Cool CEO Thunder: Listening to normal cloud music online is the key

Cool CEO Thunder (Tencent Technology photo)

Music products appear to be extremely low-key when Internet products in all areas of China are expected to take on new opportunities to reinvent themselves in the new environment, the News of May 3. While people with headphones are everywhere enjoying the convenience of digital music, music sites seem to have always been as self encouraged by the darkness of the dawn.

"I believe that music as a basic service itself must have some business opportunities in it, and very large." It's all just a matter of time. "Cool Music CEO Thunder is convinced." As early as last November, Thunder announced to the outside world cool through the money-burning phase, relying on advertising and gaming revenue to achieve balance. Now half a year past, cool still go at the tipping point of break-even.

The difficulty of all this is that although cool music year active users more than 200 million, monthly active users about 100 million, online audition has become the norm, but users still do not pay the habit. Even in the itunes music ecosystem, only 5% of songs used on ipod or iphone music players are genuine, Thunder said.

10:1 users to listen and download online

Innovation is not easy, it is harder to find innovations that can produce tipping points. "At present, the industry competitors in the product of mutual learning speed quickly, once there is a good model, the rapid introduction of various products, product differentiation so no, we all look alike." ”

Thunder Introduction, August 2005 when the establishment of cool is aimed at the bandwidth environment is gradually better, users can not download the first can listen to music online, the release of the slogan is "Millions of songs broadcast." When the model was done, the user rose quickly. So competitors are quick to follow.

Listening online is now the norm. According to the data provided by thunder, the proportion of users with online listening and downloading behavior is 10:1. Cool grasp the original market opportunities, laid the user base. So where is the next road?

Reference to foreign experience in the music market. The Thunder sighed a sigh, "actually they are also in the exploration period, everybody is same." It's not easy to collect money from users. Young people don't pay for money. It's all about how itunes changes digital music, but there's a number that's worth paying attention to: only 5% of the songs on the ipod or iphone are genuine. ”

Foreign hot Music products Spotify, Pandora and Turantable.fm are all stumbling along the way. According to foreign media reports Spotify 2011 net loss of 60 million U.S. dollars, up from the previous year, the listed Pandora in the fourth quarter of last year, the loss of 8.18 million U.S. dollars, the results, after the intraday trading plunged 12%; and last year, hit, Turntable.fm, considered a new direction for social music products, has fallen by nearly half by the end of the year.

Users do not pay, music royalties and high. Foreign media have attributed Spotify's inability to profit to the imbalance in the market economy, because the music Factory is always based on its own best interests to make rules, the digital music service providers can not refuse to request, because the loss of any of the three music Factory card in the cooperation, it means to miss up to 25% or more popular songs.

In China, there are a lot of these problems. Thunder introduced the music site's various costs: copyright fees, broadband costs, server costs, human costs. "To be honest, I've been in this company for almost seven years, and this is a really bad way to go." "But the music web site only in the darkness before the dawn waiting silently."

Thunder that the current domestic music website basic pattern has been set, we are basically in the maintenance of the status quo, it is difficult to have a quick breakthrough market.

The domestic music website presents three echelon pattern

Thunder will be the domestic music service site is divided into three echelon: the first echelon, QQ music, Baidu Music, cool music and dog music, the echelon of the product users are very large, compared to the second echelon of the larger 10 times times more, take the popular music route.

The second echelon is divided into two categories, a class of such as Sina Music, NetEase music, everyone music, similar to a channel below the big site, to provide some music-related services; the second tier of the other is innovative music services, such as Watercress's music products and shrimp nets, they take the spring route, To meet some of the music more taste, the quality of life have to pursue, and have some leisure time of petty users. The rest of the music service providers belong to the third echelon.

Thunder that, three echelon of any one side want to beat other home, or into another echelon is very difficult: "To the shrimp music and watercress radio, such as music service providers as an example, they defined the group is white-collar petty group, and this group in China is 10%, a lot of people." It goes down to break through this boundary, do the ordinary user's attention, this and we do have overlap. On the other hand, if the petty-bourgeoisie group begins to evolve, we will also be concerned that we will consider doing the same or similar things to them. ”

Personalization and cloud music are important strategic points

This is the current domestic music web site of the tug of the landscape, we are emphasizing the purchase of the three major record labels music copyright, take the genuine route; everyone is doing all kinds of music radio stations; everyone is doing turntable.fm products in social product mode; All of us have extended the battlefield to the mobile end, emphasizing the concept of cloud.

"Personalized and cloud music is now considered an important strategic point," Thunder introduced, the so-called cloud music is the user's songs, such as various types of music playlists exist in the cloud, users can be quickly access to a number of terminals. Thunder believes that if users are willing to upload their content to the cloud, although for cool will produce a certain cost of the server, but the user built a variety of information on your platform, the accumulation of these actions means he will not easily leave here.

When each user is active on the platform with a unique ID, laying the data on the basis of personalization is possible.

But this personalization in thunder does not seem to imply immediate implementation of the algorithm based on the music recommendation. "Like Pandora, we're pushing, but it's not a lot of practical people," he said. This is the characteristic of Chinese users, who are not as rational as American users, and the Chinese may be more entertaining. ”

Thunder further explained that most of China's users are still beginners, they learn to use a product has been laborious, like Pandora to provide a concise page, the cost of their exploration is very high, so they need intuitive, full-featured music software, can search, can see a variety of recommendations, Let them feel they have control over the content of the music, rather than letting the product tell him what to listen to.

In the mobile end of the product is also to seize this type of user psychology, but to maintain a relatively lightweight. Thunder gives examples: "For example, the user on the first page to see seven or eight of the occasional list, such as recently such a singer recently very hot, to a singer of the top ten popular songs, such as which film or television drama or actor became popular, related to make a list of music." ”

Thunder will cool cool positioning in a walk in the middle of the product, will not rush to small, but also not completely public. After all, with the development of economic conditions, Chinese users to listen to the taste of songs from the past exclusively of the saliva song, slowly showing their orientation. Like the long tail of America's current music market, it is starting to show signs in China. So Thunder hope cool still need to try to innovate more.

At the nearest Beijing International station, cool music launches an on-board application that can be built into a 3G driving system. and foreign music radio Pandora has been working with 16 car manufacturers, including Ford, Mercedes and Mini, and the two sides to achieve revenue sharing.

According to Thunder, the current cool music year active users more than 200 million, monthly active users of about 100 million, daily active users close to 20,000. The iphone and Android downloads are more than tens of millions, and two platforms are more evenly downloaded.

As for the mobile end of the product line, Thunder has always maintained its mystique: "This is important, not to say too much." Every family is trying to find a great effort. "On the eve of the interview, the head of the marketing department tried to introduce cool music to reporters in the App Store's music free ranking number one, but when you click again to view, this position has been accounted for by opponents." This is the fact that in the face of new markets, no one dares to slacken.