「Core Tips」
After many rectifications, the Douban Goose Group was permanently deactivated on April 14. In the past year, Douban has been fined many times for violations, and even once asked to remove the App. The "spiritual homeland" of many netizens is now lingering. Is the "Douban era" really coming to an end?
Author | Zhao Ruoci
Edited by | Liu Yang
On the afternoon of April 14, the news of the shutdown of the goose group was on Weibo's hot search.
According to the latest "Penalty Announcement on Further Strengthening the Special Action to Control the Chaos in the "Rice Circle"" released by Douban, the Douban Goose Group, the Douban Talent Appeal Group, and the 18th Floor Childcare Center were discontinued.
The 2021 year that has just passed can be described as an eventful autumn for Douban. In December last year, Douban was fined for a variety of violations, suspended the group reply function, and even asked by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to remove the app. According to relevant media statistics, in 2021 alone, Douban was interviewed 20 times, and was fined 500,000 yuan for many times, accumulatively fined more than 9 million yuan.
With the successive shutdown of some groups and the loss of users, Douban has also felt the pressure. On March 29, Weibo launched the "Super Talk Rising Star Project", and the super talk name directly copied the name of the Douban hot group. At the same time, Weibo also recruits people with Douban group management experience to the platform to establish a "super talk community" similar to the Douban group. Douban, which has always been "Buddhist", had to intervene, demanding that Weibo stop the infringement and symbolically demand 1 yuan in compensation.
From "doing nothing" management to tepid commercial transformation, to the recent two years of continuous rectification, Douban and its founder Abei in the deep Internet whirlpool seem to be unable to continue to act as "outsiders". Some users who regard Douban as a spiritual habitat are losing their sense of security and belonging.
Under such a dilemma, is it really the end of the "Douban era"?
1, Douban users, began to wander
After the announcement of the shutdown of the goose group was issued, Douban user Xiaochang released such a broadcast:
"Watching "Patterson" today, I saw that the male protagonist's poetry books were all rotten and there was a sudden trance. I don't know why it reminds me of the goose group thing... There are constantly groups being shut down, and the Douban crisis seems to be getting more and more serious. One day Douban disappeared, I didn't know where to flee. ”
As the largest group of Douban, the sudden suspension of the goose group has made many users anxious, they are worried that Douban will disappear one day, and began to look for the next "spiritual habitat" in advance.
In 2005, at Starbucks near Douban Hutong in Beijing, Abei wrote the source code of Douban. With "Book Video" and "Douban Group", Douban has become a platform that integrates functions such as social networking, scoring, and tasting, and has also retained a group of loyal users.
However, in the eyes of many users, today's Douban seems to have "changed its flavor". Whether it is a book video user or a group user, every time the function is disabled, it means the departure of a group of "old people". Douban brings "bean friends" a lower and lower sense of security, people who stick to it are worried, and the stickiness of new users is not as good as before.
Among them, the users of the book and video are considering backing up the "archives", and the bean friends who are mixed in the group are wandering around.
Wu You is a loyal user of Douban's "Book Video", marking more than 1,000 movies on Douban, and has published 630 reviews and nearly 2,000 likes. She told "Leopard Change" that she will refer to the Douban score before watching the movie, and after watching it, she will also read the film reviews on the Douban, and sometimes you can find a lot of good views that are both academic and literary.
For Wu You, it has become a habit to record the movie-watching experience on Douban, and occasionally her articles will cause discussion among netizens. She said that compared with the insults and quarrels of other platforms, the users of Douban Book Audio and Video are more inclusive, and even if the positions on the same movie are different, the views put forward by netizens are profound and speculative.
For the recent changes in the audio and video of Douban Books, Wu You said: "The changes are actually not big, but it can also be found that some of the short evaluation areas of some movies have a water army of brushing points, which has some impact on the fairness of the Douban score." In addition, I occasionally find that the movies I have previously marked have disappeared inexplicably, and I am worried that the book audio and video function will be suddenly suspended one day. ”
As we all know, Douban's book and video users and group users are two completely unrelated groups, however, in the face of the current Douban crisis, the mentality of Bean friends is the same.
Ivy was originally a user of Tianya Forum, Tianya did not lag behind, she registered for Douban in 2011, and now it has been eleven years. Ivy told "Leopard Change": "Douban has given me a deep sense of belonging and intimacy, especially some groups with many female members, such as goose groups, gardens, and baby elephants, not only the channels I receive some news, but also the place where I can find spiritual partners. ”
Talking about the special features of Douban, Ivy said: "Because Douban does not exist in Weibo, things like big V, people with traffic, and people who spend money will be seen. In the Douban group, everyone's posts can be paid attention to by everyone, there is no 'Internet celebrity voice' to be useful, and the voice of ordinary people will be covered up. ”
For this rectification, group users like Ivy can't help but express anxiety and regret. Some users said that the gossip rumors in the group did bring some distress to the star-chasing girls, but when they saw the users in the group helping others, they would also feel everyone's kindness.
When a group shuts down, new groups are born, and the demobilized group members are looking for a new base.
2, into the group, trapped in the group
The Douban group is one of the most important functions launched when Abei founded Douban in 2005.
Whether it is Tieba, Zhihu, or Station B, any platform cannot avoid community conflicts after the scale of users is expanded. However, when the smoke of war is everywhere in different groups on various platforms, Douban is unique and forms the discourse space of the user group.
Strange groups and incomprehensible communities are here to not interfere with each other and be okay with each other. There are 500,000 members of the "social death" group, and every day some people share their embarrassing experiences; in the "pre-test emo" group, the candidates such as the examination for the public, the examination, the examination and the IELTS are here to warm up; the members of the "Do You Like the Moon" group are committed to sharing the moonlight; the members of the "Day of Side Business Failure" are bent on making money...
The reason why Douban can become a clear stream in the Internet era is first of all due to the "absence of the official Douban".
As we all know, Douban has always operated in a "small company" way, delegating power to users. The group is created by the user himself and becomes the group leader, and the group leader can arbitrarily set the group access threshold and management system. For example, in the "Buy Clothes for Mother Group" just established this year, the members decided to call themselves "big cotton jackets" after free discussion, and everyone shared their experience and experience in buying clothes for their mothers, forming a very friendly exchange atmosphere.
The "private group" that once existed gave users a very high degree of freedom to choose their own friends and operate the community, and an independent group formed a good user ecology.
The ecological characteristics of the Douban group have become a special and precious existence in the Internet age. But as there are more and more users, so do the people who make the remarks.
In a free environment, the group topic to a certain extent will inevitably touch some boundaries, based on the UGC supply model of the group has become the biggest hidden danger of Douban. In the former "ideal death" group, many members discussed the topic of death here, but it is difficult to grasp the "degree" of speech on such topics, and if it is neglected and reviewed, it can easily become the fuse of inducing suicide.
In addition, as the Douban group has gradually become a discussion area for entertainment content, various "eating melon" groups have gradually become the hardest hit areas for gossip and scolding. For example, the protagonist of this incident, "Goose Group", formerly known as "Bagua Coming", has more than 600,000 members since its establishment in 2010, but because of the entanglement between the rice circle and the rice circle, it has stood on the cusp of public opinion again and again.
On October 19, 2021, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) promoted the "Special Rectification Action for chaos in the operation of Qinglang Internet user accounts", aiming to further strengthen the regulation of online information for entertainment stars, maintain a good order of online public opinion, and create a clearer cyberspace. At that time, in order to respond to work requirements, the rectification of the Douban group became more and more stringent.
According to statistics, since the beginning of this year, Douban has issued 5 consecutive penalty announcements to further strengthen the special action of "rice circle" chaos control, and a total of 56 problem groups have been discontinued.
In the process of rectification, Douban's operational capabilities have also shown huge deficiencies. When the news of the imminent closure of the private group was announced on March 29, many users expressed disappointment. Some users believe that Douban ignored the user experience in the process of cleaning up, did not take a fair screening of the group, and only did "subtraction" but did not consider the user, which seemed to be contrary to the original intention of Douban.
However, neglecting management and operation is helpless for Douban.
In terms of commercialization, Douban has only raised 4 rounds of capital since its establishment, and it has not been listed so far. In the entire Internet market, Douban is eerily quiet - almost no obvious profit points can be seen, do not do explosive models, and do not have their own big V. Even "douhong", which has more than 10,000 fans, it is difficult to find a way to make money here.
Like most communities, Douban relies on advertising to monetize, and the brands it cooperates with transcend spanning automotive, fashion, IT, home appliances, tourism, luxury goods, cosmetics, FMCG and other fields. Douban's "literary" tone is thriving in Internet companies, although it has always had advertising revenue, but from the perspective of monetization, it has never been able to find a suitable development path for itself.
Douban founder A Bei once said: "Douban can be profitable, it does not buy much, nor does it do money-burning business, and the cash flow should still be maintained." "But compared with the B station and Momo in the same period, Douban's performance in the capital market is not mature, and when the traffic direction turns to short videos, Douban still stands still."
In this way, in the face of problems such as the loss of users brought about by the current rectification, if the process of commercial development is not further promoted, there is a lack of sufficient manpower and material resources to ensure the operation of the platform, and I am afraid that a vicious circle will be formed.
3. Who can "copy" Douban?
Even though Douban is not a successful "commercialization" case, its "invisible assets" are enormous. Speaking in Douban can be "seen", find the same good, and provide the unique tone of emotional value, making Douban different from other Internet platforms that are flooded with capital. Once extremely high user stickiness, it was difficult for other companies to snatch users from Douban.
But now, Douban is facing a crisis, and all parties have focused on the "fat meat" of Douban and tried to send a "bean is difficult to make money".
In 2021, Douban App was removed from the app store "due to the problem of collecting personal information beyond the scope and not completing rectification as required". At that time, many users were worried that Douban had since "cooled" and began to "rebuild the base" on a large scale. A super group social tool "DoDo" tailored for gamers, "small fire" at that time node.
But later netizens pulled out the commercial map of DoDo, and Huang Ou, the legal representative of Zhuhai Bean Rice Technology Co., Ltd., to which it belongs, is also the legal representative of Shanghai Dudu Network Technology Co., Ltd. Another shareholder of Shanghai Dudu Network Technology Co., Ltd. in addition to Huang Ou is Station B. Subsequently, due to user experience problems and privacy issues, DoDo did not undertake Douban users as imagined, and it passed in just a few days.
When the private group stopped serving, a Douban user posted in the goose group that "many platforms have been digging group leaders recently" and attached a screenshot of a conversation with a person who claimed to be "today's headline community operation".
The screenshot shows that the community operator said: "I heard that the Douban group is about to make a big move, the headline group is recruiting a group leader, and there is a traffic support and activity fund when it enters." The operation personnel further emphasized in the chat, "There is no threshold for the leader of the Douban team, the life group, the goose group have come, and the talent group has already come to the headlines to create a group."
Screenshots of "digging corners" circulating online
In addition, before and after opening the "close algorithm recommendation" button in today's headlines, ByteDance launched a new pan-information and community App - Zhiqu. ByteDance's definition of "Zhi District" is a "smart reading tool product", and the slogan of Zhi District is "defining your reading universe".
However, many users who participated in the internal test said that the zhiqu does have some functions similar to Douban, for example, in the zhiqu platform, each user can create their own "zhiqu", which is quite similar to the "group" function of Douban.
In the exchange with "Leopard Change", Ivy believes that the existence of the "Douban-like" App can be accepted, but she also said that she has registered an App like DoDo, but she always feels that it is not as simple and easy to use as Douban. "I hope that one day there will be an alternative website or App for Douban, which can provide a clean and friendly environment for public opinion, but I hope that this day will not be too far away."
In the application of the same era as Douban, it seems that only Douban has come all the way to today, witnessing the popularity of Weibo and WeChat, as well as the rise of Kuaishou and Douyin. In the rapid development of the times, Douban is like a piece of out-of-place Internet "relics", struggling to maintain the connection between users.
Under the wrapping of capital, the voice on many platforms must rely on the power of traffic and money, thus drowning out the voices of ordinary people. In the face of the "Buddhist" attitude of capital, it has made Douban "unintentionally insert willows and willows" and gained a large number of deep users. Here, whether it is a big capital household or an ordinary pawn, there is the same opportunity to be seen. The Douban group strengthens the identity of users, even if it is a niche hobby, it can find a good friend in the group.
The conservative attitude towards commercialization and the maintenance of niche circles are the root of Douban's deep user cohesion, which is also an extremely precious attitude in the impetuous Internet environment.
As a user said: "More than ten years have passed, Douban is still the tepid little broken station, out of the circle hopeless, fire hopeless, there is a niche good." ”
(At the request of the interviewee, the text is a pseudonym)