“Without dispute, the world cannot fight with it”
Editor’s note: This article comes from WeChat public account “product one hundred twenty-three” (ID: spm0123) , author: queer Tianxiang.
WeChat video number has been in beta for some time. In this battlefield that is considered to be the most likely to subvert the content consumption field, is there a chance for WeChat to be “late”?
To predict the outcome of a battle, we first need to know how the parties ’strategies and tactics were formulated. The form of the video number has been made known to the world, so we still go back to the original point to guess the decision process of WeChat. What clue to follow? Generally speaking, user value and business value are two sides of the same product. Good products are designed with user value firmly in mind. Business value is taken into consideration in the natural place. Bad products are “covering the ears and stealing bells.” It is business value, but it is necessary to emphasize user value everywhere. Obviously WeChat is a good product in the standard sense, so we can restore WeChat’s decision-making ideas along with the user value.
01 Starting point of decision: user value of video number
There is no need to repeat the “consumption” trend of short videos. Market data has fully proved this. The WeChat public account as a text-based reading era is an epoch-making product that has prospered the entire self-media ecosystem. For video-based reading, WeChat has not done much. This has been acknowledged by Zhang Xiaolong in the 2020 WeChat Open Class
“We accidentally made it an article as a carrier of content, so that other short content forms were not presented, which made us short of short content.”
Too much to say, use the user needs of the product manager to capture the artifact “user story” Let us describe the user value of the video number:
-
As: WeChat users (also known as mass users)
-
I want to: read more content based on short videos in WeChat
-
In order to: get a better reading experience
02 Is it a good time to enter?
The short content based on short videos is undoubtedly of great user value. Let ’s look at the timing. At present, the two giants of short video have shaken sounds and have hundreds of millions of daily life. From the perspective of the book “Crossing the Divide”, the short video market is currently in the “early mass stage”.The style of play has been formed through early exploration. From the perspective of powerful giants, the market that crosses the gap is often a good market if they can take advantage of their own advantages. For example, Apple’s ipod entered the mp3 field, iphone entered the smart phone field, and Tencent’s advantage in streaming traffic into online games The fields such as news portals and news portals are all cut into at this stage, and they have all achieved great success subsequently.
Of course, whether the giants can exert their advantages also depends on what battlefield they enter. If the battlefield is not right, the superiority cannot be used.
03 What is the battlefield of short video?
Sun Tzu ’s Art of War:
“Using the methods of soldiers, there are scattered ground, light ground, disputed land, intersecting land, hoe land, heavy land, hoe land, enclosure land, and dead land.”
Even if WeChat has the advantage of a national application user, if it ventures into the “dead land” battlefield, it has no chance of winning.
In abstract terms, the short videos represented by Douyin and Kuaishou are more like a bilateral online market, such as a trading market like Taobao. The simple definition of the bilateral internet market is:
There are two different types of users, supply-side and demand-side users. They join the network for different reasons and provide complementary value to each other.
The reason why it is said that the bilateral Internet market is because the line between active suppliers and public demanders is still relatively clear.
Of course, the network effect of the first-mover is not indestructible, as long as sufficient benefits are given to users in the bilateral market, such a network can be rebuilt. For example, like the information flow market based on recommendation algorithms, under Baidu ’s desperate onslaught, it already has nearly 200 million daily users. Its play is to provide money on the supply side to build its own content ecology. User growth. Another case that can be referred to is the rise of a lot of fights in the e-commerce field, and the US group entered the taxi market.
Expand it, IMSuch a product is a type of direct network effect, which is the strongest and simplest type of network effect: increasing the use of a product can directly increase the value of the product to the user. At the same time, the value of the network is not a nonlinear relationship, but is directly proportional to the square of the number of connected users (N ^ 2). So this is also when the number of WeChat users first broke 100 million, and the end of the battlefield of mobile instant messaging tools was announced. Whether it was Michao, the pioneer, or Ali challenger, or Netease Yixin, all went into the dead. There is no possibility of victory.
04 Positioning of WeChat video number
The entire value chain of short videos can be divided into:
Content production—processing—distribution
Clayton Christensen, the father of “disruptive innovation” theory, believes:
Industrial structure usually shifts from vertical integration to vertical stratification. In the early stage of the industry where product performance is lower than the average expectations of users, functional modules that do not meet the standards in the market can be provided. Those companies that adopt internal production strategies or deeply integrate all aspects of the value chain can provide leading user experiences, which will trigger market imitation. Make vertical integration a mainstream model. As the market enters the stage of excess performance and the rapid development of disruptive technologies, the functional modules on the market meet the average user expectations. The performance of modular products is not as good as integrated products, but it is sufficient to meet user needs, and in other aspects Ahead of the latter.
Popularly speaking, the new industry is suitable for vertical integration at the initial stage. As the industry develops, it is appropriate to adopt a horizontal integration strategy. The most classic representative of this theory is the smart phone market. Apple was born in the early days. With its closed ecosystem of software and hardware, it was proud of its heroes. The initial experience of the Android ecosystem is indeed not as good as Apple’s. It has surpassed Apple in many innovations.
Alibaba’s e-commerce empire in China is a typical horizontal integration strategy. It does not do its own logistics, but integrates social logistics resources through Cainiao Network, and continuously approaches Jingdong’s own logistics service experience through continuous integration; JD.com is a vertical integration strategy, and everything is done by itself. However, we can see a major trend is that with the continuous improvement of e-commerce infrastructure, JD.com’s vertical one-day advantage is indeed getting smaller and smaller, which is also a big reason why Pinduoduo can easily rise.
In contrast to the short video market, the current short videoThe two giants can be understood as representatives of vertical integration, self-built content ecology, self-built video processing tools, research various operating methods, and do distribution by themselves.
From the perspective of commercial competition theory, combined with the advantages of WeChat (massive users), WeChat short videos should focus on the field of content distribution, and the processing link is mostly for players to do well. As for the content production link, the actual It will be a “outline” process after the content distribution link is firmly established. This point will not be shown for the time being, and will be described later in detail.
1) So how should content distribution be positioned?
In general, there are three types of content distribution: centralized distribution, subscription distribution, and social distribution. In my understanding, both the traditional news portal and the current machine algorithm distribution belong to the centralized distribution method, because what you see depends on what one “center” chooses for you. The only difference is that “center” is “Edit” or “Algorithm”. The representative of subscription-based distribution is the public account. You need to actively discover the active subscription yourself. Social distribution includes, for example, the circle of friends, take a look-friends are watching, and so on. WeChat social distribution to do a simple inventory (including people as a special “content”)
Now that we have seen the true answer of the video number, we now know that the distribution rules of the current video number include: acquaintances (friend circle, WeChat dialogue), strangers (“discovery-video number” entrance)
2) But why is it so designed?
In my opinion, this is actually a “rule” (targeting) made under the goal of “user value”
Let ’s take a brief look at the ecological users of the entire video number to classify them (professional content producers, amateur active content producers, amateur watchers)
Adhering to the product design principles designed for mass users, we can make the following reasoning:
-
To be fullThe needs (user value) of the largest amateur bystanders (usually people who eat melon) must have sufficient “good-looking” content
-
A good content ecology must be provided with sufficient “good-looking” content
-
A good content ecosystem must be produced by professional content producers and amateur active content producers
-
Professional content producers and amateur active content producers need enough “audiences”
It looks like a chicken-and-egg process. This is what we call the process of building a bilateral network market. In reality, we can see cases such as taxi wars. On the one hand, the platform subsidizes the driver crazy to join. At the same time, the network subsidized the client in a frantic way, thereby crossing the “gap” between chicken and eggs, and the “Thousands of Regiments”.
But in reality, a classic battle of “Shooting the Army” is still on WeChat. At that time, we were in a mobile IM battle with Michao. At that time, the two sides were actually locked together, and there were only about 10 million users. Because of the gap between “early adopters” and “early masses”, WeChat took the lead in bringing out the feature of “people nearby” and added a strange social part to the mobile IM of acquaintance relationships. The engine was the first to cross the divide.
So for WeChat, although the video number is to make up for the regret of the “public account”, it is obviously not possible to adopt the same positioning (subscription type) as the current vibrato and fast hand lead, this The road is different. So it is still a great magic weapon for strangers to use.
This means that the internal test users of the video number we have seen can distinguish their own WeChat and rename it to create their own video number. The entire video number will recommend some content to you by default, and the created content can be published. In the video number, you can also share in the circle of friends and WeChat conversations. In a way, this is a social media-like structure.
In Zhang Xiaolong ’s own words:
“The product manager, like God, also looks at all beings, knows their desires, and then formulates some rules for them to run according to this rule …. The rules are very simple, only simple rules can evolve Very complicated things. So I do n’t agree with many products, I made a complicated rule from the beginning, and there is no room for evolution in the end.
In fact, we can see that the growth and prosperity of public accounts, WeChat payments, and small programs in the “production” link, that is, formed naturally under the guidance of WeChat’s simple rules. Now the rule of “like social video media” is the “rule” (positioning) given by Zhang Xiaolong for the video number
05 How to fight?
The strategic level (product positioning) is determined, and the specificHow to play (tactics)?
In my opinion, too much speculation on the WeChat team at the tactical level is futile, because for the Internet field, as long as it is the right direction and method, the specific tactical level is often based on the rapidly changing The “response” under the judgment of the war situation.
Similarly, to quote Clayton Christensen’s disruptive innovation theory
“The average performance of the product exceeds the average expectations of users for this performance, this evolutionary model of the competitive basis-from functionality to reliability and convenience”
At present, under the fierce competition of Douyin and Quick Hands, the gameplay (average performance) of the short video product has exceeded the average expectations of the mass users, which is in line with the above-mentioned stage. Although the theory of disruptive innovation is based on the analysis of the rise and fall of enterprises in the industrial era and the IT industry era, we actually follow this law when we look at the growth process of WeChat itself.
-
In the context of Alipay ’s hegemony, the counterattack of WeChat Pay relies on its “convenience” (Alipay can also send red envelopes to each other. WeChat red envelopes are just one form of WeChat payment that ignites the underlying nature Or the convenience of payment operations based on the relationship chain)
-
Applets also win by relying on their convenience for native applications
So “convenience” will still be the main focus of the follow-up WeChat team in the promotion process.
06 Write at the end
While writing so much, return to the topic of this article “Can WeChat Video Number Breakthrough?” From the perspective of my mundane perspective, I think it is OK, because first it has demand, and then for WeChat product positioning It is clear that there are ways to play and resources, and the rest is nothing more than how to “agile” in the actual operation process.
But from the perspective of WeChat, “With its indisputableness, the world ca n’t compete with it.” Maybe WeChat did n’t want to refer to anyone or break through, because as a national application, it chose its own product. Positioning will thoroughly understand the value of users, and users will naturally vote with their feet.
References
36KR “Network Effects” Guide: A Comprehensive Analysis of 13 Network Effects, Taking You to Know the Secrets of Giant Successes
About the author
Qiwen Tianxiang, a product veteran, has been responsible for user products at NetEase and a leading domestic financial group, and is currently responsible for the financial sub-business of a mobile Internet giant. Share here about the growth and cultivation of product managers.
As: WeChat users (also known as mass users)
I want to: read more content based on short videos in WeChat
In order to: get a better reading experience
02 Is it a good time to enter?
The short content based on short videos is undoubtedly of great user value. Let ’s look at the timing. At present, the two giants of short video have shaken sounds and have hundreds of millions of daily life. From the perspective of the book “Crossing the Divide”, the short video market is currently in the “early mass stage”.The style of play has been formed through early exploration. From the perspective of powerful giants, the market that crosses the gap is often a good market if they can take advantage of their own advantages. For example, Apple’s ipod entered the mp3 field, iphone entered the smart phone field, and Tencent’s advantage in streaming traffic into online games The fields such as news portals and news portals are all cut into at this stage, and they have all achieved great success subsequently.
Of course, whether the giants can exert their advantages also depends on what battlefield they enter. If the battlefield is not right, the superiority cannot be used.
03 What is the battlefield of short video?
Sun Tzu ’s Art of War:
“Using the methods of soldiers, there are scattered ground, light ground, disputed land, intersecting land, hoe land, heavy land, hoe land, enclosure land, and dead land.”
Even if WeChat has the advantage of a national application user, if it ventures into the “dead land” battlefield, it has no chance of winning.
In abstract terms, the short videos represented by Douyin and Kuaishou are more like a bilateral online market, such as a trading market like Taobao. The simple definition of the bilateral internet market is:
There are two different types of users, supply-side and demand-side users. They join the network for different reasons and provide complementary value to each other.
The reason why it is said that the bilateral Internet market is because the line between active suppliers and public demanders is still relatively clear.
Of course, the network effect of the first-mover is not indestructible, as long as sufficient benefits are given to users in the bilateral market, such a network can be rebuilt. For example, like the information flow market based on recommendation algorithms, under Baidu ’s desperate onslaught, it already has nearly 200 million daily users. Its play is to provide money on the supply side to build its own content ecology. User growth. Another case that can be referred to is the rise of a lot of fights in the e-commerce field, and the US group entered the taxi market.
Expand it, IMSuch a product is a type of direct network effect, which is the strongest and simplest type of network effect: increasing the use of a product can directly increase the value of the product to the user. At the same time, the value of the network is not a nonlinear relationship, but is directly proportional to the square of the number of connected users (N ^ 2). So this is also when the number of WeChat users first broke 100 million, and the end of the battlefield of mobile instant messaging tools was announced. Whether it was Michao, the pioneer, or Ali challenger, or Netease Yixin, all went into the dead. There is no possibility of victory.
04 Positioning of WeChat video number
The entire value chain of short videos can be divided into:
Content production—processing—distribution
Clayton Christensen, the father of “disruptive innovation” theory, believes:
Industrial structure usually shifts from vertical integration to vertical stratification. In the early stage of the industry where product performance is lower than the average expectations of users, functional modules that do not meet the standards in the market can be provided. Those companies that adopt internal production strategies or deeply integrate all aspects of the value chain can provide leading user experiences, which will trigger market imitation. Make vertical integration a mainstream model. As the market enters the stage of excess performance and the rapid development of disruptive technologies, the functional modules on the market meet the average user expectations. The performance of modular products is not as good as integrated products, but it is sufficient to meet user needs, and in other aspects Ahead of the latter.
Popularly speaking, the new industry is suitable for vertical integration at the initial stage. As the industry develops, it is appropriate to adopt a horizontal integration strategy. The most classic representative of this theory is the smart phone market. Apple was born in the early days. With its closed ecosystem of software and hardware, it was proud of its heroes. The initial experience of the Android ecosystem is indeed not as good as Apple’s. It has surpassed Apple in many innovations.
Alibaba’s e-commerce empire in China is a typical horizontal integration strategy. It does not do its own logistics, but integrates social logistics resources through Cainiao Network, and continuously approaches Jingdong’s own logistics service experience through continuous integration; JD.com is a vertical integration strategy, and everything is done by itself. However, we can see a major trend is that with the continuous improvement of e-commerce infrastructure, JD.com’s vertical one-day advantage is indeed getting smaller and smaller, which is also a big reason why Pinduoduo can easily rise.
In contrast to the short video market, the current short videoThe two giants can be understood as representatives of vertical integration, self-built content ecology, self-built video processing tools, research various operating methods, and do distribution by themselves.
From the perspective of commercial competition theory, combined with the advantages of WeChat (massive users), WeChat short videos should focus on the field of content distribution, and the processing link is mostly for players to do well. As for the content production link, the actual It will be a “outline” process after the content distribution link is firmly established. This point will not be shown for the time being, and will be described later in detail.
1) So how should content distribution be positioned?
In general, there are three types of content distribution: centralized distribution, subscription distribution, and social distribution. In my understanding, both the traditional news portal and the current machine algorithm distribution belong to the centralized distribution method, because what you see depends on what one “center” chooses for you. The only difference is that “center” is “Edit” or “Algorithm”. The representative of subscription-based distribution is the public account. You need to actively discover the active subscription yourself. Social distribution includes, for example, the circle of friends, take a look-friends are watching, and so on. WeChat social distribution to do a simple inventory (including people as a special “content”)
Now that we have seen the true answer of the video number, we now know that the distribution rules of the current video number include: acquaintances (friend circle, WeChat dialogue), strangers (“discovery-video number” entrance)
2) But why is it so designed?
In my opinion, this is actually a “rule” (targeting) made under the goal of “user value”
Let ’s take a brief look at the ecological users of the entire video number to classify them (professional content producers, amateur active content producers, amateur watchers)
Adhering to the product design principles designed for mass users, we can make the following reasoning:
-
To be fullThe needs (user value) of the largest amateur bystanders (usually people who eat melon) must have sufficient “good-looking” content
-
A good content ecology must be provided with sufficient “good-looking” content
-
A good content ecosystem must be produced by professional content producers and amateur active content producers
-
Professional content producers and amateur active content producers need enough “audiences”
It looks like a chicken-and-egg process. This is what we call the process of building a bilateral network market. In reality, we can see cases such as taxi wars. On the one hand, the platform subsidizes the driver crazy to join. At the same time, the network subsidized the client in a frantic way, thereby crossing the “gap” between chicken and eggs, and the “Thousands of Regiments”.
But in reality, a classic battle of “Shooting the Army” is still on WeChat. At that time, we were in a mobile IM battle with Michao. At that time, the two sides were actually locked together, and there were only about 10 million users. Because of the gap between “early adopters” and “early masses”, WeChat took the lead in bringing out the feature of “people nearby” and added a strange social part to the mobile IM of acquaintance relationships. The engine was the first to cross the divide.
So for WeChat, although the video number is to make up for the regret of the “public account”, it is obviously not possible to adopt the same positioning (subscription type) as the current vibrato and fast hand lead, this The road is different. So it is still a great magic weapon for strangers to use.
This means that the internal test users of the video number we have seen can distinguish their own WeChat and rename it to create their own video number. The entire video number will recommend some content to you by default, and the created content can be published. In the video number, you can also share in the circle of friends and WeChat conversations. In a way, this is a social media-like structure.
In Zhang Xiaolong ’s own words:
“The product manager, like God, also looks at all beings, knows their desires, and then formulates some rules for them to run according to this rule …. The rules are very simple, only simple rules can evolve Very complicated things. So I do n’t agree with many products, I made a complicated rule from the beginning, and there is no room for evolution in the end.
In fact, we can see that the growth and prosperity of public accounts, WeChat payments, and small programs in the “production” link, that is, formed naturally under the guidance of WeChat’s simple rules. Now the rule of “like social video media” is the “rule” (positioning) given by Zhang Xiaolong for the video number
05 How to fight?
The strategic level (product positioning) is determined, and the specificHow to play (tactics)?
In my opinion, too much speculation on the WeChat team at the tactical level is futile, because for the Internet field, as long as it is the right direction and method, the specific tactical level is often based on the rapidly changing The “response” under the judgment of the war situation.
Similarly, to quote Clayton Christensen’s disruptive innovation theory
“The average performance of the product exceeds the average expectations of users for this performance, this evolutionary model of the competitive basis-from functionality to reliability and convenience”
At present, under the fierce competition of Douyin and Quick Hands, the gameplay (average performance) of the short video product has exceeded the average expectations of the mass users, which is in line with the above-mentioned stage. Although the theory of disruptive innovation is based on the analysis of the rise and fall of enterprises in the industrial era and the IT industry era, we actually follow this law when we look at the growth process of WeChat itself.
-
In the context of Alipay ’s hegemony, the counterattack of WeChat Pay relies on its “convenience” (Alipay can also send red envelopes to each other. WeChat red envelopes are just one form of WeChat payment that ignites the underlying nature Or the convenience of payment operations based on the relationship chain)
-
Applets also win by relying on their convenience for native applications
So “convenience” will still be the main focus of the follow-up WeChat team in the promotion process.
06 Write at the end
While writing so much, return to the topic of this article “Can WeChat Video Number Breakthrough?” From the perspective of my mundane perspective, I think it is OK, because first it has demand, and then for WeChat product positioning It is clear that there are ways to play and resources, and the rest is nothing more than how to “agile” in the actual operation process.
But from the perspective of WeChat, “With its indisputableness, the world ca n’t compete with it.” Maybe WeChat did n’t want to refer to anyone or break through, because as a national application, it chose its own product. Positioning will thoroughly understand the value of users, and users will naturally vote with their feet.
References
36KR “Network Effects” Guide: A Comprehensive Analysis of 13 Network Effects, Taking You to Know the Secrets of Giant Successes
About the author
Qiwen Tianxiang, a product veteran, has been responsible for user products at NetEase and a leading domestic financial group, and is currently responsible for the financial sub-business of a mobile Internet giant. Share here about the growth and cultivation of product managers.
Sun Tzu ’s Art of War:
“Using the methods of soldiers, there are scattered ground, light ground, disputed land, intersecting land, hoe land, heavy land, hoe land, enclosure land, and dead land.”
Even if WeChat has the advantage of a national application user, if it ventures into the “dead land” battlefield, it has no chance of winning.
In abstract terms, the short videos represented by Douyin and Kuaishou are more like a bilateral online market, such as a trading market like Taobao. The simple definition of the bilateral internet market is:
There are two different types of users, supply-side and demand-side users. They join the network for different reasons and provide complementary value to each other.
The reason why it is said that the bilateral Internet market is because the line between active suppliers and public demanders is still relatively clear.
Of course, the network effect of the first-mover is not indestructible, as long as sufficient benefits are given to users in the bilateral market, such a network can be rebuilt. For example, like the information flow market based on recommendation algorithms, under Baidu ’s desperate onslaught, it already has nearly 200 million daily users. Its play is to provide money on the supply side to build its own content ecology. User growth. Another case that can be referred to is the rise of a lot of fights in the e-commerce field, and the US group entered the taxi market.
Expand it, IMSuch a product is a type of direct network effect, which is the strongest and simplest type of network effect: increasing the use of a product can directly increase the value of the product to the user. At the same time, the value of the network is not a nonlinear relationship, but is directly proportional to the square of the number of connected users (N ^ 2). So this is also when the number of WeChat users first broke 100 million, and the end of the battlefield of mobile instant messaging tools was announced. Whether it was Michao, the pioneer, or Ali challenger, or Netease Yixin, all went into the dead. There is no possibility of victory.
04 Positioning of WeChat video number
The entire value chain of short videos can be divided into:
Content production—processing—distribution
Clayton Christensen, the father of “disruptive innovation” theory, believes:
Industrial structure usually shifts from vertical integration to vertical stratification. In the early stage of the industry where product performance is lower than the average expectations of users, functional modules that do not meet the standards in the market can be provided. Those companies that adopt internal production strategies or deeply integrate all aspects of the value chain can provide leading user experiences, which will trigger market imitation. Make vertical integration a mainstream model. As the market enters the stage of excess performance and the rapid development of disruptive technologies, the functional modules on the market meet the average user expectations. The performance of modular products is not as good as integrated products, but it is sufficient to meet user needs, and in other aspects Ahead of the latter.
Popularly speaking, the new industry is suitable for vertical integration at the initial stage. As the industry develops, it is appropriate to adopt a horizontal integration strategy. The most classic representative of this theory is the smart phone market. Apple was born in the early days. With its closed ecosystem of software and hardware, it was proud of its heroes. The initial experience of the Android ecosystem is indeed not as good as Apple’s. It has surpassed Apple in many innovations.
Alibaba’s e-commerce empire in China is a typical horizontal integration strategy. It does not do its own logistics, but integrates social logistics resources through Cainiao Network, and continuously approaches Jingdong’s own logistics service experience through continuous integration; JD.com is a vertical integration strategy, and everything is done by itself. However, we can see a major trend is that with the continuous improvement of e-commerce infrastructure, JD.com’s vertical one-day advantage is indeed getting smaller and smaller, which is also a big reason why Pinduoduo can easily rise.
In contrast to the short video market, the current short videoThe two giants can be understood as representatives of vertical integration, self-built content ecology, self-built video processing tools, research various operating methods, and do distribution by themselves.
From the perspective of commercial competition theory, combined with the advantages of WeChat (massive users), WeChat short videos should focus on the field of content distribution, and the processing link is mostly for players to do well. As for the content production link, the actual It will be a “outline” process after the content distribution link is firmly established. This point will not be shown for the time being, and will be described later in detail.
1) So how should content distribution be positioned?
In general, there are three types of content distribution: centralized distribution, subscription distribution, and social distribution. In my understanding, both the traditional news portal and the current machine algorithm distribution belong to the centralized distribution method, because what you see depends on what one “center” chooses for you. The only difference is that “center” is “Edit” or “Algorithm”. The representative of subscription-based distribution is the public account. You need to actively discover the active subscription yourself. Social distribution includes, for example, the circle of friends, take a look-friends are watching, and so on. WeChat social distribution to do a simple inventory (including people as a special “content”)
Now that we have seen the true answer of the video number, we now know that the distribution rules of the current video number include: acquaintances (friend circle, WeChat dialogue), strangers (“discovery-video number” entrance)
2) But why is it so designed?
In my opinion, this is actually a “rule” (targeting) made under the goal of “user value”
Let ’s take a brief look at the ecological users of the entire video number to classify them (professional content producers, amateur active content producers, amateur watchers)
Adhering to the product design principles designed for mass users, we can make the following reasoning:
-
To be fullThe needs (user value) of the largest amateur bystanders (usually people who eat melon) must have sufficient “good-looking” content
-
A good content ecology must be provided with sufficient “good-looking” content
-
A good content ecosystem must be produced by professional content producers and amateur active content producers
-
Professional content producers and amateur active content producers need enough “audiences”
It looks like a chicken-and-egg process. This is what we call the process of building a bilateral network market. In reality, we can see cases such as taxi wars. On the one hand, the platform subsidizes the driver crazy to join. At the same time, the network subsidized the client in a frantic way, thereby crossing the “gap” between chicken and eggs, and the “Thousands of Regiments”.
But in reality, a classic battle of “Shooting the Army” is still on WeChat. At that time, we were in a mobile IM battle with Michao. At that time, the two sides were actually locked together, and there were only about 10 million users. Because of the gap between “early adopters” and “early masses”, WeChat took the lead in bringing out the feature of “people nearby” and added a strange social part to the mobile IM of acquaintance relationships. The engine was the first to cross the divide.
So for WeChat, although the video number is to make up for the regret of the “public account”, it is obviously not possible to adopt the same positioning (subscription type) as the current vibrato and fast hand lead, this The road is different. So it is still a great magic weapon for strangers to use.
This means that the internal test users of the video number we have seen can distinguish their own WeChat and rename it to create their own video number. The entire video number will recommend some content to you by default, and the created content can be published. In the video number, you can also share in the circle of friends and WeChat conversations. In a way, this is a social media-like structure.
In Zhang Xiaolong ’s own words:
“The product manager, like God, also looks at all beings, knows their desires, and then formulates some rules for them to run according to this rule …. The rules are very simple, only simple rules can evolve Very complicated things. So I do n’t agree with many products, I made a complicated rule from the beginning, and there is no room for evolution in the end.
In fact, we can see that the growth and prosperity of public accounts, WeChat payments, and small programs in the “production” link, that is, formed naturally under the guidance of WeChat’s simple rules. Now the rule of “like social video media” is the “rule” (positioning) given by Zhang Xiaolong for the video number
05 How to fight?
The strategic level (product positioning) is determined, and the specificHow to play (tactics)?
In my opinion, too much speculation on the WeChat team at the tactical level is futile, because for the Internet field, as long as it is the right direction and method, the specific tactical level is often based on the rapidly changing The “response” under the judgment of the war situation.
Similarly, to quote Clayton Christensen’s disruptive innovation theory
“The average performance of the product exceeds the average expectations of users for this performance, this evolutionary model of the competitive basis-from functionality to reliability and convenience”
At present, under the fierce competition of Douyin and Quick Hands, the gameplay (average performance) of the short video product has exceeded the average expectations of the mass users, which is in line with the above-mentioned stage. Although the theory of disruptive innovation is based on the analysis of the rise and fall of enterprises in the industrial era and the IT industry era, we actually follow this law when we look at the growth process of WeChat itself.
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In the context of Alipay ’s hegemony, the counterattack of WeChat Pay relies on its “convenience” (Alipay can also send red envelopes to each other. WeChat red envelopes are just one form of WeChat payment that ignites the underlying nature Or the convenience of payment operations based on the relationship chain)
-
Applets also win by relying on their convenience for native applications
So “convenience” will still be the main focus of the follow-up WeChat team in the promotion process.
06 Write at the end
While writing so much, return to the topic of this article “Can WeChat Video Number Breakthrough?” From the perspective of my mundane perspective, I think it is OK, because first it has demand, and then for WeChat product positioning It is clear that there are ways to play and resources, and the rest is nothing more than how to “agile” in the actual operation process.
But from the perspective of WeChat, “With its indisputableness, the world ca n’t compete with it.” Maybe WeChat did n’t want to refer to anyone or break through, because as a national application, it chose its own product. Positioning will thoroughly understand the value of users, and users will naturally vote with their feet.
References
36KR “Network Effects” Guide: A Comprehensive Analysis of 13 Network Effects, Taking You to Know the Secrets of Giant Successes
About the author
Qiwen Tianxiang, a product veteran, has been responsible for user products at NetEase and a leading domestic financial group, and is currently responsible for the financial sub-business of a mobile Internet giant. Share here about the growth and cultivation of product managers.
To be fullThe needs (user value) of the largest amateur bystanders (usually people who eat melon) must have sufficient “good-looking” content
A good content ecology must be provided with sufficient “good-looking” content
A good content ecosystem must be produced by professional content producers and amateur active content producers
Professional content producers and amateur active content producers need enough “audiences”
It looks like a chicken-and-egg process. This is what we call the process of building a bilateral network market. In reality, we can see cases such as taxi wars. On the one hand, the platform subsidizes the driver crazy to join. At the same time, the network subsidized the client in a frantic way, thereby crossing the “gap” between chicken and eggs, and the “Thousands of Regiments”.
But in reality, a classic battle of “Shooting the Army” is still on WeChat. At that time, we were in a mobile IM battle with Michao. At that time, the two sides were actually locked together, and there were only about 10 million users. Because of the gap between “early adopters” and “early masses”, WeChat took the lead in bringing out the feature of “people nearby” and added a strange social part to the mobile IM of acquaintance relationships. The engine was the first to cross the divide.
So for WeChat, although the video number is to make up for the regret of the “public account”, it is obviously not possible to adopt the same positioning (subscription type) as the current vibrato and fast hand lead, this The road is different. So it is still a great magic weapon for strangers to use.
This means that the internal test users of the video number we have seen can distinguish their own WeChat and rename it to create their own video number. The entire video number will recommend some content to you by default, and the created content can be published. In the video number, you can also share in the circle of friends and WeChat conversations. In a way, this is a social media-like structure.
In Zhang Xiaolong ’s own words:
“The product manager, like God, also looks at all beings, knows their desires, and then formulates some rules for them to run according to this rule …. The rules are very simple, only simple rules can evolve Very complicated things. So I do n’t agree with many products, I made a complicated rule from the beginning, and there is no room for evolution in the end.
In fact, we can see that the growth and prosperity of public accounts, WeChat payments, and small programs in the “production” link, that is, formed naturally under the guidance of WeChat’s simple rules. Now the rule of “like social video media” is the “rule” (positioning) given by Zhang Xiaolong for the video number
05 How to fight?
The strategic level (product positioning) is determined, and the specificHow to play (tactics)?
In my opinion, too much speculation on the WeChat team at the tactical level is futile, because for the Internet field, as long as it is the right direction and method, the specific tactical level is often based on the rapidly changing The “response” under the judgment of the war situation.
Similarly, to quote Clayton Christensen’s disruptive innovation theory
“The average performance of the product exceeds the average expectations of users for this performance, this evolutionary model of the competitive basis-from functionality to reliability and convenience”
At present, under the fierce competition of Douyin and Quick Hands, the gameplay (average performance) of the short video product has exceeded the average expectations of the mass users, which is in line with the above-mentioned stage. Although the theory of disruptive innovation is based on the analysis of the rise and fall of enterprises in the industrial era and the IT industry era, we actually follow this law when we look at the growth process of WeChat itself.
-
In the context of Alipay ’s hegemony, the counterattack of WeChat Pay relies on its “convenience” (Alipay can also send red envelopes to each other. WeChat red envelopes are just one form of WeChat payment that ignites the underlying nature Or the convenience of payment operations based on the relationship chain)
-
Applets also win by relying on their convenience for native applications
So “convenience” will still be the main focus of the follow-up WeChat team in the promotion process.
06 Write at the end
While writing so much, return to the topic of this article “Can WeChat Video Number Breakthrough?” From the perspective of my mundane perspective, I think it is OK, because first it has demand, and then for WeChat product positioning It is clear that there are ways to play and resources, and the rest is nothing more than how to “agile” in the actual operation process.
But from the perspective of WeChat, “With its indisputableness, the world ca n’t compete with it.” Maybe WeChat did n’t want to refer to anyone or break through, because as a national application, it chose its own product. Positioning will thoroughly understand the value of users, and users will naturally vote with their feet.
References
36KR “Network Effects” Guide: A Comprehensive Analysis of 13 Network Effects, Taking You to Know the Secrets of Giant Successes
About the author
Qiwen Tianxiang, a product veteran, has been responsible for user products at NetEase and a leading domestic financial group, and is currently responsible for the financial sub-business of a mobile Internet giant. Share here about the growth and cultivation of product managers.
In the context of Alipay ’s hegemony, the counterattack of WeChat Pay relies on its “convenience” (Alipay can also send red envelopes to each other. WeChat red envelopes are just one form of WeChat payment that ignites the underlying nature Or the convenience of payment operations based on the relationship chain)
Applets also win by relying on their convenience for native applications
So “convenience” will still be the main focus of the follow-up WeChat team in the promotion process.