In 2022, is there still a chance for the short video industry? Tencent gave the answer. At the "2022 WeChat Open Class PRO" event, the WeChat video number appropriately occupied the "core position" in the order of speeches, and the video number live broadcast also announced that it would support no less than 100,000 high-quality merchants in the next year. The video number also points out the direction for eagerly awaited content creators, focusing on supporting the direction of pan-knowledge/pan-life/pan-information.
Although the video number did not publish the relevant DAU (daily active user) data, no one dared to underestimate the influence brought by WeChat, just like the mini program that the outside world was not optimistic about at first, in just 4 years, the daily active life of WeChat Mini Program reached 450 million.
The pressure of the video number is not small
The pressure on the video number is not small. On the one hand, the launch time of Douyin and Kuaishou is earlier than the video number, and its accumulated user, anchor, and business resources are more abundant than the video number.
According to the "2020 Douyin Data Report", as of August 2020, the daily active users of Douyin exceeded 600 million. As of November 2020, the total number of creators in the Douyin financial vertical category is 29 million+. As of December 2020, Douyin art videos have been played more than 2.1 trillion times, and the number of art creators with more than 10,000 fans has exceeded 200,000.
Kuaishou's third quarter 2021 financial report shows that the average daily active users of Kuaishou apps are 320 million, and the average monthly active users are 573 million.
If the video number wants to make achievements, it must catch up with or surpass Douyin and Kuaishou in terms of data such as daily active users, anchors, and business resources.
On the other hand, it acts as Tencent's gripper in the field of short video.
According to CNNIC data, as of June 2021, the scale of short video users in China was 888 million, accounting for 87.8% of the total netizens. In March 2021, the average daily usage time of short video apps was 125 minutes.
With the upgrading of smart phones and the improvement of basic network facilities, the mobile Internet industry has been fully short video, not only social, short video applications, e-commerce, takeaway, news and information and other fields, short video is everywhere, therefore, the Internet giants no one dares to completely give up short video, which causes the short video industry competition is extremely fierce.
The video number needs to help Tencent solve:
(1) Continue to improve weChat's daily life;
(2) Increase the use time of WeChat and let users stay on WeChat;
(3) Let Tencent have a place in the field of short video.
The explicit competition in the Internet industry is the product form and traffic, and the implicit competition is the length of time the user stays. Is the biggest impact of Douyin on WeChat short videos and live broadcasts? In fact, it is not, but the erosion of the use time of WeChat users by Douyin. I once took a train ride and saw a user who continued to brush vibrato for four or five hours. The core point of WeChat is that users can continue to stay on WeChat, so there will be other forms of evolution such as advertising, games, and mini programs, and vice versa, douyin is the same, WeChat needs to let users stay on WeChat, rather than running to Douyin, Kuaishou. Therefore, to some extent, the video number is a "war that cannot be lost" for Tencent.
Putting the order of the speech of the video number in the first place only shows that WeChat will push one of the signals of the video number, and WeChat's emphasis on the video number is mainly reflected in the product side.
According to the video number team, the product logic of the video number is: "As a basic content component, it flows within the WeChat ecosystem." WeChat has already taken some actions in this regard, for example, the linkage with the WeChat public account. When the user binds the video number to the WeChat public account, the official account will be displayed on the video account profile page, and the video account will be displayed on the official account profile page. When the live broadcast of the video number is launched, the fans of the public account will also see the status of "live broadcast" on the public account.
In order to promote the video number, WeChat also increased the weight of the video number in the WeChat public account, and the video account content will also be displayed in the message list of the subscription account, that is, the video account content will not only be displayed in the user's circle of friends, but also displayed to the fans of the WeChat public account.
Where does Tencent Weishi go from here?
The popularity of the video number just disguises the embarrassment of Tencent Microvision.
In April 2018, Tencent resurrected the previously closed WeVision, and invested hundreds of millions of yuan to subsidize content creators, even WeChat also made a tilt on Weishi, when the user clicked the release button of the "Circle of Friends", the system will show that it is filmed with "Microvision", and The daily life of Weishi has exceeded 100 million.
However, the launch of the video number has led to Weishi's inability to obtain WeChat's traffic and influence again, losing the support of a 1.26 billion monthly active product, making it difficult for Weishi's daily life to break through again, and also causing the embarrassment of Weishi's status.
In order not to let there be direct competition between Weishi and video numbers, Tencent has differentiated the positioning of the two, and Weishi is not only a short video, but also a micro-drama and a long video, which is like a model for watermelon video.
The WeChat index shows that from April 2021 to the present, the index of "WeVision" is only a fraction of the "video number".
According to Guo Jing's Internet circle observation, in the past two months, the iOS version of Tencent Weishi App has not been updated, and the previous Weishi App will be updated almost every month, will this become the beginning of Weishi being abandoned?
For Microvision, there are two very real problems:
(1) When the video number is more popular than Microvision, how can Microvision maintain continuous growth?
(2) How to compete with Douyin and Kuaishou?
In fact, Tencent has invested a lot of resources in Microvision. During the Spring Festival in 2020, Weishi invested 1 billion yuan in cash to join the "red envelope war". Previously, Weishi also said that it would invest 1 billion yuan in 2021 and 10 billion yuan of traffic to support micro-dramas.
Tencent's huge investment in Weishi has not achieved significant results. Qimai data shows that in the past three months, the ranking of the "Tencent Weishi" App in the total list of the App Store free list is above 100, while the ranking of Douyin and Kuaishou is within the top 30, and the gap between Weishi and Douyin and Kuaishou can be seen.
Tencent Weishi is facing the pressure of competing with the video number, on the other hand, it is also facing the pressure of not being able to catch up with Douyin and Kuaishou in the short term, so where should Weishi go at this time? For Tencent, it is not easy to make a trade-off.
In fact, Tencent has made a lot of attempts in the field of short video, since 2017, Tencent has launched nearly 15 short video APPS, these apps "race horses" between each other to see who can get the lead, even ByteDance and Kuaishou, have also tried to launch new short video Apps, however, everyone has not made the next "vibrato, fast hand".
Whose problem is it to look at this situation of not being able to go up and down? In the end, it will fall on WeChat. Tencent's successful products in recent years, such as WeChat Pay, Mini Programs and other products, are inseparable from the support of WeChat, and the rapid growth of video users also benefits from the support of WeChat.
Weishi does not have WeChat as a backing, the probability of success itself is very low, because it exists as an independent App, not in the WeChat ecosystem, that is to say, either Weishi surpasses Douyin and Kuaishou in user experience, or surpasses the latter in terms of operational capabilities of MCN, merchants, etc., and Tencent has no advantages in these two aspects, relying on the form of continuous "throwing money" can only be effective in the short term, and in the long run, it still depends on products and operations to establish the underlying architecture. The longer the time drags on, the more unfavorable it is to microvision.
Is the video number still worth doing?
Tencent's choice of Microvision does not affect the status of the video number, on the contrary, the video number is now standing in the "C position". For many content creators, one of the biggest questions is, is the video number still worth doing? We can look at it in two ways.
First, the traffic of the video number. WeChat has not yet fully opened the horsepower of the video number, if WeChat continues to increase the support for the video number, it is difficult to foresee its future, if it is the same as the Mini Program, reaching 450 million daily active, to say that such a product has no chance, no one believes.
Second, is the video number suitable for individuals? Self-media like me have enjoyed the dividends of the WeChat public account period, but the video number is not suitable for some graphic self-media. On the one hand, graphics and short videos are completely different forms of expression, unless the creator finds a suitable "pose", there is no drama; on the other hand, short videos emphasize the "ability of tools", such as editing, sound, speed, shooting skills, materials, etc., which is far from the graphic self-media period A person can do everything, "tool ability" behind the production cost of short videos.
From the perspective of traffic and influence, video numbers still have prospects, but for individuals, video numbers may not be suitable for "individuals" as an industry opportunity.
According to Guo Jing's Internet circle observation, the current video number is still facing a new problem, that is, there is traffic, but it is difficult to monetize, advertisers have not yet recognized the traffic value of the video number, and the e-commerce system of the video number is also being built, which requires the creator of the video number to have more long-term patience.
Of course, there are still opportunities in the short video industry, but behind the money made by one vote, there must be a vote of people who will become the "cannon fodder" of the industry, who will become "cannon fodder"?
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Guo Jing's Internet circle
Technology self-media
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