Live broadcast this bowl of rice, Zhihu, Douban, Tiger Flutter can not eat

The illustrations are from Canva Paintable

In order to meet the increasingly diversified needs of users, various Internet platforms continue to develop new business lines, and "cross-border" between industries has become a commonplace operation, which has led to more and more overlapping business lines between Internet platforms. At the same time, it also means that the Internet industry is becoming more and more competitive for consumer attention.

In order to build a diversified traffic platform, mainstream community platforms such as Zhihu, Douban, and Hupu have been trying to expand their business boundaries and continuously extend their business tentacles to all walks of life.

Jump out of community boundaries

Over the years, community platforms such as Douban, Hupu, and Zhihu have been wandering in various industries.

Douban has successively launched a variety of application platforms such as Douban Movie, Douban FM, Douban Reading, and Douban Music, but these products are less competitive and gradually depressed in the fierce battle with other similar competitors. Hupu has created shopping platforms such as identifying goods and obtaining things, and in recent years, it has greatly increased its exposure with the help of mainstream short video platforms such as Douyin. Zhihu has developed a number of business lines such as online education and e-commerce, and has made a lot of contributions to the harvest of the platform.

Regardless of the final results, the continuous penetration of Douban, Zhihu and Hupu into other industries is enough to prove the determination of these community platforms to break away from a single business model. The reason is that the reason why Douban, Zhihu and Hupu are obsessed with expanding and deepening in other businesses is closely related to the operational logic of the community platform itself and the upgrading of user needs in the Internet environment.

On the one hand, there is a community endogenous crisis. The contradiction between the community atmosphere and the monetization of the existing business model has become increasingly prominent, and the rush to content monetization has led to a shift in the community atmosphere to a certain extent; Tiger Pounce relies too much on platform advertising, and the sports attributes of the forum are constantly weakened; and the literary and artistic attributes that Douban has been insisting on have become the main reasons for the delay in the monetization process of the platform.

Therefore, community platforms must accelerate the pace of exploring new business models or new platforms to balance the relationship between community atmosphere and commercialization. Especially for Douban and Hupu, who have not yet entered the capital market, it is more important to maintain a good symbiotic relationship between the business ecology and the platform atmosphere.

On the other hand, exogenous factors drive. With the popularity of mobile networks, users' demand for application scenarios is becoming more and more extensive, and it is difficult for a single product scenario to bring users a richer experience. The community platform extends from graphics and text to video and live broadcasts with strong immediacy, all in order to meet the needs of users' scenes, so as to ensure that in today's mobile Internet applications, products can be better obtained and maintained good operation.

In summary, under the influence of internal and external factors, it is imperative to lengthen the business front of the community platform. In recent years, due to the lack of community business development, community platforms such as Zhihu, Hupu, and Douban have set their sights on the hot live broadcast business, but the current competition between all parties in the live broadcast track is extremely fierce, and the trial and error component of the live broadcast road opened by the community platform is relatively large.

Collectively focus on live streaming

It is reported that Zhihu and Hupu chose to open a live broadcast function in the platform, and Douban concocted the idea of business expansion in the past, launching live broadcast as an independent application platform. Although the positioning of the three for live broadcasting is different, the results achieved are similar, basically bubbling in the live broadcast industry, and failing to stir up much splash.

Zhihu: The live broadcast function was launched in October 2019, mainly as a creative tool for platform users, enriching usage scenarios and content forms. In June 2020, Zhihu opened the live streaming function to allow creators to join the e-commerce live broadcast team.

However, Zhihu Live used an invitation system to invite anchors at the beginning, there is a certain threshold for live broadcasting, and Zhihu cannot keep up with the publicity of live broadcasting, and Zhihu is still in a state of relative lack of exposure.

Tiger Punch: In May 2020, Tiger Punch built a live broadcast entrance in the platform, originally intending to create an internet celebrity ecology exclusive to Tiger Punch through live broadcasting, but the reality deviated from expectations. Following the popular anchor "Ice Cream Sister" su yan overturned, HuPu has so far few anchors out of the circle, and the overall live broadcast business is not good.

Douban: In November 2021, the news that Douban is about to open a live broadcast, the current Douban live broadcast has not yet completed the landing, and the specific live broadcast type Douban has not clearly released the news. According to the literary and artistic tone that Douban has always adhered to, it can be expected that its live broadcast type will not deviate too much from the "literary" positioning of the platform.

However, Douban Live broadcast is a late set, and it is at the time when the vertical live broadcast platform is affected by the impact of the comprehensive live broadcast platform, and Douban Live chooses to launch it in a separate posture at this time, and the challenges it has to face are not small.

From the perspective of live broadcast effectiveness, the live broadcast business in community platforms such as Zhihu and Hupu has not developed very well, and the volume in the live broadcast industry is small; from the perspective of the overall live broadcast market, these "useless" live broadcast functions seem to be the inattention of the community platform, but in fact, they are suppressed by the mainstream live broadcast platform and cannot struggle.

Live streaming is surrounded by strong enemies

According to Ai Media Consulting data, the user scale of China's online live broadcasting industry will reach 587 million in 2020, and it is expected to rise to 635 million and 660 million in 2021 and 2022 respectively. It can be seen that the number of live broadcast users continues to rise, which means that the development of the live broadcast industry is still increasingly attractive to capital.

At present, in addition to the community platform staring at the live broadcast track, there are many platforms such as audio, e-commerce, short video and so on that have long been stationed, which continue to increase in the live broadcast business, and the live broadcast opponents that the community platform has to face are only increasing, and the live broadcast track is becoming more and more crowded. The most important thing is that the influence of head live broadcast platforms such as Kuaishou and Douyin is getting bigger and bigger, and it is difficult for other platforms to have a foothold.

Take the current popular e-commerce live broadcast model as an example. Prospective industry research data show that according to the market scale, the first echelon of China's e-commerce live broadcast in 2020 is the Taobao shopping platform; the second echelon is the two major short video platforms of Kuaishou and Douyin; the third echelon is Jingdong, Pinduoduo, Vipshop and other platforms. It can be seen that the live streaming market has many powerful e-commerce platforms in the head position, and it is not practical for the community platform to break through from it.

Moreover, in addition to e-commerce live broadcasting, the development status of the two short video comprehensive live broadcast platforms of Douyin and Kuaishou in the types of live broadcasting such as pan-entertainment live broadcasting and game live broadcasting is also particularly optimistic, and the threat to other vertical live broadcasting platforms is also becoming increasingly prominent.

The main reason is that the two major short video platforms of Douyin and Kuaishou have their own high visibility and a large user group, and it is easier for platform live broadcasting to form a natural traffic "low-lying belt", and the traffic that can be divided by other live broadcasting platforms has gradually become less. At present, some head vertical platforms such as Huya and Douyu are difficult to withstand the onslaught of short video live broadcast platforms, as a community platform for live broadcast novices, the results can be imagined.

In addition, in the field of pan-knowledge live broadcasting that is more in line with the tone of community platforms such as Zhihu and Douban, there are also head short video platforms such as Douyin, B station, and Kuaishou. In summary, it can be seen that the current short video head platform layout of live broadcast types is very extensive, and it is difficult for Zhihu, Douban, and Hupu to make differentiated content in the field of live broadcasting.

Community search for the end?

It can be expected that under the high pressure of many head live broadcast platforms, the live broadcast road of Zhihu, Douban and Hupu will not go too smoothly. At present, the live broadcast business opened by the three can only serve as a tool to enhance the sense of user experience, and it is still difficult to rely on live broadcasting to carry out more in-depth commercial expansion, or to assume the responsibility of platform monetization.

Perhaps the embarrassment of the live broadcast business can wake up the community platform to avoid blindly following the market trend as much as possible, because Zhihu and Hupu have been eager to carry out commercial expansion in recent years, and the anti-phagocytosis of the quality of the platform content has emerged, and frequent commercial expansion is gradually diluting the original positioning of the platform.

Knowing that the sinking market continues to sink, the platform entertainment atmosphere is aggravated, high-quality creators flee, and the initial positioning of "high-quality Q&A community" has shifted; Tiger Poker has dug deep into commercial value on the basis of multiple formats such as graphics, video and live broadcasting, and the platform content has slowly opened from sports to pan-entertainment, and the content is mixed.

Compared with Zhihu and Hupu, the commercialization road of Douban is more cautious, but Douban is more indulgent in user discussion, so that the platform often becomes the hot source of Internet public opinion, and excessive entertainment makes the "literary and artistic fan" of the Douban community gradually change its taste.

Although the profit anxiety of Zhihu, Douban and Hupu has become more and more intense, and it is understandable to be busy with commercial expansion, the current community tone of the three and the commercial expansion of the platform are in an imbalanced state. As the foundation of the platform, there is a crack in the community ecology, and at this time, blindly following the market outlet is actually giving up the end, but I am afraid that in the end, I may "pick up the sesame seeds and lose the watermelon".

Text/Financial Reference, ID: Jrwaican