Image source @ Visual China
Wen 丨 Xing Shu Bo real, Editor 丨 Hanazaki
"Just over a few mountains, and over a few rivers, how rugged is it so much!"
The "Monkey Mountain" "Acfun", which has been rugged for so many years, ushered in its eighth generation of Monkey King Wenmin in 2019.
Wen Min did not expect that what awaited him in the past three years was more "bumpy and bumpy".
Donews reported that Wen Min, the person in charge of The Second Dimension of Kuaishou and the head of Station A, has recently left Kuaishou, and the article said that there are two reasons for Wen Min's departure: 1 personal reason to leave; 2 policy restrictions, resulting in the postponement of the introduction of Fan drama.
The three directions of introducing drama, supporting UP masters, and exploring commercialization are the three axes of Wen Min's reshaping of acfun. The most direct impact of the postponement of the drama is that the influence of activity and even the "secondary creation" of the bullet screen website have no material available.
In fact, Kuaishou's adjustment to Wenmin began last year.
<h2>One</h2>
As early as August 2020, Kuaishou adjusted its organizational structure, and the most important adjustment was that Station A was assigned to the management of the game team. Wen Min reports to the game team Tang Yuyu.
"Met at 3, fell in love at 16, and married at 27." Su Hua and Tang Yuyu returned to their hometown in Hunan in 2011 to get married, they went to school together in the local middle school, lived poor together, and supported all the way on the road to entrepreneurship, which can be described as a deep love between the two.
Suhua Tang Yuyu
At that time, when Su Hua was still writing code on Baidu, Tang Yuyu was already the head of the core department of Happy.com. In 2013, Tang Yuyu left his post and founded EasyPlay. At that time, Su Hua continued to write code on Google and later 360 search.
Therefore, Kuaishou will hand over the entire game business and related two-dimensional business to Tang Yuyu, a veteran of entrepreneurship, which is the wisest choice, regardless of qualifications, abilities and experience.
The game business is a section that is in urgent need of replenishment before Kuaishou goes public. After the listing of Kuaishou, it is also its most imaginative business segment. Therefore, after the organizational adjustment in 2020, Tang Yuyu integrated self-developed games, game live broadcasting, and secondary yuan (Station A).
This architecture is reasonable in the commercial sector of Kuaishou, short videos do traffic, games and secondary business use traffic monetization.
It's just bitter Wen Min. In this product manager who has been responsible for different two-dimensional entities three times and spanned various ACG products in the past decade, perhaps the inner thought is to incorporate games, live broadcasts and other businesses into the A station, rather than putting the A station under the game and live broadcast. After all, the current Douyu game live broadcast platform was also hatched in the acfun sheng broadcast in that year.
Station A was once a banner of the second dimension, and it was also the birthplace of many ghost animal videos, old terriers, and up lords, and even during the period of personal station chief of Station B, it was in Station A that made a fortune and gained popularity. Chinese the Internet loses Station A, just as the Western world loses Jerusalem. This monkey mountain is the place where the dreams of countless monkeys began, originally like Bilibili, it was the builder and participant of the entire two-dimensional ecology, the builder of the spiritual home of countless users, but now it has become a pawn under the new business plate of a well-known short video product.
<h2>Two</h2>
It only takes 3 years.
However, to be a "spiritual homeland", Wen Min, who has been immersed in the industry for many years, can understand it.
"We are protecting the cultural connotation of Station A, protecting the pastoral spirit of the Internet, which is very rare at this stage, where everyone is based on interest, exchanging inner thoughts equally, and there is no utilitarian hostility and no malicious slander." In the A station users will feel that each other is family, can perceive the identity of other users and emotional appeals, for them, A station is a very good gathering place. There are fewer and fewer places with this sense of community, and we expect to be able to give users such an atmosphere, at least in the current size of Station A, which must be protected. “
Wen Min said so affectionately in an exclusive interview with Tech Planet.
Wen Min
But it will take time to build an ecological and spiritual home, and the fast hands of 2019 are still running blindfolded. Although Wen Min, who had parachuted in, brought the team, he did not bring time.
When he first came to Monkey Mountain in 2019, Wen Min and Kuaishou appeared on Chinajoy together, announced the up master support plan, purchased dramas, and actively participated in ecological construction. In mid-2019, the style of painting has changed, indicating that Kuaishou cannot always transfuse blood and consider commercialization.
It's like two little kids about to go to their junior year of high school. A child usually has good grades, has not fallen behind in any class, has been steady and steady, and went to the third year of high school to do the real questions of the college entrance examination. Another child from childhood to adulthood, everything fell behind, but also to do the college entrance examination real questions is obviously not appropriate, because the foundation can not catch up, how to do is wrong, in addition to copying homework.
For this child, we should make up the lessons first, and get the copyright drama, the two-dimensional ecology, and the creator incentive first, and then we can commercialize it. Secondary users are naturally sensitive to commercialization, and before Bilibili next door is not listed, the advertisement before adding the film must be criticized by users. A station He De He can do commercialization.
<h2>Three</h2>
So did Station A have a commercial basis at that time?
some. According to media reports, at that time, the homepage recommendation of Station A was between 700,000 and 2 million per day, and even if the lowest price was calculated for a year, a single homepage recommendation could contribute about 255 million yuan of revenue; in 2017, Station A put on the game center, and game intermodal businesses such as Novelia and Yin-Yang Division also contributed considerable revenue. In 2020, "Destiny Divine Realm" is the first game jointly released by Kuaishou and Station A, which once reached the first place in the iOS list and was later removed. But the fault is not in Station A, the reason is that there is a problem with the operation, not that there is a problem with the business model of Station A.
"Destiny Divine Realm" promotional image
Media reports: Station A currently has less than 200,000 DAU, but the response given by Kuaishou official is that the number of authoritative third-party institutions tested is multiple this value. It will take time to prop up this pattern. Maintaining growth and ecology is the first issue, and commercialization is not the primary issue. The second dimension is a slow and hot business, Bilibili did not start commercialization before 2017, and A station was basically unstable before 2017 and could not talk about commercialization.
At this year's Photosynthetic Creators Conference, Kuaishou also said that the current average number of users who consume secondary content on the Kuaishou main APP has exceeded 100 million per day, and the average daily content playback volume has exceeded 1.7 billion, which is more than double the scale of 40 million DAU in 2019. In the future, Kuaishou will also launch more plans, such as the power generation plan 2.0, the spark new force plan and so on.
In the two-dimensional plate of this fast hand, such an operation has its rationality. But for ACPUN, which has a strong community culture, it is not easy to catch up with the overall pace of Kuaishou. Wen Min was sandwiched in the middle, very sad.
Wen Min has no decision-making power and right to speak on the top, and there is no gene for A station on the bottom. More than 70% of the male users of Station A, the community culture is ghost animals, bullet screens, spray new people, and Wen Min's previous lofter is a small and beautiful literary and artistic community, and its secondary part is rotten female literature, illustration and fan comics. It is also a two-dimensional element, but past experience cannot be reused at all.
Wen Min also worked for NetEase Comics, and was later acquired by Bilibili. The operating logic of the comic is also incompatible with the video station.
The core question here is, what kind of industry is ACGN? What is business logic?
<h2>Four</h2>
ACGN is not a gibberish. This is actually a sequential table.
As one of the pioneers of the Chinese ACGN community and bullet screen culture, the initial A stands for animation (Japanese アニメーション). Historically, the word did not mean anime, but Japanese animation.
Mr. Chen Qijia's "Introduction to Japanese Animation Art" mentioned that from 1917 to 1945, the initial period of Japanese animation was inspired by the American animation "Deformed Pacifier" and the French animation film "The New Picture Tent" imported into Japan, which caused great repercussions in Japan and aroused the national consciousness of some people with lofty ideals and began to produce their own animation.
Early Japanese animation imitated European and American animation, which is a cartoon in the usual sense. In the 1988s, When Japanese animation swept the world, European and American audiences gave Japanese animation a discriminatory name called Japanese animation, called Japanese animation, to distinguish their own cartoons.
The source of the Group Portrait of Japanese Animation in the 1980s @M_NinE
In 1991, the Japanese animation promotion association felt that this was not ok, and in order to eliminate the negative image of Japanese animation, it removed the jap and instead vigorously promoted the affirmation, which was the initial theoretical basis of the acgn secondary element industry.
To this day, Japanese animation still has the remnants of American animation, that is, those particularly large eyes. The early Chinese animation is a school of its own, called the Chinese animation school, and early Chinese animation such as "Landscape and Water" and "The Great Haunting of the Heavenly Palace" did not have such a big eye.
This history is very important, but many practitioners do not know, let alone pay attention to the logical relationship behind them.
<h2>Five</h2>
The logical relationship is that in order to develop the quadratic element, you must first do acgn. The development sequence of acgn is to first use animation to cultivate the movie-going crowd, and then use comic fans to expand, deepen, and subdivide the animation IP, mainly the characters; then use the game games to monetize, and finally use the light novel Novel to supplement the worldview and open up a new IP system. Finally, there is the manga adaptation, or the light novel adaptation. Complete a loop.
This animation is not yet an American animation, but a Japanese animation. American animation and movies are a group of fans, the way of creation is not Japanese animation rely on manga artists or light novel authors to support the worldview of thousands of episodes of animation for decades, labor model "One Piece" Eiichiro Oda can work hard for more than ten years, but "Pigeon King" Yoshihiro Fuken can also play mahjong can also not update a word for more than ten years, everyone can only do it in a hurry, the entire industrial chain is broken. The direction of commercialization is DC, Marvel, Disney, large companies divide labor to create, build large IP, and make movies and genre films in one step.
Netizens spoof Fu Jian Yibo play mahjong source @alexliu
The way of creation determined Europe and the United States, and in the 1980s, with the popularity of Japanese animation, the real otaku and the so-called ACGN were born, and there was a secondary market. Before that, they shared a world view with movie fans, and the video game industry enjoyed the same kind of car gun ball, and comics are more self-contained, just like our Chinese animation school, far from the logical relationship of ACGN, naturally there will be no so-called two-dimensional industry. This is also an important reason why Hollywood has intensively remade Japanese comic IP in recent years - because they did not have these genes in their ancestors, they can only buy.
Figure this out and understand why Station B was successful.
Station B is to follow the logic of acgn step by step to become stronger and bigger. From the beginning of its establishment to the pre-listing, Station B only did one thing, that is, the main system of fan drama animation and two-creation up, and then supplemented the comic section through the acquisition of NetEase Comics, and then the game, and the article area was the last to be launched. The outside world sees that the commercialization of blibli relies on games, and it is wrong to learn and do everything. The game is only the third-order content product in the acgn content construction system, but it is the first-order content product in commercialization.
Before the animation drama comic system and the up main system did not lay a solid foundation, the commercialization of station A was only advertising, and it could only be advertising, and should not bet on the game - they were too small to look at the game industry. The two-dimensional game category needs a mass base and an IP foundation, without which you can't do it. Tencent wants to enter the two-dimensional game also has to do the self-built IP of the dream animation first, not to mention the acpfun of 200,000 DAUs.
<h2>Six</h2>
These things, not only Kuaishou, acfun and Wen Min did not want to understand, Wen Min's former owner NetEase and Fan Shaoqing, the former leader of NetEase Comics, did not understand.
In November 2019, NetEase Comics was shut down, and CEO Fan Shaoqing sent a circle of friends: "Goodbye, never see you again." ”
In 2015, the capital market intensively invested in the comics industry. Tencent Animation, Demon Qi, Quick Look Comics quickly landed first, NetEase Comics opened the door, got the top five in the market, and the registered users exceeded 30 million.
NetEase Comics signed a poster with Marvel
At that time, the industry's formulation was the linkage of comic films and games. The most fierce shouting in the A-share game industry is Perfect World, and see what the stock price has fallen into this year. In business, this formulation logic may be correct, but in the industry, because it does not follow the ACGN ordering theory mentioned above, NetEase Comics is a halfway out of the house, overestimating the monetization ability and growth potential of the comics industry, and underestimating the difficulty of breaking the dimensional wall to achieve the linkage of comics and movies.
In 2017, NetEase Comics burned money and could not burn, because there was no successful comic animation or movie, there was no blessing from well-known domestic cartoonists, copyright transactions and paid subscriptions were deadlocked, and it took a lot of money to go the wrong way with Marvel and other American comics before, and decided to raise funds abroad. In 2017, Station B was listed, drawing the sword and looking around, NetEase Comics was the only comic target it could afford to buy and sell. This remarriage of NetEase Comics is called "Guanfu Surname" by comic fans.
But before that, CEO Fan Shaoqing said so in an interview.
"First there is bread, then there can be love, first there must be a market, and then realize personal ambitions, isn't it?" Fan Shaoqing mentioned the difference between American comics and Japanese comics in an interview, and also said that in business, the model of American comics is more suitable for China's current market situation, "Japanese comics are artists, one person is responsible for all the things in the creation process of comics, American comics are craftsmen, everyone is responsible for a piece, purely from a commercial point of view, the efficiency of craftsmen is obviously better, and more sustainable." ”
However, from the perspective of the larger pattern, the spiritual home and consumption direction of China's 400 million secondary users determine that the American comic model is oriented to China's film and television industry, which is feasible. But the engine of China's two-dimensional acgn is still Japanese comics and animation. NetEase's "Yin and Yang Division" has launched more than a hundred animated short films on Bilibili, which is also Japanese animation, and even the creative team is. The Marvel model is very heavy, and non-giants are not competent. Unfortunately, NetEase is not a giant.
However, it is not objective to completely deny the achievements of NetEase Comics. In that transaction in 2019, analysts gave the core assets of NetEase Comics, one of which was a complete comic reading under the Hangyuan lofter product system.
<h2>Seven</h2>
NetEase Lofter and the second dimension are not so much to do with each other. The light blog model was originally copied from the light blog originator soup is not hot. In the 2011 graphic era, when there were long blogs, microblogs and light blogs on the market, the soup was not hot, similar to the concept of video in the video era. In 2018, Tang Bu was banned by the Apple Store because of too much adult content, and later painfully deleted all the adult content on the site, and the result is now cold.
NetEase lofer was first launched, it was Wen Min who pulled the original NetEase Photography Forum's photography family meat one by one. He also said torrent users decide on community tone. This group of users has three characteristics, literary, arrogant, and poor. This is highly consistent with the current user tone of A station or Douban.
But photographers came to lofer not only to shoot landscapes and rivers, but also the biggest flow of lofters at that time was private photography. Among them, the biggest photographer is called Wang Dong, the screen name wanimal, is a god-level figure in a subdivision of the photography industry, graduated from the Central Academy of Drama, and is good at using stage drama aesthetics to shoot nude photos. This subdivision is called human body photography.
Lofer
Later, sweeping the yellow to fight the non-lofer sweep was afraid, and began to build pan-quadratic content such as illustration, fandom, tammy, and rotten female direction. As a result, last year, I encountered the AO3 and Xiao Zhan incidents, and I was punished again.
Whether it is a human body photo or a fan-made woman, lofter has been a blog interest community from the beginning, not a meta-quadratic community like a station b. NetEase Comics later inherited lofter's digital assets as a continuation. Later, Wen Min took part of the team of NetEase Comics to Station A, replacing the original management of the original station familiar with Station A, thinking that it could be a flower for the old uncle, but later found that it was not like this. In the desert, there are no other flowers except long cacti.
But it's another story for Kuaishou.
Chinese online when it took a stake in Station A, Station A was valued at $1.8 billion. A year later, Kuaishou acquired a station, less than $1 billion in valuation. That is, Kuaishou completed the transaction by lower than the market price.
The real purpose of this transaction may not be for the second dimension, but that Station A still has an Internet audio-visual program license in its hand. Byte also acquired Yuncheng Sunshine Broadband for this license at that time. The short video industry has many risks of lightning, one more certificate and one more talisman, not a loss.
Audiovisual program license held by Station A
From this perspective, the moment a stood four years ago, the historical mission was fulfilled. Wen Min and the team have given Station A a a life in the past three years, like scooping water out of a bucket on a ship that is destined to sink.
Heart to heart, will you care about the death or death of Yuncheng Sunshine Broadband now? That's what station a is.