Veteran Chen Tong joined a little information, mobile information war escalated to "people"

Early this morning, I saw rumors that Chen Tong, vice president of Xiaomi and "portal elder", will join a little information as president. After experiencing "routine rumors", this news was finally confirmed, and Chen Tong will join as president and concurrently serve as the co-president of Phoenix. In the future, Chen Tong will be fully responsible for the content operation, product operation and public relations of a little information, as well as the content operation and management of Phoenix Network.

"Content Elder" Chen Tong is like a fish in the water?

Chen Tong is the first wave chaser of China's portal website, immersed in the content industry for nearly 20 years, became the executive vice president and editor-in-chief of Sina, and is known as the "portal elder" in the industry. After joining Sina Weibo, it formulated a "celebrity strategy" to help Sina Weibo catch up and stand out, set up kPIs for relevant teams to invite celebrity big Vs, and achieved remarkable results, and today Weibo's market value has exceeded 11 billion US dollars.

Two years ago, Chen Tong left Sina for 17 years and joined Xiaomi as vice president of content, responsible for content operations and content investment.

After joining Xiaomi, Lei Jun took out 1 billion US dollars to give Chen Tong investment content, and Chen Tong also made a military order to be a firefighter. After joining Xiaomi, Chen Tong first led the investment in Youku Tudou, and after Youku Tudou became a subsidiary of Alibaba, Xiaomi invested in iQiyi. The latest development is that Xiaomi TV has access to four contents: Youtu, iQiyi, Tencent Video and Sohu Video. I remember that last year, Xiaomi TV held a public experience activity in Guangzhou Gaode Land Mall, and I was quite surprised to see Chen Tong personally visit the scene, after all, his identity is vice president, this small activity is supposed to say that there is no need to go to Guangzhou in person, which also shows that Chen Tong is mainly responsible for the content during the Xiaomi period is video.

During Chen Tong's stay at Xiaomi, it is a fact that Xiaomi content, especially video content, has achieved climbing. This time adding a little information is not a return to the portal - the personalized information market is in the sky, a new market that is several times larger than the portal. However, for Chen Tong, there is not much difference: continuing to do content and products can be said to be a fish in the water.

What will Chen Tong bring to a little information?

After the news client war, the mobile information war is in the middle of a fierce competition. There are nine major players in China competing for the mobile information platform market, including portal news clients, personalized information platforms, tools represented by UC Baidu, and social media such as Weibo and WeChat.

Different from the traditional news client, today's headlines, a little information and daily express three personalized information client is more technical, especially a little information, its founding team is from Yahoo, Google, Baidu, Facebook and other well-known technology bulls at home and abroad, technology is a little information of the natural gene, its core model is based on search and recommendation of personalized technology distribution. Unlike other clients that fix dozens of channels, One Point Information allows users to consume content by searching for keywords, each keyword is a channel, and One Point News has announced that it has accumulated 3 million channels.

Before inviting Chen Tong to join, Wu Chenguang, the former executive editor-in-chief of Sohu, had joined Little Information as vice president and editor-in-chief. One of the core reasons for inviting the two editors-in-chief to join is, in my opinion, that after emphasizing technology, a little bit of information has begun to focus on the human factor.

First, the algorithm is supplemented by artificial.

In the past, a little bit of information relied on technology to personalize the distribution of information, but a little bit of information has gradually realized that this is not perfect. Not long ago, Liu Shuang, CEO of Phoenix.com and chairman of Yiyi Information, publicly proposed three flaws in the "algorithm", one of which is:

"The longer the personalized algorithm is used by users, the more accurate the recommendation will be. Over time, the content recommended by the algorithm to users will become more and more narrow at the same time, such as users who like history and sports may have these contents on the whole screen, which will prevent users from paying attention to information that should be paid attention to, or information that is potentially interesting. ”

In this regard, a little information solution is to inject humanistic feelings into technology, and integrate media genes and editors' deep insights into users and content consumption into algorithms. And the idea of inviting two editors-in-chief to join a little information, behind the editor-in-chief joining, there will inevitably be more professional editors to join a little information, and the content distribution will be better.

Not only is a little information aware that technology alone, today's headlines are also introducing an editing model after relying on technology for many days, and Baidu, which has always emphasized technology first, has also recruited a large number of editors for content platforms not long ago. Algorithm-based, labor-supplemented, is the mainstream of personalized information platforms. Chen Tong's addition of a little information may help his content style to a higher level, and the algorithm is more in line with media logic.

Second, introduce social on the product.

At the Weibo Big V Summit a few days ago, Weibo CEO Wang Gaofei said this: "Social relationship is the core value of Weibo, and the concentration of social relationship is one of the advantages of Weibo." "Weibo is no longer entangled in social or media, its positioning is a content platform, at this point, Weibo and today's headlines, a little information and even know, are competitive relationship." The advantages of microblogging are obvious because: people-based content distribution has the greatest advantage and can solve many problems that algorithms can't solve.

Users are in a circle because of work, interests, etc., the content taste may be similar, and the people the users follow act as human flesh filters. Liu Shuang once expressed his views on this: "The algorithm recommends high-click works that are unanimously praised by the public, or even the mediocre, but they are not necessarily highly recognized by the circle where the user is located." ”

Obviously, a little bit of information wants to introduce a "social" element. Chen Tong's previous experience on Sina Weibo may help a little information to exert efforts on the "social" point, such as launching social products similar to the interest circle based on user interests.

In fact, PGC content platforms are aware of the importance of "people". Today's Headlines, Daily Express, NetEase, Baijia, sohu have all added "subscriptions" to the product, and Today's Headlines have achieved "headline and headline account merger" on the product, weakening the difference between content producers and content consumers at the product level, and launching headline Q&A based on human relationships. However, in my opinion, there are only three "social content platforms" that are really doing well: Weibo, Zhihu and WeChat public platforms. Next, "socialization" is a general direction of mobile information platforms.

Third, enhance the video in terms of content.

The most critical point for Chen Tong to join a little information is two points: one is to strengthen the role of this element of people in the algorithm, Chen Tong's "portal elder" identity can be done well; the second is to introduce people in the product to strengthen social attributes. In addition, Chen Tong's core task in Xiaomi for two years is to build a video content system, which means that video and live broadcasting are likely to be the focus of a little information in the form of content, Chen Tong can bring many things, such as video website resources, today's headlines, Weibo, Tencent News (Daily Express), NetEase have taken video as the focus, a little information will soon enter the game.

Fourth, combine hardware in distribution.

The combination of mobile information and intelligent hardware is also the trend of the times, a little information unique way, after accepting xiaomi investment, in July this year and OPPO to carry out omni-channel (mobile phone + browser) in-depth strategic cooperation, only a little information on the mobile phone side will get 100 million new users from OPPO. Obtaining new users and achieving content distribution through intelligent hardware is a little information strategy, and Chen Tong has several years of experience in Xiaomi, China's largest intelligent hardware company, accumulating industry resources and understanding of intelligent hardware. Therefore, I think that Chen Tong will promote a little more close integration of information and intelligent hardware. For example, will we see live video from a little information distribution on the Xiaomi Smart TV? The possibilities are high.

When today's headlines invited Liu Zhen, head of China's Uber, for the international layout, Chen Tong, a veteran of information poaching content, strengthened the "human" factor, indicating that the mobile information war has been in a white-hot situation, with undercurrents surging and crowds fighting.

This is good news for content entrepreneurs: Like didi drivers of the past, content producers are now a key resource for platforms to compete for. This is also good news for editors: in the era of mobile information, the cake is bigger, and more "Chen Tong" will be dug into the corner. Editing to be replaced by algorithms? Machines will not replace people, pure algorithms are not perfect, people will only be more important.

Weibo @ Internet A Chao WeChat Luo Chao (luochaotmt)