Paper Media app profit model debate: "Content is king" whether outdated

Zeng Ai agronomy 18 months ago, Zhejiang Newspaper Media (600633) Chairman Gao Haiho suddenly found still in the city newspaper editor-in-chief of the Wang Xi, the two sides had a 5-minute conversation.　　And this short minutes of talk is enough to determine how the next 10 years of the country's first-ever-listed big newspaper group will be. After that conversation, Wang Xi was appointed to take charge of the new media business of the Zhejiang newspaper group.　　Wang Xi recalls that this sudden change made him difficult to adapt to, before this day he was thinking about the number of circulation, the amount of advertising, and even every day in the middle of the night to worry about what headlines to make headlines to stimulate distribution. And now he faces a completely unfamiliar field.　　When he returned to his office and lit up his cigarette, his anxiety suddenly came to mind, and one months later, he found that his cigarette volume had soared by one fold. Wang Xi's experience represents the anxiety of all the paper media in the country, since the first half of this year, the traditional paper media advertising revenue has seen a noticeable slowdown or even a sign of decline, the advent of mobile internet has rapidly exacerbated the shift of attention, there are more and more people no longer need to read newspapers and magazines,　　But will look into the cell phone screen between the square inch.　　In order to embrace the mobile internet age, print media are scrambling to launch their mobile app (mobile apps) products, but the latest research shows that most of the media's app products are not successful.　　What is the way out of the app transformation of print media? Paper media apps don't respect user habits. Not long ago, Zhejiang newspaper Media and Zhe Jiang University jointly made a research on mobile app launched by the media, which selected about 400 media app samples.　　The study shows that apps from traditional media are in total disadvantage in competing with Sina, NetEase's app and other new mobile internet readers.　　The research's initiator, Zhejiang newspaper, the chief researcher of the Media DreamWorks Research Institute, gently found that traditional media apps mostly lack research on user behavior and do not respect user habits.　　Gently to reporters that mobile users ' reading peaks between 10 o'clock to 1 o'clock in the morning in the evening--at the most valuable prime time, many traditional media apps no longer have content updates because it's not the traditional media's working hours. "In fact, these can be solved in a technical way." The biggest problem, gently says, is that traditional media seem to have inadequate research into user behavior.　　She cited, for example, that two-thirds of the traditional media app has no push function, and Sohu's mobile client will push four or five times a day. The study also found that the application performance of traditional media was poor in reading mode, night mode, font size selection, horizontal screen display and other functions and user Experience Index.　　For example, only 7 of the paper media clients provide a network environment to automatically choose the best way to receive the environment selection function, accounting for only 3.7% of the total. In the mobile internet era, where the user experience is emphasized, most traditional media do not seem to value the changes brought about by technology. New MediaBody expert Rob O ' Regan concludes that the next five jobs will be standard media: Chief digital officer, chief strategist, Chief growth officer, chief content officer, chief product officer. "Internet companies are accustomed to calling audiences a user, while traditional paper media calls audiences the reader, which is the essential difference."　　Yang, new media director of business Value Magazine, who just took office a few days ago, described his own experience.　　The essential difference is that traditional print media often put their own paper content mechanically moved to mobile phone app, most media to use new technology to expand their business seems to think little.　　is "Content King" outdated? Zhejiang Newspaper Media Research found that the paper made by the app still very stressed "content is king", that is, "random 10 News in the original number of articles" average of 7.04.　　The original ratio of the Internet media's app news source has been greatly reduced, averaging only 2.45. "The value of the media should not only be the value of the content, but also the value of the service, including the experience of the app client, should be a better service, and the majority of the media is too focused on the value of the content."　　"Gently points out.　　In the media era, when ordinary users can freely express their views on the Internet, the discourse power of traditional media is being weakened significantly, and many media "content is king" is facing great challenges. Into the mobile internet age, the first thing many users open their eyes to in the morning is to use their mobile phones to turn on Weibo-there is already a wealth of news on Weibo, compared to the frequency of apps used by many paper media.　　In the highly competitive app market, most media apps tend to face an awkward situation-that is, the user just downloaded a burst of heat, but then few people continue to click, user activity is very low. The most effective way to improve app stickiness is to promote the social nature of the app.　　At this point, by the traditional media out of the founder of the snowball business Fang Sanwen to the industry to provide a lot of experience.　　Party III has two media platforms, one is similar to the vertical financial portal "I", the other is a social function of the main "snowball network", these two platforms are interdependent and development momentum is good. Fang Sanwen said that the success of the social platform, the snowball, was inseparable from the high quality content that I continued to offer before the U.S. stock first gathered a group of loyal users who cared about the U.S. stock and then turned to Snowball's social platform. Snowball's stickiness to users is high, averaging 25 minutes per user per day on a snowball, while the average portal user only has 7 minutes. Snowball is an invitation code to join the vertical class of social media, which users almost only discuss and stock investment-related topics, the user produced a large number of high-quality UGC (user-created) content.　　From this point of view, I have been provided by the U.S. stock of good content for snowball this community success. "Do not necessarily have no future content, if the media can continue to produce quality content, there is still room." "The side of the three text said, justThe media needs to be published in a more personalized way in the new era.　　Some quality media often have a very loyal readership group, these people may be the same characteristics of the same people, it is easy to find common topic, so how to use the new media social, interactive characteristics of the reader group to strengthen the management, is a lot of paper media can think of the problem.　　"Business value," said Yang, head of new media business, says that the content of the app made by the print media must be developed two times, and it must not simply move the contents of the paper to the phone, for example, he is trying to explore something of a digest nature to match the mobile properties of App fast.　　In addition, the paper media to do new media, the most easily encountered obstacles is likely to be an institutional barrier-the original paper media organization is difficult to adapt to the rapid development of new medium. Zhejiang newspaper Media dream Factory Chairman Wang Xi pointed out that he wanted to be a cultural cut, rather than content for the king's ideas to do new media.　　Therefore, the practice of the media in Zhejiang is to set up a new incubation carrier in addition to the original paper media system, and to develop new media in the way of foreign investment hatching. Is it possible for a flat-media app to be a product that brings in large amounts of revenue?　　There are many different voices in the industry. A former investment director, a large investment company that invests in too many media outlets, says the app is a useful addition to traditional media, but it is hard to make money on its own. Because app is small and content.　　He suggested that the app as a print media customer relationship maintenance, interactive tools, the flat medium to grasp the real user's breakthrough, rather than a new platform, so as to find the right positioning. Some media are trying to make the app client profit attempt on the mobile terminal, and have achieved some effect.　　Chun, the electronic editor of the first Financial weekly, told reporters that the ipad version of the first financial weekly received about more than 3 million yuan in revenue, including 110万来 subscriptions for electronic journals (about 20,000 subscribers) and about 2 million of advertising revenue, most of which are brand advertising. In the new media business of all media, professional media seems more likely to succeed. The FT's revenue from the digital business of the past year has accounted for 40% of its total revenue, which is expected to surpass 50% this year. The FT's subscriptions to digital subscribers rose to 267000 in 2011, an increase of 29% per cent year-on-year.　　The print and digital versions of subscriptions add up to 600,000, reaching the highest point in history.　　Like the first financial weekly, most media chose to launch their own billing version of the electronic magazine at Apple's App Store, where the pay environment is better. But one thing that can't be ignored is the fact that the growth in app revenues has slowed or even stalled this year, as Android devices ' shipments soared, leading to a gradual shift from Apple's iOS platform to Android, where the media must look for apps　　New growth points beyond the store. ThisMake most of the paper media very confusing, because the lack of good pay habits on Android, if the media to let their content on Android free of charge, it is likely to greatly impact the original paper media circulation.　　Relying solely on mobile advertising revenue, it is difficult to feed the original media and the vast gathering and editing team.　　The rise of mobile terminals has given the traditional media some opportunities for transformation because mobile Internet is easier to charge than PC Internet, said the CEO of the Hundred Road network. He says the paper media's app business wants to be particularly high on the media, requiring strong branding, enough loyal readers, and a good enough user experience in its app.　　From this perspective, not every print media can seize this opportunity. Many years of print media may die on the eve of the transition. And those media that have a successful transition have the opportunity to draw a new wave?