Liu Yan of Huafang Technology: The greater value of live broadcasting is still on the way

Text/Mick

"You ask me where I'm going, I point in the direction of the sea, and your amazement seems to me, Oh... praise. ”

——Cui Jian, "Flower Room Girl"

At the end of the last century, Liu Yan, who graduated from the Department of Mathematics of Peking University for two years, joined the Internet entrepreneurial army, and he proposed the concept of "broadband" in the company's registered name when people did not know what "broadband" was; when the advertising department of the TV station made a lot of money, he took the lead in carrying out commercial live broadcasting on the Internet; at the moment of the storm, as a "entrepreneurial veteran", he wanted to set off a "second revolution" in the live broadcasting industry. From doing broadband content more than two decades ago, to online copyright, video sharing, and finally to live broadcasting, this is the footprint of his participation in the world of change with the Internet.

In 2006, Liu Yan founded the first UGC (User Generated Content) short video platform, Beijing Six Rooms Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Six Rooms"). In 2018, Six Rooms merged with the operating company of Huazhu Live to form Beijing Huafang Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huafang Technology"). Founded 20 years ago, he is known as the "godfather of live broadcasting" in the industry, and he has created many precedents, just like the song "Flower Room Girl": "Your surprise is like praising me..." "Intermittent, still singing.

The era of explaining "what broadband is"

In 1999, Liu Yan founded Beijing Xinshi Broadband Information Technology Co., Ltd. When he took the name to the Beijing Municipal Bureau for Industry and Commerce to register, the staff asked for an explanation of "what is broadband" . Although broadband is now accessible to thousands of households, it was still an unfamiliar word in China at that time.

Liu Yan explained as popularly as possible: "It is a new generation of networks that can support on-demand videos on the website. "30 years later, people have long been accustomed to online television, dramas, and overwhelming short videos, and at that time in China, 6,000 movies were people's entire imagination of video. Liu Yan is undoubtedly ahead of the times.

"At that time, people didn't know what video copyright was," Liu Yan said, "I told the director of the Human Arts Technology Department at that time that the Internet era was coming, and not only could you send e-mails on the Internet, but the theater's "Teahouse" could be watched on the Internet at home. Not everyone can understand Liu Yan's words. He finally said simply: "You signed me the copyright, we sold the money, and everyone divided the account." In the 1990s, Liu Yan took the lead in signing the online broadcast rights of most domestic films and dramas in this way, and in the following years, he began to dabble in broadband Internet digital media delivery services based on satellite IP technology.

"Doing content, doing infrastructure at the same time." Liu Yan clearly understands that the Internet is an infrastructure in contemporary times. Through Qian Hualin, a researcher at the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who is known as a pioneer of the Internet in China, he contacted the latter's students and participated in the construction of the Ethernet into the home experiment. Later, the Great Wall Computer took over and developed the current Great Wall Broadband.

Liu Yan's entrepreneurial experience has opened up many industry precedents. In 2009, he took the lead in trying the UGC live broadcast mode in the six rooms (6.cn) he founded, opening up a new market for the Chinese Internet.

In the six rooms, what is the panic?

In front of the door of the six-room company, the four big characters of "what is panic" are particularly eye-catching. An Internet company that has been established for 15 years has gone through ups and downs, and it seems that there is really nothing worth panicking about.

In 2006, Liu Yan initiated the establishment of a video sharing website six rooms (6.cn). At that time, there was an event that can be recorded in the history of China's Internet development - Hu Ge, an animation sound engineer who was a freelancer, edited a clip from the movie "Wuji" into a short film "A Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bun" and detonated the Internet. Liu Yan seized the opportunity with a keen sense of smell, led Hu Ge to settle in and debuted "Bird Cage Mountain Bandit Record", which brought huge traffic. In the following six months, Six Rooms became the largest video sharing site in China that year.

At the beginning of Web 2.0, six rooms were popular all over the Internet. On the occasion of the 2007 Beijing Auto Show, Mercedes-Benz Daimler's world's first GLK car launch conference was broadcast live in six rooms, which was the first case of China's Internet commercial live broadcast. "It costs much less money than the offline exhibition, covering an audience that is dozens of times higher than the offline." Liu Yan added.

Two years later, the "Six Rooms" relied on the first move, almost monopolizing the live broadcast promotion of all new games in China, and thus achieving the company's breakeven. Nowadays, game live broadcasting has gradually developed into a huge industry, and its practitioners have no shortage of users of the "six rooms" of the year, who have found business opportunities in the "six rooms". In 2010, iQiyi, Youku and other players brought copyright content and capital to the market, the mobile Internet trend struck, and the six rooms gradually turned to the direction of pan-entertainment live broadcasting.

In the same year, the "Internet Celebrity Show" was about to come out in six rooms. At that time, the six rooms took the lead in making a visual effect of an "airplane" and pasted it on the screen as a virtual gift, and he and the product manager had a dispute over "whether to hit the gift in the middle of the live screen or the user discussion area". At Liu Yan's insistence, the tipping effect we see today was finally formed. The result is obvious - "Soon after the tipping function was launched, the fans of the two anchors rewarded more than 700 'planes' worth 70,000 yuan in one minute in order to maintain their respective 'love beans', and the fans had a sense of achievement, and a new model was born." ”

Commercial live broadcasting, game live broadcasting, and UGC Internet celebrity live broadcasting are the areas where Liu Yan and LiuFang initially cultivated. Then, Liu Yan tried to imagine that if cameras were set up in the offices along the third and fourth ring roads in Beijing to show people real-time road conditions and more real-life scenes of public life, they would definitely attract many viewers. He approached the Municipal Traffic Management Bureau to talk, but when it was taking shape, he was eventually stopped due to safety factors.

There's almost nothing this "startup veteran" hasn't tried. Nothing could make him panic. When talking about the origin of the name of the six rooms, Liu Yan said: "The village where my father-in-law was born was called 'six rooms', and when I heard this name, I liked it and did not hesitate to use it when I founded the website. Behind such a straightforward decision, the heroic romantic color in Liu Yan's personality is highlighted.

Entrepreneurial "veterans" have never left the market

Many of Liu Yan's attempts are too advanced, and the market is not yet mature. When capital smells bloody entry, the pattern is broken. In 2007, Internet users began to upload movies and TV dramas in the UGC mode, and as soon as the opening was opened, the cost of bandwidth soared.

"The industry rules are no longer fighting for products and content, but about capital structure and traffic entrance." Liu Yan said, "We opened a door and found that inside the door was a huge abyss, and we didn't dare to jump." It's like standing at the starting line of a marathon and finding that you are surrounded by 100-meter runners, do you follow in the first 100 meters? It's just that crazy. After that, he took the transformation of six rooms to do entertainment live broadcasting, gradually out of the haze of capital, and the tipping model he created is still the core of the industry's profitability.

The "veteran" never left the scene. "It's my mission to make videos." Liu Yan, who has experienced a turbulent entrepreneurial environment, knows how to control the risks of the industry, "There is a lot of innovation in this industry. Our veteran's contribution is actually to make it healthier, more reasonable, more balanced, risk-controlled, and content find comfortable boundaries between entertainment and culture. ”

In 2018, Six Rooms merged with Pepper Live to form Huafang Technology. Peppercorns was launched in 2015 and also has a good accumulation in the industry. In December 2015, it took the lead in launching the live beauty function, and in February 2016, it exclusively launched the face cute special effect AI function. In particular, activities such as "Flower Room Night", "Cloud Wedding", and "Cloud Performing Arts" have set benchmarks in terms of live broadcasting to empower offline industries.

Peppercorn Live and six rooms are strongly combined, the well-known mobile terminal platform and the PC side of the veteran overlord complement each other's advantages, and the two sides have created synergies in capital operation, user traffic, anchor resources, operational capabilities, cost-effectiveness and other aspects.

"Live Godfather" wants to set off a "second revolution"

Not only the honor system such as "tipping" in the live broadcast, including the concept of "anchor" itself, was also introduced by Liu Yan. But Liu Yan said: "The real value of live broadcasting has not yet appeared." ”

"When we first did broadband into the home, the bandwidth from 56K to 56M, everyone had a discussion, is this a continuation or a revolution for the Internet industry? The conclusions of the time and later developments showed that it was a revolution. Liu Yan said, "And now, this industry is still changing, and it will be a revolution." Today, the merged Huafang Technology has 250 million registered users, the anchor uses peppercorns and six rooms as a platform to display talents and interact with the audience, and the platform provides technical support, content supervision, event planning and other services as an infrastructure provider, and relies on users to give gifts to obtain income."

There are about 27 million monthly active users of Sichuan Pepper Live, and about 22 million monthly active users of six rooms. At the same time, Huafang Technology continues to develop "live broadcast +", "live broadcast + poverty alleviation", "live broadcast + public welfare", "live broadcast + culture", etc., while undertaking the mission of the industry, maintaining innovation.

According to the "2020 Sichuan Pepper Live Corporate Social Responsibility Report", in 2020, Peppercorn launched 6293 live broadcasts throughout the year, 323 live broadcasts of public welfare actions and joint public welfare projects, with a cumulative live broadcast time of 55764 hours and an audience of 53.74 million. The live broadcast content covers scientific epidemic prevention, precision poverty alleviation, traditional culture publicity, and the development of all walks of life. Peppercorn Live continues to output positive energy content and convey mainstream social values to the public.

In addition to the core business - live broadcasting, huafang technology's product matrix is also expanding. Born in Japan in 2007, "Hatsune Mirai" set off a wave of virtual idols, and Honey Branch Technology under Huafang timely followed up the layout of virtual entertainment, and the virtual idol IP "Liuge" created by it won the first place in iQiyi's "Cross-dimensional Rising Star". At a time when new technologies such as artificial intelligence are advancing by leaps and bounds, virtual idols also have very important practical significance. In addition, Huafang Technology successfully expanded its overseas business, acquired HOLLA Group, changed its name to Laksha, and landed in North America. Undertake social and overseas innovation strategic tasks, occupy the top five of the LIST of social products in the United States for many years, and bring a group of post-95 and post-00 users to the entire group.

For the current popular short video, live e-commerce and other hot areas, Liu Yan has a clear understanding: "The platform is not the core competitiveness, and the new form of new products in the future must not be any of the current popular ones." But one thing remains unchanged, that is, the "godfather of live broadcasting" understands live broadcasting -

"Live broadcasting is a very traditional form in China, where people on stage sing opera, people offstage throw gold rings to tip... A hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, that was the case. The live broadcasting platform is awakening China's ancient traditions, performing arts culture, and more possibilities it can extend. ”

A live broadcast room is a stage for ordinary people, an exclusive TELEVISION station for a group of people. There are not only business opportunities, but also the obsession of "veteran" Liu Yan to insist on starting a business and doing live broadcasts. "I have a revolutionary plot." Liu Yan said bluntly, "Do broadband, do copyright, do video, do live broadcasting, I will use the Internet to change the world." ”