Image source @ Visual China
Wen | Hedgehog Commune, author | Shixin, editor| director
The online music industry is about to usher in a new battle.
In February 2022, ByteDance's music product "Soda Music" completed the software copyright registration, and the announcement information showed that the full name of the product's software was "Soda Music Android Software", and the software development completion date was February 14, 2022. Byte-based online music platforms are slowly surfacing.
"Soda Music" has also opened a small range of tests, and has now launched some Android app stores. According to the hedgehog commune's observation, the number of soda music downloads in an app store has reached 17,000, and the invitation code system is still adopted. Soda music played slogan for "meet good music", click on the application page introduction, showing that soda music for douyin production of the official music APP, niche music, synchronous vibrato, personality recommendation has become the most conspicuous keywords.
Soda music can be seen as a node of ByteDance's entry into music, for the online music service market, new living water is about to be injected, and from the perspective of the entire Internet music track, big manufacturers are "going down" in various forms. From upstream to downstream, from musicians, labels, to supply chains and platforms, leading players in various fields are stepping up their layout.
When Douyin, Kuaixiaxia online music APP, Station B, Shrimp Mi engage in music labels, TME, NetEase Cloud Music strictly waiting, what new stories will the music industry tell?
Bytes, bouncing towards music
The emergence of soda music is not unexpected.
For Douyin, music has always been a deep gene that exists in the form of short videos. In recent years, the rapid development of short video forms has also reshuffled the entire music industry, and douyin shenqu and brainwashing BGM have gradually become a "wild force" in the music market and ushered in rapid growth.
Short videos have not only become an important outlet for music content to break the circle, but also the commercial value behind it cannot be underestimated, relying on the brainwashing BGM in short videos, unknown musicians can be worth tens of millions of dollars overnight, and the "energy" contained in a song is beyond our imagination.
Leaving aside the soul question of whether the Chinese music scene is going to end, there is no doubt about one fact: short videos have changed the logic of the music market. The short video giants have naturally begun to expand the boundaries to the music industry, in addition to solving the headache of copyright disputes, in the face of such a large piece of cake in the music market, the situation of short video platforms "making wedding dresses for others" is bound to change.
Since 2020, ByteDance has begun to move into the music industry. In March 2020, Resso, a music streaming platform for the Indonesian and Indian markets, was officially released, which is an important product for Byte to enter the overseas music market.
Compared with the mainstream music platforms at home and abroad, Resso is more "young", which basically follows the product logic of the short video platform, does not pursue large and complete in function, but focuses on personalized playback experience and social functions; in use, the traditional search to listen to songs is more of an auxiliary, personalized recommendation is the mainstream of Resso, like vibrato, open is to recommend songs, and by sliding up and down to cut songs, pay more attention to random experience.
Once released, Resso ushered in a relatively rapid growth, in Brazil, India and other countries the download volume rose rapidly, although did not reproduce the "glory" of TikTok, but Resso once became a phenomenon product. Resso's experience also provides a reference for Byte's domestic music business. In 2021, ByteDance officially began to exert efforts in the domestic music market, and the process can be called "intensive".
In January 2021, Tech Planet broke the news that Byte was testing an online music product called "Feile", which was speculated to be the predecessor of "Soda Music", and ByteDance's music distribution platform BeatDynamic also began testing. In April 2021, ByteDance established a music division within it, with four business groups targeting different types of music in parallel.
In July 2021, ByteDance upgraded its music business to P1 priority, and was taken over by Zhu Jun, vice president of product and strategy of ByteDance and former head of TikTok, and Resso has also become one of the focuses of this music business upgrade, byte intends to promote TikTok and Resso to create a more dynamic music community, integrating playback, publicity and promotion of closed-loop business lines. At the same time, in China, Byte's music agency distribution platform Galaxy Ark has also begun internal testing, and Byte has begun to lay out the upstream chain of the music industry.
In December, "soda music" began to appear on the stage, and after a few months, with the small-scale test, Byte's first platform in China was finally unveiled, and the music market was suddenly heard. For such a highly anticipated product, a small range of measurements can not stop the industry's peeping, and the appearance of soda music has long been clear. It generally follows the product pattern of the "predecessor" Resso, the player interface adopts the up and down sliding type of cutting songs, still with system recommendation as the main mode, and also sets up music stations, song list recommendations, hot song lists and other conventional functions.
As mentioned above, unlike the characteristics of the Vibrato Divine Comedy, Soda Music focuses on niche music, declaring that "finding good music is no longer a problem." According to the song preferences of you and people with similar tastes, recommend songs of interest to you and refuse to be the same. "In the few comments in the app store, you can see the comment that the song is very new.
Compared with the mainstream of several major music platforms, playing differentiation seems to become the first meaning of byte to do music platforms, in addition to following the short video mode in the experience, the main niche is also one of its strategies, like when Douyin first appeared, Byte still wants to cut from the "trend" to users.
Just like the idea of "Resso with TikTok", the linkage between soda music and vibrato is also very likely. On the product concept page of soda music, "synchronous vibrato" has also become one of the important features, and collecting "good music in videos" is no longer a problem. It is conceivable that the model of "vibrato incubation explosive music + vibrato diversion soda music + soda music content feeding vibrato" is not far away, and cross-form industrial closed loop will also become an important advantage of byte music.
In addition to the rapid progress, Byte makes music and also pays attention to "all-round". On February 17, three days after the completion of the development of soda music, the Douyin Music Open Platform announced the brand upgrade, officially named "Hot Galaxy", which will provide one-stop services from the aspects of service, publicity and promotion to help musicians manage their works and expose their traffic.
At this point, from BeatDynamic to the Galaxy Ark, soda music, and then to the hot galaxy, Douyin is building a unique music moat from the full link, and then, it may only need to wait.
Big factories compete for music tracks
For the entire music track, Byte isn't the only new entrant.
Also as a short video giant, Byte's old rival Kuaishou has already begun to lay out in the music field. Different from the full-link force of byte, the logic of Kuaishou's music is more focused on the two keywords of "platform ecology" and "original music".
For Kuaishou, the first thing to solve to build a complete music ecology is one of the pain points of short videos, copyright.
Whether it is Kuaishou or Douyin, in the years of rapid development of short video content, music copyright chaos is one of the most difficult problems to solve, in order to achieve "music freedom" within the platform, it is imperative to promote the full platform legalization, but also to bring new vitality to the music ecology within the platform. In 2020, Kuaishou launched the "100 million yuan incentive plan", which is used in bulk settlement by multiplying the unit price by the amount of use, and after a year of exploration, this settlement method has begun to show results.
In March 2021, Kuaishou Music once again announced a new copyright settlement standard at the "Spring Sound" Copyright Ecology Conference, this set of standards is more market-oriented, Kuaishou will use the amount of revenue as the revenue standard, and not only for the overall song works, Kuaishou Music will also settle in the songwriting, creation and other subdivisions of each work, and this settlement standard is not only beneficial to copyright owners, but also open to independent musicians.
Under this logic, whether you are a singer, an arranger, or a lyricist, as long as the participating works are used, you can get revenue, and there is no upper limit on the settlement, the more users, the higher the income.
In addition to attracting creators through the real "burning money" tactics, from 2020 onwards, Kuaishou will also exert its power to live music broadcasting, from the ordinary anchor live broadcast room, but also in the music festival, livehouse and other large-scale music scenes to carry out live broadcast cooperation, in order to attract more users to participate in the platform music ecology.
In terms of online music platforms, Kuaishou has also made attempts. In May 2021, Kuaishou launched the online music APP "Komori Singing", unlike soda music, Komori Singing is not a streaming platform in the traditional sense, it is more like an original music assistant, or an original music community.
Click on the APP, Komori singing shows amazing simplicity, the entire interface is divided into two major sections, namely the song sharing interface "Discover" and "My" personal center, at the same time in the bottom of the APP, a big + sign, this is the creation function of Komori singing, only need to enter a word and choose a music type, pitch, rhythm and other options, you can generate a piece of music, which is also the core function of Komori singing "AI creation". On the platform, users can also see and comment on other users' original songs.
But perhaps related to the positioning and promotion of Komori Singing, as of now in the Xiaomi App Store, its download volume is only less than 50,000, and the APP is also slightly "lonely". In addition to Komori singing, Kuaishou also exerted efforts in the field of K songs, launching the K song APP "Huisen" in March 2021, although it is still difficult for Huisen to compete with the old K song giants such as national K songs and sing bars, but it has also found its own place in the market.
In addition to companies such as Kuaishou and Byte that enter the market with short videos, giants in many fields have begun to exert efforts on the music track, and they have more eyes on the B-side, aiming at the upstream of the industry, originals and musicians.
Looking back at the past 2021, the music industry can be described as thriving, from the short video divine comedy sweeping the network to the end of the copyright war, the entire industry and market ushered in a new stage of development, and another big event that changed the Internet music track may be the shutdown of Shrimp Music. In January 2021, Ali's online music platform Shrimp Music announced that it would shut down due to business adjustments, as one of the industry giants in the past, the "fall" of Shrimp Rice changed the pattern of the online music industry, from "one super and many strong" to "one super one strong", and the situation of TME and NetEase Cloud Music competing against each other was also formed.
In July 2021, a paper "Administrative Penalty Decision Letter" issued by the State Administration for Market Supervision and Administration sounded the alarm for TME, and under the tide of "anti-monopoly", "breaking independence" became a new wind direction. On August 31, TME announced the complete abandonment of exclusive copyright, and the music industry officially entered the post-copyright era, followed by the "dead" Shrimp Rice announced that it was "revived".
But the rebirth form of Shrimp Music is not an online music platform. In September 2021, Ali's Damai Network announced the launch of the content music label "Shrimp Music Entertainment", this time Ali is no longer focused on the platform dispute, but turned to create music content IP, in addition to the development of music festivals, livehouse brands, and the development of offline entertainment scenes, Shrimp Music Entertainment will also focus on "service cultivation of musicians", backed by Ali Entertainment, starting from the upstream of the music industry, further extending the B-end business.
Making labels is also the first choice for many big manufacturers to cut into the music track. Taking Station B as an example, as a video platform with PUGC as the core content, Station B has been continuously exerting efforts in music content since recent years, in addition to promoting the development of content in the music area, from "Rap New Generation" in 2020 to "Do You Listen to My Music" in 2021? Station B is selecting emerging musicians through the way of music synthesis and constantly promoting their exposure.
In 2021, Station B announced the official establishment of the music label "Cheer Music", created an artist management department, and signed some up masters in the music district and popular players in the music synthesis.
In fact, since 2020, Station B has reached in-depth cooperation with QQ Music, launching the "Cheers Plan" on the perspectives of musician support and high-quality music content promotion, and the establishment of the "Cheers Music" label is also a further attempt made by Station B in the music field, entering the music track from the perspective of musicians, music content and IP.
Also doing labels is the audio industry's "technology giant" iFLYTEK. In 2019, iFLYTEK Music was officially established, and its music business is mainly concentrated in the upstream of the music industry, and the system construction is carried out in music production and distribution, music brand marketing, artist brokerage services, media operations and other aspects. In 2021, iFLYTEK officially launched the music label, and signed three musicians and a number of music producers, while iFLYTEK also shouted out the slogan of "AI empowerment" to help music auxiliary creation and other fields from a technical point of view.
The current music industry seems to usher in an unprecedented situation: the fierce competition in the whole industry chain is about to take shape, platforms are no longer entangled in the copyright dispute, but began to find a new way out in the experience service, the peripheral giants hope to form their own music content IP and artist team, and extend their hands to the upstream of the industry of production and distribution.
It can be said that big manufacturers compete for music tracks, and the giants in the field show their magic.
Online music, pattern change
Once again, we are returning our attention to the core "online music platform" of the industry. What exactly will the end of the byte bring? Can soda music get a piece of the "inner roll" track?
Since the "breaking independence" in the summer of 2021, the rule of "copyright is king" in the entire online music industry has been broken, and the two giants of TME and NetEase Cloud Music have also ushered in new opportunities and dilemmas.
For TME, the disappearance of exclusive copyright advantages is undoubtedly a heavy blow. According to the third quarter of 2021 financial report released by TME, TME's total revenue in the third quarter was 7.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth rate of only 3%, and net profit was 740 million yuan, a year-on-year decline of 35%. The revenue growth rate has slowed down sharply, and the decline in net profit has expanded, which is not a good life for TME, which has lost its copyright dividend.
But I have to admit that the careful layout and content accumulation over the years have made TME's leading position difficult to shake. After the industry enters the post-copyright era, the user's diversified experience and content innovation will surely become the key node for platforms to compete, at the end of 2021, Liu Xiankai, vice president of TME commercial advertising, proposed the "one body, two wings" strategy for the future development of TME at the TME Music Marketing Summit, with "content" and "platform" as the engine to further explore the diversified possibilities in the music field.
For TME, the music platform matrix composed of QQ music, kugou music, kuwo music, and national K songs is still strong, and the deep content storage is enough to provide power and support for TME's innovation strategy, we can find that TME is constantly making efforts in product innovation, whether it is innovative functions or more cutting-edge music metaversms, TME is actively trying, and TMELAND launched at the end of 2021 is the best example.
In addition, in the face of the differentiated products of Byte and Kuaishou, TME has not stopped further efforts in market segments. At the end of 2020, TME launched the music streaming platform "Polka Dot Music", which focuses on music atmosphere music videos.
According to the experience, the product logic of polka dot music and soda music is similar, the same use of personalized recommendation mode for algorithmic song pushing, the same use of up and down sliding song cutting mode, polka dot music playback interface can also play music video in real time, compared to polka dot music is more like a music visualization APP.
As the "predecessor" of soda music, Polka Dot Music performed well, according to the "2021 Dark Horse APP" list released by Aurora Data, Polka Dot Music has reached 1.82 million monthly active users, with a growth rate of 8267, ranking third in the list and the only music APP on the list.
TME relies on product innovation and market segmentation to establish new advantages, and its powerful rival NetEase Cloud Music seems to have ushered in an "era of growth". In the past long copyright war, compared with TME, NetEase Cloud Music's copyright reserves are relatively weak, and it has been in a long-term inferior position in competition. But relying on original music and high-quality music communities, NetEase Cloud Music struggled through the "winter".
When the industry officially entered the post-copyright era, the once inferior situation was finally made up, NetEase Cloud Music also successfully listed on the Hong Kong stock market at the end of 2021, and NetEase Cloud Music also made efforts in the field of live broadcasting and short video to further complete the platform ecology, which also ushered in a new growth point for platform revenue.
On February 24, 2022, NetEase announced the fourth quarter and full year of 2021 financial report, the data shows that NetEase Cloud Music's fourth quarter net income reached 1.9 billion yuan, 2021 annual net income reached 7 billion yuan, and the gross profit margin was positive for three consecutive quarters. For NetEase Cloud Music, which has been operating original music for many years, the reserve of original musicians is one of the core competitiveness, and the financial report shows that the number of independent musicians on the platform has exceeded 400,000, and they may represent the choice of young users at present.
Of course, NetEase Cloud Music is not smooth sailing, for the community atmosphere of NetEase Cloud, the past two years in the field of live broadcast and short video accelerated layout is more like a double-edged sword, on the one hand, it has brought high profits for the platform in a short period of time, but the gradual "taste" of the community atmosphere has also been repeatedly criticized by users, at the same time, the expansion of scale is still one of the pain points, in the past 2021, NetEase Cloud Music's monthly active growth of only 1%.
In summary, for soda music, in terms of product differentiation and other angles seem to be difficult to open a significant gap with the giants, while whether the new music streaming platform can be loved by users is still debatable, while copyright, content quality, music reserves, playback experience is still one of the core competitiveness of the music platform, for a product that is still in incubation, the so-called third giant of the music industry is too early. However, in the face of the reality that the ceiling of users in the music industry is gradually coming, the form of "short video + music streaming" is still worth looking forward to.