Text │ Crazy Rabbit
Near the end of the year, it is not difficult to review the data of the major platforms in the bone heat list, and the most significant phenomenon this year is the self-made content entry of Bilibili (hereinafter referred to as "B station"). Has always been known as the "small broken station" of the two-dimensional community, unconsciously in the original games, animation, virtual image plate on the basis of the type of filling, until this year, B station for self-made drama synthesis, platform with goods and other business continue to increase or upgrade, in the content of the public and commercial territory expansion, there are eye-catching plans to launch.
In terms of content, the number of daily active users of Station B exceeded 65 million in August this year, becoming the third largest long-form video platform after iQiyi and Youku. In addition to the main UP self-made content and editing videos and secondary content in various fields, several self-made content of the B station this year have also achieved good results, ranking in the top position in the list of bone network dramas and network comprehensive popularity, and the results of content filling and diversification development strategies in the short term can be seen.
In terms of business, following Chen Rui's statement in the third quarter earnings conference call of Station B that "Station B needs a meta-universe", on November 19, Station B acquired Zhejiang Yongyi Electronic Payment Co., Ltd., a licensed payment institution. Subsequently, the news that "Station B is preparing to broadcast the function of the small yellow car with goods" is also not far away, under the environment of the slowdown in the growth rate of advertising business, shortening the advertising chain through live streaming with goods, and building popular businesses on the cultural soil of characteristic communities have become the main means for Station B to expand its commercial territory.
Out of the circle of homemade dramas and variety shows
Compared with last year's drama or variety show, B station has no content on the list, this year's B station can be said to have begun to break through in terms of content.
In terms of dramas, January's "Big Man Lu Xiaoyu's Sunset Red Team" is not a self-made project of B station, but as a male-oriented work, the drama breaks a certain degree of attention. In terms of self-made dramas, the web drama "Sudden Holiday" broadcast in July and the "Double Mirror" broadcast in August are both women's works in different eras, "Sudden Holiday" is a female group portrait drama built on a relaxed tone, and "Double Mirror" is a suspense category of double heroine works, both episodes are stepping on the hot episode type to structure the story, whether it is broadcast results or word of mouth have achieved good results. Another self-made drama "Best Friend" launched by Station B in September belongs to the "small and beautiful" sweet pet drama.
In terms of variety shows, the love variety show "90 Marriage Agency" and the music variety show "Do You Listen to My Music" launched in August, as well as the reality show "Summer of the Eaves", which focused on intergenerational relations, which were launched in September, were basically stable in the top ten of the bone variety show hot list. It is worth mentioning that the cultural drama dance program "Dance Millennium", which was launched in November, has achieved good popularity and word of mouth once it was launched, and on the basis of the endorsement of the successful experience of Henan Satellite TV, which has broken the circle, there are also many topics about clothing, makeup, dance and other content in the program that have caused extensive discussion.
On December 15, the China Online Audiovisual Association issued the Detailed Rules for the Standards for the Review of Online Short Video Content (2021), which clearly stipulates that short video platforms may not cut or adapt all kinds of audio-visual programs and clips such as movies, TV series, online film and television dramas without authorization. As one of the main platforms in the field of short video, Station B constitutes a platform moat with UP main and UGC content, and under the constraints of the new regulations, the content of Station B will inevitably be affected. Fortunately, B station has long had a layout in the field of micro-short dramas, and in May this year, B station officially invested in rabbit culture, and launched "light theater" in August, focusing on 3 to 10 minutes of micro-short drama content.
Near the end of the year, although it has not yet waited for the B station's self-made blockbuster content to appear, but overall, the B station in the initial stage of self-made long content has achieved good results in terms of the placeholding of head and waist content, and from the perspective of the type selection and element superposition of these self-made dramas, the creation of B station's self-made content has not jumped out of the shackles of the aesthetic rear of the series, although the selection is "safety card", it is also more inclined in the diversified expansion of content types, but there is still room for expansion in content innovation.
Invisible metaverse
The so-called metaversic, according to Baidu Encyclopedia's interpretation, is "a new type of virtual reality integrated Internet application and social form produced by integrating a variety of new technologies", of course, we can also understand it as a virtual world built in the Internet, in this world we can take virtual idols as our star-chasing goals, and we can also have real creation and copyright business.
Before Station B, Baidu launched the first domestic meta-universe product "Xiyuan" with a very Chinese style; in August, ByteDance acquired the "pico" that mainly attacked VP all-in-one machines. At the beginning of November, Mango Super Media said that it would complete the infrastructure of Mango Meta Universe through three aspects: "interaction + virtual + cloud rendering"; on December 1, iQIYI Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., a VR manufacturer under iQIYI, said that it would bet on Meta universe with VR as a means of realization; on December 8, Alibaba set up a new company to expand the business of Meta Universe, "Yuanjing Shengsheng". In addition, there is the nuclear illusion launched by Tencent, Nike will cooperate with the meta-universe platform Roblox to launch the virtual world "Nikeland", etc., and various platforms and merchants are beginning to enter the meta-universe.
The innate advantages of the soil of the two-dimensional community, 32,000 virtual idols + UGC content creators accumulated over the years seem to wait only for the connection of a metaverse to become a huge virtual world, so the layout of the metaverse of Station B does not seem to be a surprise. In an interview, Li Yi described the business model ecology of Station B as "building a 'city' that young people like, in which we will provide users with various consumption scenarios for eating, drinking and having fun." Such a description also sounds quite a bit of a virtual world, but the metaverse layout of Station B is first developed around the high-energy chain based on copyright business.
According to Chen Rui, if you want to build a metaverse world, you first need a self-circulating content ecology, and there must be a lot of content in order to make users linger. The content base and user base are the advantages of the B station at present, in a way, the Z generation's acceptance of new things and the expectation value of the dimensional wall culture are higher than other user groups. At the same time, the construction of the metaverse is also conducive to the expansion of the value of the huge virtual people group of Station B, and provides a new stage for the artistic value and commercial value of virtual people to play.
Of course, at present, the meta-universe business is still hot virtual real estate, and even Lin Junjie has publicly stated that he spent $120,000 to buy three virtual lands in the meta-universe game MANA. However, although the metaverse wind prevails, the risks still exist. According to China Securities News, on December 14, the leading domestic meta-universe enterprises staged a stock up-and-down "five-in-a-row board".
Gradually expanding business segments
After 18 years, Station B is no longer supported by the game business. With the value of value-added services, advertising, e-commerce, and other businesses, the business development of Station B has gradually diversified, and this year, Station B's strategy is to further improve the e-commerce sector.
In November this year, B station for about 118 million yuan to acquire licensed payment institution Zhejiang Yongyi Electronic Payment Co., Ltd., in December, in the B station AD TALK 2021 marketing conference, vice chairman and COO Li Yi for the first time released the B station commercial middle office system "brand bank", at the same time, "B station is also preparing to live stream the small yellow car function with goods" The news is also not far away, with the expansion of the live streaming market, the commercialization of B station is also upgrading in the layout synchronously, from improving the payment chain, improving the user payment and viewing experience, Significant development has been made in many aspects, such as enriching the product matrix, improving the advertising conversion rate, providing more profit models for UP owners, and building a closed loop of platform business.
When Station B was listed for the second time in March this year, Li Yi said in an interview that Station B would improve the platform's commercial middle office capabilities, including improving the efficiency of in-site monetization of games, membership purchases, large members, live broadcasts, etc., as well as improving the efficiency of advertising individual monetization. As the second largest commercial sector of B station, advertising monetization business through UP main delivery, virtual person music and traffic support, brand advertising station delivery, long variety show advertising investment and other forms of growth, in the B station unique cultural gene blessing, trend play, secondary creation and other communication methods are undoubtedly the best help for advertising communication, such as this year's fire of The Honey Snow Ice City theme song, only with two lyrics to become popular on the Internet.
But at the same time, with the expansion of users, B station traffic increases at the same time also faces the dilemma of rising operating costs, on the one hand, the expansion of the commercial territory of station B, the acquisition of the original comic platform with demon qi in November this year, on the other hand, the net loss of the platform increases, especially in the third quarter, the net loss of station B has reached 2.69 billion yuan, an increase of 145% year-on-year.
When the four major videos have successively adjusted the membership price and constantly renovated the play of paying for episodes, Station B is still in the dilemma of advertising business growth that cannot increase patch advertising due to user habits and platform genes, but fortunately, the community and operation of Station B and the two-legged walking mode of PUGC + UGC help Station B usher in the era of user increment, and will not quickly fall into the burning war of platform content anxiety. With the opening of the era of micro-short drama payment of Douyin and Kuaishou, Station B may also usher in a day of professional UP main video payment one day in the future, providing new ideas for the shoulder and waist UP main growth income.