The Douyin version of station B was officially launched
TikTok is doing big things again with a muffled voice.
Recently, Douyin launched a young people's interest knowledge video APP, called "Qingtao". The platform is an official mid-length video associated version produced by Douyin, with the slogan "On the green peach, see your love".
At present, "Green Peach" can be interconnected with Douyin, and its interface is simple and ad-free, users can click on the video to start playing, and like, comment, favorite or share the video.
At present, the channels of "Green Peach" include career advancement, scientific exploration, Internet frontier, culture and art, etc.
In general, "Qingtao" is very similar to station B in terms of playback interface and content style, except for the lack of "one-click three-in-a-row" and barrage unique to station B.
It is worth mentioning that recently station B is considering canceling the playback data displayed in the foreground and instead measuring the video transmission effect by "user consumption time".
This means that the video content of station B will emphasize the completion rate, which can support the medium and long video content to a certain extent and enhance the enthusiasm of high-quality medium and long video UP owners.
It can be seen that content platforms such as Douyin and B station are looking for growth in the medium and long video market, hoping to seize new market opportunities with the help of this content.
From another point of view, medium and long videos are also a must for Douyin.
In December 2022, the "2022 Douyin Knowledge Data Report" released by Douyin and Big Math showed that from January to October 2022, the number of Douyin knowledge works released increased by 35.4%, of which the number of graphic knowledge content released increased by 167%, and the number of monthly live broadcasts of knowledge creators also increased by 72.7%.
(Source: Douyin)
In addition, from January to October last year, Douyin users searched for more than 16 billion knowledge-related questions, with an average of 27 knowledge points per user.
At the same time, the total number of sharing of knowledge videos and graphic content reached 12.6 billion times, and each user shared an average of 20 pieces of knowledge content to relatives and friends.
It can be seen that Douyin knowledge content has shown a good growth trend, and users have also shown a strong desire to actively search and share knowledge.
It can be seen that it is natural for Douyin to choose to launch such an interest knowledge platform at this time.
It has to be noted that in the past two or three years, Douyin has been increasing the code of medium and long videos.
In August 2020, Douyin launched the country's first documentary reality show variety show "Nice to Meet You".
In October of the same year, Watermelon Video announced that it would launch the "Chinese Video Partnership Program" in conjunction with Douyin and Toutiao, and invested 2 billion yuan to subsidize outstanding Chinese video creators, and then launched apps such as Watermelon Video Horizontal Screen.
(Watermelon Video Video Partner Program)
In August 2021, Douyin added a "Long Video" section to its homepage. During the closed beta period, the "Long Video" zone is the first-level entrance of the homepage, while the learning and the same city are closed below the first-level entrance.
In September last year, Douyin officially announced that the platform will open video permissions of more than 30 minutes, and support uploading 4K videos.
Nowadays, Douyin has even directly launched a dedicated mid-length video platform.
Various actions show that Douyin's mid-length videos still have a lot of room to play, and its series of actions are precisely to open up a new incremental market.
All in all, Douyin is increasing the proportion of medium and long videos in addition to short videos. At present, its content structure has undergone major changes, and the content ecology has gradually changed from "single" to "diverse".
Chinese video has become a new battlefield
In addition to Douyin and B station, there are many content platforms that are working on medium and long videos.
For example, Weibo launched the "Weibo Channels Plan"; Zhihu not only launched video creation tools, but also added a "video" section on the homepage; Kuaishou has also won the broadcast rights of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, and has also invested huge production costs in short dramas and self-made variety shows...
However, judging from the results, most content platforms spend a lot of time and money to deploy medium-length videos, but they do not bring eye-catching results.
In particular, short video platforms are making efforts to make long videos, and the investment and return are even more unbalanced. Taking Kuaishou as an example, from January 1 to February 23, 2022, the total number of views of Winter Olympics-related works and topical videos inside and outside Kuaishou reached 154.48 billion, and the total number of fans of athletes related to Winter Olympic events exceeded 38 million.
In contrast, Douyin, which did not obtain broadcast rights, had a total of 164.5 billion views on videos related to ice and snow sports from February 1 to February 20, 2022, and the total number of fans of ice and snow athlete accounts exceeded 40.75 million.
It is worth noting that although Douyin is slightly superior to Kuaishou in sports long video content, in the performance of self-made variety shows, Douyin Kuaishou can only be said to be half a pound and eight taels.
From 2019 to 2022, Douyin has launched nearly 20 variety shows, including various themes such as drafts, music mixes, and sports, but these variety shows have not been able to set off any splashes.
Similarly, Kuaishou launched "Super Nice Conference", "Yue Hard The Lucier Down", "Sleep at 11 o'clock" and other short comprehensives, there is no sign of being out of the circle.
In contrast, the variety show production experience of the long video platform "Aiyou Tengmang" and the artist resources are strong. As a new player, short video platforms can only cross the river by feeling the stones, and there is a big gap between them and long video platforms in terms of content production and marketing promotion.
It is worth noting that the "China Video Creator Career Development Report" shows that in 2020, there will be 605 million users of high-frequency consumption video (1-30 minutes), and the penetration rate of netizens is 64%, that is, 3 out of every 5 netizens consume high-frequency video.
It can be seen that compared with long and short videos, the user scale of medium videos still has a lot of room for improvement.
Perhaps it is precisely because of this that the short video platform has also accelerated the layout of medium video. For example, Kuaishou launched a small-scale beta of an app called "Today's Video", introduced a boutique short drama strategy, and wholly acquired Station A.
Data shows that by the end of 2022, the daily active users of Kuaishou short dramas exceeded 260 million, and there were more than 100 projects with more than 100 million views of Kuaishou Astral short dramas throughout the year, with a total playback volume of more than 50 billion.
Kuaishou said that this year the company will focus on making the paid short drama industry into a native ecology, and it is expected that the GMV of the entire paid short drama will exceed 10 billion in 2023, achieving rapid growth.
(Source: China Transmission Media Economic Research Institute)
On the other hand, TikTok is not to be outdone. In 2021, it has successively launched micro-short drama support programs such as "Xinfan Plan", "Xinfan Plan 2.0", and "Tens of Millions of Popular Drama Clubs".
From January to October 2022, Douyin launched a total of 329 high-quality serial short dramas, of which 55 short dramas with more than 100 million views and 23 short dramas with more than 200 million views.
At present, in the field of medium video, micro-short dramas with a single episode duration ranging from tens of seconds to about 15 minutes are well received by users and have great development potential.
At the same time, compared with long video content, medium video has low cost and high efficiency, which is more suitable for short video platforms. Perhaps this is one of the important reasons why Douyin chose to launch a medium-video platform instead of a long-form video platform.
Medium-length videos are still a gold mine
In the past few years, short videos have been in a boom stage, and major platforms have begun to get involved.
For a time, the track was crowded and competition intensified. Today, short videos have gradually fallen into the trap of peak traffic. According to the 51st Statistical Report on Internet Development in China, as of December 2022, the number of mainland Internet users reached 1.067 billion, the number of short video users exceeded one billion for the first time, and the user usage rate reached 94.8%.
In addition, as of September 2022, the customer size of short video apps exceeded 50 million, and the average monthly usage time was up to 59.3 hours, and short video traffic accounted for 85.1% of the total traffic of video apps.
(Short video customer size distribution.) Source: Zhonghai Huasheng)
The customer size of long-form video apps is less than 50 million, and the average monthly usage time is up to 16.3 hours, accounting for only 14.5% of the total traffic of video apps.
(Long video customer size distribution.) Source: Zhonghai Huasheng)
Through the above comparison, it can be seen that the traffic growth of short videos has peaked, and the development momentum is bound to slow down, while long video apps still have a lot of room for growth.
In addition, since 2020, China Video has been in a stage of rapid development. Data shows that in 2021, video watch time exceeded half of the watch time of short videos, twice the time spent watching long videos.
In terms of profitability, China Video has also demonstrated its excellent monetization ability. Taking Kuaishou short dramas as an example, in 2022, among Kuaishou short drama creators, the number of e-commerce revenue increased by 35%, and the GMV of short videos brought by millions of fans increased by 143% year-on-year.
In summary, it is not difficult to see that medium and long videos can bring new increments to content platforms and help platforms compete for more content territory to achieve diversified profitability.
At present, compared with entertaining and homogenized short video content, medium and long video users with richer information and deeper content will have stronger stickiness.
However, compared with short videos with a lower threshold, medium and long videos have higher requirements for content creators, and their monetization methods rely on advertising, and their profit models are not mature enough, which also hinders content platforms from developing medium and long videos to a certain extent.
In general, whether it is medium and long videos or short videos, high-quality content is always the biggest core competitiveness. Only by grasping this can we touch the hearts of users.
Author | Pandora