our border.”
In the speech, Zhu Wenjia also responded to the headline search problem that the industry is concerned about. “Searching is not a competitive drive, but a product mission and user needs.” He said that after the comparison test, in terms of user experience, headline search has entered the first echelon of the industry.
The following is the full text of Zhu Wenjia’s speech.
Hello everyone, my name is Zhu Wenjia. I am going to meet you for the first time at the event, thank you very much for coming.
This is our fifth creator conference, and the seventh year of this product launch today. Today, I want to talk to you about the headlines in my mind and the mission and boundaries of today’s headlines.
Today’s headline “One horizontal and one vertical”
First, let’s officially recommend the search function of today’s headlines. In August of this year, many people may have seen a news search for recruitment. Some people say that today’s headlines are going to enter the general search. In fact, the headline’s general search business has been online for a year. Previously, the product was still in the polishing stage, but our recent comparison tests, including my personal experience, can be said that in terms of user experience, headline search has entered the industry’s first echelon. Everyone is welcome to use the headline search, and everyone is welcome to comment. We will do more improvements in the future.
After the news of the headline search, many people are discussing the headlines and competition of some companies. In fact, for the headline, we do the whole network search, more based on the mission of our products, we hope to better meet the needs of users and help users get more information.
The headline is an information distribution platform, and search is a basic form of information distribution. The user sees a piece of content on the headline and often wants to know more about it. Through search, users can find the information they want more accurately. You can also try it out, search within the headline search box, or press and hold the selected text to search. The experience is OK now.
Searching is actually a rich and complete way of distributing content. The recommendation engine is information to find people, and the search engine is people to find information.
More than just searching, in fact, in the past seven years, today’s headlines have changed a lot. I will show you two pictures. This is the 12-year headline today. This is today’s headline today.
In 2012, there was only one column of “Today’s Headlines”, and everyone thought that we were an aggregate news client. In 2014, we had a headline number, and some people thought we were imitating the WeChat public account. In 2016, we proposed All in short video, many people asked, why do news clients do short videos? In 2017, when the Q&A and the micro-headlines were released, some people said that we would become another Weibo. Recent searches have been officially launched, and similar arguments have emerged.
These misunderstandings were later highly refined by the media as a question: What is the boundary of today’s headlines?
The term “boundary” is more of a vocabulary based on a competitive perspective in the business world. In our internal view, in the past seven years, today’s headline attempt on products has a very clear logic, that is, “one horizontal and one vertical”: “one horizontal” is the content genre as rich as possible, “one vertical” Is the distribution method as much as possible.
According to this line of thought, the changes in the headlines over the past seven years are actually very clear. In 2012, the headline first introduced the distribution method of personalized recommendation on the mobile side, so that the small screen can also display a large amount of information, and improve the information acquisition efficiency in the mobile era. This later became the industry standard. In 2014, we launched a headline number to help graphic creators lower their creative and communication thresholds and earn money. In 2016, we invested heavily in short videos because we found that the proportion of short video consumption is increasing rapidly, and it has become the most important content genre for information distribution in the mobile era. In 2017, the headline has two new content genres, Q&A and micro-headlines, which further lowered the threshold for creation, encouraged more people to create, and also strengthened the focus on this distribution.
So, on the one hand, we are constantly introducing content distribution methods, with content operations, recommendation engines, attention to subscriptions and search engines, and on the other hand, we are constantly expandingContent genre, with graphics, video, Q&A, micro-headlines, columns, novels, live and audio. Today, all the content genres and distribution methods that a modern person can access are almost accommodated and embodied on the headline platform.
Behind the “one horizontal and one vertical” is the headline’s mission – connecting people and information, promoting creation and communication.
We hope to create a best general information platform around “connecting people and information, promoting creation and communication”. General, there are two meanings, one is Pratt & Whitney, everyone can use, the second is rich, able to support a variety of distribution methods and content genres.
Common Information Platform, this is my headline today.
Back to the question just now: What is the boundary of today’s headlines? I think if we must say “boundary”, our mission is our border.
Why build a general information platform?
I just talked about some of our thoughts on the general information platform. So why do we need a common information platform?
In my opinion, every distribution method has its own unique value. Content operation distribution brings “you should know” information, search helps you find the “you want to know” information, recommendation is “you may be interested” information, attention is the message “person you care about” .
Every distribution method is indispensable from the perspective of improving the efficiency of social information distribution. More importantly, there is a linkage effect between different distribution methods.
Give an example. I learned about the Nobel Prize in Physics from the headlines and learned about the three winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics. The names of the three astrophysics physicists are relatively long and have not been known before, which has inspired my interest in searching.
After the headline search, I found a lot of popular science titles in the field of astrophysics. I feel that the content is good and I pay attention to it. After that, the recommendation engine began to recommend me the astrophysics-related science knowledge. One of them impressed me. Originally, the award-winning scientist James Peebles won the “Run Run Shaw Prize” in 2004. I used to only know “Shao Yifu Building”. This is the first time I know the “Run Run Shaw Award”. This award is awarded three awards each year, one of which is astronomy, with a prize of 1.2 million US dollars.
Because of the news of a Nobel Prize in Physics, through search, attention, and finally, the recommendation let me know the Shaw Prize. It can be said that because of the general information platform, I have seen a bigger world.
Speaking of this, I thought of the concept of “information mortuary” that everyone often mentioned. I think that to solve the information mortuary, the general information platform is the most effective solution we can think of now. Because only the content genre is rich enough and the distribution method is diverse enough to allow people to see a bigger world.
Information flow brings a bigger world
I joined the headlines in 2015 and is mainly responsible for algorithm work. At the time, the headlines developed very fast. At the end of the year, there was a list of product users. The headline was among the top 20 and the only one released by a company established after 2010. Some colleagues think that we are ready to go public. As a result, at the end of the year, I heard that the headline is a very big thing. I have to be patient with the evolution of something particularly big. There is still a lot of work worth doing around information distribution. It is very valuable and meaningful to do this. .
In retrospect, this “very big thing” is actually a general information platform. All along, we all hope to do this well and let people see a bigger world.
What is the bigger world?
The bigger world is the world that transcends our time and space.
For the white-collar workers in Beishangguang, the snow-capped mountains on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are a bigger world; for the children in the mountains, the distant ocean is a bigger world. The Tang and Song Dynasties written by cultural scholars are a larger world; astronomers’ exploration of the edge of the universe is also a larger world.
The bigger world is a world with more sharing and communication.
When you are happy, you write your own story on the headline, sharing your feelings to a bigger world. When you read the misfortune of a stranger in the distance, you are saddened by tears, leaving your own testimony and communicating with a bigger world.
The bigger world is a world where everyone is full of possibilities.
Knowledge changes fate, information creates value. I also hope that the information on today’s headlines will help every ordinary person, improve themselves, seize opportunities, and discover a bigger world.
Not long ago, we made a user story collection and received more than 2,000 user responses. Through these stories, I clearly feel that the information on the headlines is bringing important changes to people’s lives.
Ningxia Yinchuan has a writing enthusiast who writes the first published article in his life on the headline. He said that the headline allowed him to learn to observe, think and collect material. A mother in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, issued a micro-headline for the children of school, and the result was more than 100 people to provide ideas and steps. Foshan, Guangdong has a photographer, his work is on the headlines, and more and more friends like it. Now he is a member of the China Association. There is a young man in Langfang, Hebei Province. He was originally an electrician who taught the professional skills to more people through the headlines. There is also a lady from Yangjiang, Guangdong Province who learned to walk and stretch and relax through the headlines, alleviating cervical spondylosis.
These stories are a “bigger world.”
I believe that as long as we do a good job of distributing information, encourage creation, and promote the generation of high-quality information in the fields of society, humanities, history, culture, mathematics, and medical care, we can help more people and human civilization.Accumulation and precipitation have gains.
About the “bigger world” reminds me of an article I saw on the headlines not long ago. This article is from the headline creator “Quantum Science”, which tells a story about astronomical telescopes. There is a paragraph inside, it is said:
When Galileo pointed the telescope to the sky for the first time, from this moment on, humans opened a window to the universe, and we were no longer restricted by the horizon.
We also hope that today’s headlines can be a telescope in everyone’s hands, helping people explore the starry sky of information. On the telescope side, it is the user and the creator. On the other side of the telescope, it is an infinite and vast information universe. With the aid of telescopes, people can see farther, clearer, and see a bigger world.
Thank you all.