Image source: Visual China
Pan-knowledge content has taken off on the Internet platform, becoming a place for giants to fight closely and fight. An interesting phenomenon is that learning companies were rarely seen here before.
NetEase Youdao Dictionary, which has been online for 14 years, is determined to speed up the pace of platform upgrading. A few days ago, they announced an important decision to transform from a translation tool to a pan-learning platform, to build a high-quality community for users to share learning content, and to create a "little red book" in the learning industry.
After the platform mode upgrade, Youdao Dictionary broke the original single word search and translation use scenarios, and realized the full scene coverage of learning such as "data query, sharing and exchange, and course learning".
Can Youdao Dictionary compete for the outlet of pan-knowledge content and have its own name? It's not yet known. But in any case, as a product that was launched in 2007, the transformation has become the agenda that Youdao Dictionary is speeding up, especially at a time when the entire industry is facing unpredictable and force majeure changes.
Taking advantage of the take-off of pan-knowledge content, further improving the user experience, expanding the business territory and market influence are all things that companies with learning content genes should try, and have the opportunity and conditions to do well.
<h2>The outlet of pan-knowledge has arrived, but the education circle lacks a sense of existence</h2>
In the Chinese Internet ecology dominated by entertainment content, in recent years, there is a unique force - the emergence of pan-knowledge content. A number of Internet companies have followed this trend and have entered the game one after another and bet on it.
For example, in Bilibili, where young people gather, in June this year, its chairman and CEO Chen Rui said in a speech on the 12th anniversary of the company that in the past year, among all content categories, popular science content has grown the fastest, reaching 1994%.
The pan-knowledge content of Station B has achieved breakthrough growth, and the pan-knowledge content accounts for 45% of the total video playback on the whole platform. In the past year, more than 113 million users have learned by reading knowledge content on The B station, which is three times the number of college students in China.
This trend is also reflected in the Little Red Book.
In March this year, Xiaohongshu disclosed a set of data, since June 2020, Xiaohongshu knowledge category content has grown rapidly, becoming one of the fastest growth categories in the community in the past year. Compared with June 2020, the number of bloggers in the knowledge category has increased by more than 5 times, and the number of knowledge category notes published and consumed has also increased several times. Users' consumer demand for knowledge content has boosted the popularity of the "Knowledge Idol" competition and attracted many well-known knowledge bloggers outside the station to participate.
At the same time, in order to further increase the proportion of knowledge content in the platform, many platforms have also adopted different degrees of operational strategies.
For example, as early as 2018, Kuaishou CEO Su Hua said in an interview with titanium media APP that with the advancement of technology, especially when 5G arrives, knowledge video content is one of its most promising areas.
For pan-knowledge creators, Kuaishou has launched a series of support policies such as the "New Knowledge Plan", and has also planned a series of activities such as "Kuaishou New Knowledge Broadcast", which are regarded as an important signal for Kuaishou to increase investment in the pan-knowledge track. In July this year, Kuaishou told the Titanium Media APP that the consumption efficiency of knowledge anchors is 2.8 times that of the market, which can be seen behind the strong demand of content consumers.
However, an interesting phenomenon is that technology companies are piling up in the knowledge of content, but in this outlet, it is rare to see the figure of education companies.
This is a seemingly contradictory phenomenon. Logically speaking, the academic and educational circles, which have sufficient authority and professional knowledge content to interpret and deduce, are the groups that should have the most sense of existence in this outlet.
Why has the education circle repeatedly missed the pan-knowledge outlet?
Perhaps, rather than missing out, they are "ignoring" the current tide. While professional talents have been immersed in knowledge research and dissemination for a long time, and while improving the accuracy of professional fields, it may be difficult to see and understand the general public, and they are more willing to receive changes in the channels and ways of receiving knowledge.
Creating content that is fun, interesting and educational is actually a very difficult thing. At present, many education-related practitioners have also seen the boom of social platforms and short video platforms, but most of them simply pan the class content clips to the internet, and have not made "two-innovation" adjustments according to the tone of the platform and the preferences of users.
Education and teaching, to some extent, can be said to be the process of the teacher doing the "performance of knowledge". In the process of performing knowledge, one is the producer of knowledge, the other is the performer of knowledge, in school, only by playing two roles at the same time, the classroom can attract people.
How to "perform" the existing knowledge to students in an efficient way is something that many teachers explore throughout their lives. However, if some teachers' classroom teaching fragments are only positioned to brush questions and exams, they are very boring in the classroom, and online will only further highlight its boredom.
When the so-called hard-core learning content upstream, tied with the professional course content learning is deep enough, it is difficult to produce a large amount of content suitable for mass communication, and to meet the needs of learning in more segmented fields. If this is the case in this industrial chain, the upstream is so, then it is difficult for the platform company that focuses on course content to "make a difference" in pan-knowledge content.
Therefore, in this field, we rarely see the figure of the education circle.
However, we have also seen that the current popular so-called "knowledge net red", for example, Dai Jianye, Li Yongle, Luo Xiang, etc. also have teaching positions, and they inadvertently become popular with the rise of short video platforms, which proves that the supply and demand side of pan-knowledge content have soil that needs to be reclaimed and deeply cultivated.
<h2>From tools to platforms, Youdao Dictionary wants to be the "Little Red Book" of the learning world</h2>
It's not just for exams, it's called learning. From the data revealed by major platforms, it can be known that knowledge content does have strong user needs. In the past, because of the limitations of technology, knowledge can only be recorded in words in books, in the future, all knowledge recorded in books may be reinterpreted.
At the moment of the rise of pan-knowledge content, can the education circle find its own sense of existence? Are they waiting to lose the opportunity for pan-knowledge content to take off on the Internet? If they want to seize this opportunity, from what angle can they enter the game first?
You know, if you consider the age of users, learning products are natural places for young people to get together, because they are in the stage of the best time and energy, curiosity and curiosity. According to the data provided by Youdao, as of July this year, the number of youdao dictionary users exceeded 900 million, of which 80% were student users.
There is a large enough user scale, but also means that there are enough basic conditions, but previously, Youdao Dictionary has been positioned in the learning tool, and the user's use of tools, most of them are "used up and gone", user stickiness is not optimistic.
In addition to subject learning, the improvement of test-taking skills, interest circles and video content are important means to enhance user activity and stickiness, and then achieve the goal of driving users' lifelong learning.
Titanium media APP learned that the platform upgrade is the next thing that Youdao Dictionary will focus on.
"There is a dictionary, not just a dictionary, our goal is to make it a little red book in the learning world." The relevant person in charge of Youdao Dictionary told titanium media APP that the upgrade will create a platform for users to produce, share and exchange learning content, and enhance the community attributes of the platform.
In order to improve the user's learning experience and achieve the goal of "high-quality learning and sharing community", Youdao Dictionary has been upgraded mainly by optimizing the functions of word search, collection, search, content, and user motivation.
For example, on the basis of conventional search terms, Youdao Dictionary expands the boundaries of search. When the user enters the vocabulary in the search bar, not only can the interpretation of the corresponding language be consulted, but also the high-quality graphic/video content, courses, famous teachers, papers, etc. related to it can be searched.
In addition to the above function upgrade, in terms of platform content, Youdao Dictionary uses young users' preferences for entertainment and video content, reconstructs the point system based on the WOW community, and launches incentive measures such as video red envelopes.
In order to promote the learning atmosphere of the community, Youdao Dictionary has also introduced well-known KOLs such as "All Beautiful Reading", "Painting Slag Flower Branding", "This Is Not Scientific". The relevant person in charge of Youdao Dictionary also said that in the future, more different types of KOLs will be introduced, different types of content will be produced, to meet the diverse learning needs of users, and to "accompany" the user's language learning process.
Youdao Dictionary has been upgraded from a positioning tool to a platform product this time, providing an idea for dictionary products to explore new development paths. Dictionary products, in a long period of time has not changed much, although it can occupy enough user groups to meet the user's "just needs" - language translation and learning, but the traditional product form is difficult to get rid of the single mode, difficult to realize and other embarrassing situations.
Youdao Dictionary does not want to be satisfied with the status quo, and is trying to break the rhythm of the "slow" development of the industry, break through the barriers between industries, and move towards a broader market. And boldly enter the short video, social networking and other Internet giants must compete, next, they will encounter greater commercial competition pressure, but also open up more commercial space.