Video war continued controversy, Ikki Iki said the industry first?

When Koo Yong Youku lead the United States to the United States when the market, where Gong Yu's love Fantastic Art has just started from the starting point. But by now, they have become the first camp in the video industry, close to or even just a little side to meet each other. IQIYI after the merger of PPS is in some key indicators by leaps and bounds, so, it and You are declaring that they are the first in the video industry.

This chase race, Gong Yu spent less than four years. Ever since the second year of its establishment, Iqiyi has grown at a rate of 200% or 300% per annum and has long started its deployment on the mobile side. Now, thanks to Smart TV's multi-screen robbing, Maidong, Gao Xiaosong Other people's income under the command of force homemade content, and even provoked a huge amount of variety shows to buy a war, at the expense of infamy.

Distinctive features of these movements: shot fast, big efforts, do not feel bad money. Different from nowadays with the giant video site, Ikki is the second generation rich in jade. It is sponsored by Providence, an investor in Baidu and the US Hulu website (the latter has now sold all of its shares to Baidu). Backed by Baidu, the godfather, I love Fantastic Art, and it also got other video sites do not have Heavy weapons - huge search traffic, which became its accelerator on the PC side of the rapid rise. Following where to go, Ikki is likely to become Baidu's second listed subsidiary. It is said that Gong Yu went to the United States this year to visit investors.

"I really did not encounter a major setback in love Fantastic Art, a small bunch of problems but a bunch of." Outside the East Third Ring Road in Beijing Aiqiyi coffee shop, Gong Yu, "entrepreneurial state," said. In front of this man at any occasion have shown refined, easy-going, hair combed neat, shiny shoes, it seems never conflict with people. In the business world, however, he still strokes in the attitude of entrepreneurs to fight Jiangshan, mercilessly. He made Ai Qi Yi survive several bloody video industry and break through successfully.

Gong Yu is not afraid even if the competition intensifies the rapid changes in the market. He is even a little excited. "Because of the large-scale migration of the market, you have a chance.In the competition process, there must be players exit or transition, the market concentration will increase.On the one hand, the market space is getting bigger, on the other hand, the cruel competition allows participants to reduce , Then every single remaining return is even bigger. "And when it comes to giants involved in industry consolidation, he acknowledged the pressure but did not think it was a deadly threat to IK.

Some people say that the success of love Fantastic Art thanks to Baidu. In fact, after Baidu's listing, it has not hatched many "dried sons" in the field of electricity supplier, payment and other subdivisions. It is rare to see that Baidu really survives and performs well. Moreover, although Baidu has contributed a large amount of traffic to the PC at the Fantastic Art, Baidu was also overwhelmed by the mobile terminal. In terms of product appearance and user experience, the connection between video and mobile is far less than that of the PC. Therefore, to say that the success of Ikki depends entirely on Baidu, people obviously ignore the explosive power of Gong Yu and Ikki.

Li Hao, vice president of 56 network seems, Ikki art's rapid rise has two key factors: The first is the entrance. On the PC side, Baidu is the largest entrance for Chinese netizens to watch movies and TV shows, variety shows and other long videos. For the entire video industry, the traffic entrance is in a sense the greatest value. During the initial stage of construction, 80% of the traffic flow of IQIYI on the PC side came from Baidu. The second is the team. "This is a solid and competitive team, go very steady and implementation is very fast.Imagination into Ma Dong, after a period of exploration, and soon formed a clear and effective content layout.In the past year More and more, iQiyi has put tremendous pressure on Youku in the content layout.

However, the video industry is now in a pattern of constant shocks and variables still exist. A burst of suspicion, after the bustle, the dust settled Ali soil, Tencent, Sohu and evasive relationship is still evolving. Once the video industry has become the ultimate battle between BAT, Ikki is the current location will be the final result?

Love Fantastic Art "make up class"

April 2010, IQIYI PC-side official website, then listed Youku less than 8 months. With Yi Qiyi, vice president of Yang Xianghua's words: "Needless to say youku, even the third position on the market accounted for less than the fifth to the back, want to hit it in the front is very difficult."

Interestingly, the entire video industry this year showed a trend of differentiation. The video website's transition from bandwidth burn to copyright dispute and the rise of long video mode are simply bad news for websites that do not have access to capital escort. Six rooms, 56 network and so on a wave of early starters in the video industry, was Youku, potatoes and other camps left far behind, was forced to transition UGC.

Another noteworthy phenomenon is that the portals and giants, known as the "national team," began to exert video and suddenly raised the threshold of competition in the industry. This is also a factor in the video website is divided. In 2010, Sohu Video and Sohu Entertainment, Sohu matrix media platform fully integrated, re-packaged Sohu video second departure, Sohu Group as the next focus, or even personally by Charles Zhang. Sohu video has become a force that can not be ignored after Yiqiyi and Youdian.

In such a drastic change in the industry, love Qiyi set off. It also catch up with the mobile Internet's early tide, Youku has been based on the mobile terminal to do short video, which also gives love Fantastic Art pressure. It is necessary to quickly set up their own position through the PC side, while not falling on the mobile side, I love odd face double attack.

Fortunately, getting started late was to some extent an advantage of Ikki, because it has no historical burden and can establish linkage rules for PC and mobile from scratch. The beginning of Fiona Yi-backed Hulu investors, with a long video of the gene, which is the capital markets and users in 2010 sought after direction. With Baidu search diversion, Ikki Arts fierce growth momentum.

However, around the mobile market is not yet clear pattern, Iki's internal opinion is not uniform. Especially in the content-oriented, they are not allowed to use the user's needs: "The phone screen so small, 3G traffic costs so high, the battery power is very small, the user will use the phone to watch long video?"

Gong Yu has been determined at the same time in the PC-side and mobile power. He came to lead the mobile product launch at the SP before Yang Xianghua. GPRS speed faster in 2002, lower tariffs, mobile phones from black and white screen monochrome upgrade for color and chord, which gave the portal through the chance of mobile phone realized, so Yang Xianghua also homeopathic made a music download company. Yang said that the market for smartphones in 2010 is similar to what he did when he was a SP. The Android system has become so popular that smart phones support Wi-Fi, big screens and touch screens, "feeling these features are suitable for video."

IQIYI released the first iPad product on the eve of 2010 National Day, which is also their first mobile-based version. Taking into account the way the touch screen, the interface is full of large icons to eliminate text chain, the only PC elements retained only the original color. Then they released the iPhone version. Later, as Android became popular, the center of gravity of the device shifted again.

As for the user experience, they are also technically adjusted. For example, in order to make the phone more power-saving during use, Ikki is the first video site to study Android mobile phone chip. If the phone supports hardware decoding, Iqiyi GPU (graphics processor) to decode, more power. MTK, Qualcomm, Intel and other companies are their partners. They will also be based on the user's network environment to give the appropriate code stream, because the PC-side high-definition stream on the phone instead of wasting bandwidth.

During that National Day, iQIYI rushed to the top of the iPad charts, breaking the million downloads in 2010. By the end of 2011, mobile only accounted for 4.6% of the total number of stations, compared with more than 50% in September 2013. In other words, the mobile end of the play has overtaken the PC side.

Jumping number of this growth is beyond the imagination of Gong Yu. Yang Xianghua is very tangled in formulating this indicator every year at the beginning of each year. He must make a great deal of determination. At the beginning of 2012, when they met, they bet on the proportion of mobile broadcasts that year, some say 10% and others boldly make 20%. Yang Xianghua is the most optimistic, explosive 27%. They lost all the results, the actual ratio is 33%. In February this year, the proportion of mobile playback has more than 60%, while the total income of Iki accounted for 30%.

These achievements make Gong Yu go out to talk about business full of confidence, every time they come back with a smile on the face, because both sides will refer to Ikki's mobile terminal. Gong Yu mentioned more than once on public occasions: "If the market does not move from PC to mobile, IK can not surpass the good earth, their market position in that market has moved, we have a chance."

I love Fantastic Art PC and mobile terminal is started almost at the same time, that is, they do not need to scruples PC huge user base or habits, "want to do, how to do, or even I can set the industry standard." In the rise of the entire mobile market, I love art catch up with the wind. Yang Xianghua said: "The mobile terminal opens up a new user base for Aiqi, and many people only use our mobile terminal instead of the PC terminal, which later became our unique user."

Ikki in the PC side of the growth is also very rapid. In the main positioning of HDTV drama, Ikki won the rapid access to a large number of young users. In strategy, Gong Yu abandoned the cut from the field of subdivision play, the pursuit of big and the whole. In his view, must not be limited to a certain market segments, otherwise it will lose a large number of users. Of course, this is inseparable from Baidu's support, including traffic and funding. According to sources close to Baidu, Iqiyi accumulated more than 700 million U.S. dollars from Baidu's investment.

However, the mobile terminal does not have such a huge advantage of the Baidu portal. On the one hand, Baidu was limited in the mobile terminal layout, 91 wireless acquisitions have not yet, their own traffic is not large. On the other hand, the interactive relevance of mobile search and video is not significant. Therefore, Ikki no mobile in the end there is no reliance on resources, and even less than the advantages of the accumulation of PC brand, the latter can at least find ways to move PC users to the mobile terminal.

In 2011, iQIYI will get the user's channel pinned on the smart phone pre-installed. Samsung was their largest customer at that time. The handset manufacturers themselves also had the need of pre-installed video software. Aiqi Art successfully reached a cooperation with Samsung. In addition, the domestic can call the name of the cell phone brands have been pre-installed channels love Fantastic Art.

At that time, the mobile phone brands are active default two pre-installed video software, one is Youku, the other is potatoes. This is not a video site behavior, but they think the industry's top two should be what users need. At that time youku is the boss, can not be replaced, love Fantastic Art to find these companies: "potatoes with them is a, or you change one?" Since then, the manufacturer's pre-installed video into Youku love Fantastic Art, At no cost, this path contributes 80% of users to IK. They were once much more active daily than app stores.

However, with the emergence of the brush machine market, the efficiency of the built-in road is reduced, and many handset manufacturers in China are charging fees for software pre-installed behavior. Ikki then focus on the cooperation with the application store. The first episode of these activities was through drama, Iqiyi at a lower cost of access to a certain amount of users, then the ratio also exceeded the pre-installed market. Iqiliyi by the end of 2012 installed capacity of billions of dollars.

Grafting with Baidu resources began in 2013, especially after the acquisition of 91 wireless, Iqiyi and Baidu products increased between the frequency of mutual push. Andrews market, Baidu mobile phone assistant with 91 mobile assistant These three distribution channels almost give love Fantastic Art nearly 1/3 of the traffic. "This creates a snowball effect, getting bigger and bigger, and if you have an enterprise that reaches tens of millions of installations, this is too hard," said Gong Yu. Of course, some of these resources are obtained through exchange, and some need to pay for Fantastic Art according to market behavior.

Play changed

Gong Yu does not think I love Fantastic Art has been safe, especially in the mobile terminal. If from a quantitative point of view, only account for half of the market share, really get the so-called mobile Internet tickets. "We are still far from this goal.When we just get a smart phone, we will continue to load content, the next stage is to do subtraction, similar applications will only stay one."

Gong Yu's entrepreneurial experience can be traced back to 1999, he founded the real estate portal focus network, and later sold Sohu, so to join Zhang Chaoyang team. Interestingly, now he and Victor Koo and the former boss is a direct competitor, the three of them are also the core game force in the video industry. 2009 Gong Yu left Sohu to join 12580, a year after the switch to Baidu. It is said that when Baidu decides to establish Aiqiyi, it makes rigid demands on the three top international giants: "Give us an entrepreneurial CEO." On a list of hundreds of people who have brought together almost all the top executives in the Internet in China, Baidu Defined Gong Yu.

"It was the biggest difficulty to close the door to the point where the focus was on, and I felt frustrated when it came to selling. At that time, I felt that it was a great setback. It was not a losing streak. The most important thing was losing a great opportunity. It is confused five years after realizing this. "Gong Yu said.

Ikki is obviously obviously the greatest opportunity he can now grasp, Gong Yu will not give up. When the PC to the mobile migration, and then the current era of multi-screen, leaving Iqiyi can play more space. In the age of PC, web videos based on URL links have a high degree of coincidence. Maybe one person is both a user of Youku and often visit IK Yi, and the market structure can naturally accommodate multiple brands. But to the mobile terminal, this situation will be broken, the corresponding rules will fail.

Compared to the PC side, the overlap between App is much lower. For a strong company, once the user has chosen their product and left it, the cost of the user switching to other App is high. As its market share continues to grow, the Matthew effect becomes more pronounced. On the contrary, you have to grab users from other people's hands, more difficult. Therefore, although some video sites can not rush into the first camp on the PC side, they can still live well with differentiated services. However, on the mobile side, the performance is very unpleasant and it is difficult to seize a certain market share.

The reason is that the mobile terminal to obtain the user's threshold is relatively high, you need to download and install this one must pass the program; and the interface between different products is less standardized, users like to have a product, it is difficult to replace. Gong Yu said, I love Fantastic Art and PPS coincidence of less than 20%, which is the user use the same service decentralized reason. Furthermore, the video site on the PC side can be more or less diverted by search engines, and the mobile terminal does not search for this traffic portal. So compared to the PC side, the mobile terminal more emphasis on brand and user loyalty, players are more focused, unlike PC-side so scattered.

Then is how to keep the user's problem. Whether it is mobile or PC-side, users are increasingly critical of the experience requirements. Gong Yu said: "In the past two hours card two or three times, the user can accept. Now an hour card, they would like to hit the machine, people's endurance is getting weaker. Now we think 720P HD are not good, request 1080P's. "

A third person responsible for third-party video applications in China spits on most of the current mobile products: "A few products are similar and their experiences are poorly done. For example, it is very painful if you want to screen a few specific videos." Because the PC can use the mouse to roll a few or type search, through a relatively short path to find what you want. Mobile is not the same, the phone screen is small, are sliding operation, how to allow users to spend the shortest possible time to find interesting Film, I think they are not doing well. "

In these people's logic, although these few products do the general, the resources are not the most complete, but users are still willing to accept, mainly due to the inertia of the brand. This is the maximum resources that the PC can move to the mobile. In addition, is the copyright content, account system and other elements. "Everything else is fine except that market share does not necessarily shift."

In fact, the video site is not only facing a single channel changes, but also face the challenge of multi-screen era. It is said that in the PC side of the site has accumulated a lot of deep emphasis on the mobile terminal. An industry source who asked not to be named told Entrepreneur: "Youku's mobile division wants other departments to do bitstreams specifically for mobile devices, or set up a dedicated server, it is difficult to get a positive response, or respond very well Slowly, the root cause is the heavy burden on their PC. "

I love Fantastic Art mode is the case, the same system responsible for the production, processing code stream, such as a movie upload, the backend of the system to produce more than 30 kinds of code stream format, and some to the TV, and some to the PC , Some for mobile phones, and then pushed to the country more than 300 room. To some extent, this is the kind of bonus I love Fantastic Art to catch the mobile wave early. Gong Yu said that at present he PC terminal and mobile terminal capital investment is almost the same, are great.

In Li Hao's opinion, the layout of these video sites has its own strengths on the mobile side: "Youku's content is very large and appears to users as a more comprehensive video site; IFC is more dependent on some exclusive , Hot content to attract users.As long as the existence of Apple, the means to grab the user's desktop is not so effective, really want to fight the user's brand awareness and word of mouth.In this regard, Youku is dominant. Various resources support Youku's mobile layout. "

The most likely to retain the user another move is the current popular application of big data. Ikki because of Baidu's support, access to data more natural advantages. It is said that 85% of Ai Qi Yi users have search behavior in Baidu, so the user's subjective appeal well aware of them. Mobile terminal based on LBS more accurate positioning data, the user enters the site starting point and exit time, will be log records. Since Ikki knows so in detail, many people worry that this will reveal personal privacy. Gong Yu explained: "I know what a user did, but I do not know who this user is."

I love fantastic art CTO Tang Xing said: "Big Data has three main applications: to understand the user, advertisers precise delivery, buy drama and upstream production.For example, a user after reading the video in love Fantastic Art, Baidu often Search for milk powder, baby products, it is easy to figure out this user is a young mother, but according to the user's search history, but also recommend more in line with their tastes of TV drama.

As for the precise placement of advertisers, but also related to the monetization of Fantastic Art issues. Compared to television, users of video sites advertising tolerance is very low. This contrary to the phenomenon, but also let Gong Yu very helpless. The core of the advertising model is that I provide you free resources, you need to pay is to see the ads. But this basic business logic on the free gene for the Internet environment, suddenly failed. Someone gave Gong Yu a lot of suggestions, but no one path can cure the shortcomings of the advertising model.

Big data in the end can solve this embarrassing situation? Gong Yu also pinch not allowed. In his opinion, this road is still very junior. Not only to allow advertisers to invest resources, but also enhance the user experience, but also need to explore for a long time.

But this does not mean that big data is useless at the moment. Compared to TV commercials, big data can solve the problem of too much commercial interference and the corresponding ads for the people who need it. This may be the key measure that the accurate positioning of big data can provide. "For example, a cosmetics ad for a 20-year-old girl should never have appeared before a man in her 40s," says Gong Yu.

What is the industry variable?

IK Fai art is undoubtedly the biggest tipping point this year, "you from the stars," such a domestic TV station do not want to broadcast the Korean drama, Ikki art operation, from the first episode no one knows, to the second episode a small amount People concern, the third episode began viral spread. The classic line in the play, "Fried Chicken and Beer," once became a popular online language. As of March this year, this Korean drama has a total of 1.7 billion hits.

Gong Yu interpreted this phenomenon as inevitable. "I love fantastic art to this scale, this movie will not work this month will not, some months of this year will certainly be OK, other plays must line, because you covered a large enough number of users, the content has also been enough people touched "

At the end of last year, IQI spent heavily spending 200 million yuan on packaging to buy the 2014 Hunan Satellite TV variety show, provoking this variety show bidding war. Gong Yu in accepting "entrepreneurial state" interview also admitted: "Variety this we can not escape 'guilty.'"

Gong Yu adventure in the first place for a reason. Although the Fantastic Art interface reveals a youthful taste, but content is concerned, it is building a comprehensive video kingdom. What does it mean? Aiqiyi try its best to pursue the richness of content and cover as many users as possible. "Our characteristics are large and complete."

His logic is that television stations broadcast content 24 hours a day, with only 24 hours of content. However, I love Fantastic Art new content every day tens of thousands of hours, no time, space constraints. In this case, why do not we cover more types of content and user base when there are no bottlenecks in resources? Furthermore, the pursuit of special features will certainly abandon the public in an immature stage of the market. Once such a decision was made, Gong Yu did not think he was the largest participant in the integrated video and would inevitably lose some of its market, which clearly runs counter to his kingdom dream. In this tone, IK can only meet the personalized needs of users in different channels.

Gong Yu also aim at the third and fourth tier cities. Although the overall market share of iQIYI is not small, it is also well-known in the first and second tier cities, but its infiltration into third and fourth tier cities is not high. The incremental part of the entire smart phone, the most important distribution in this market. The value of this part of the user can not be ignored, SP era of gold Dafa has been very good evidence, so I love Fantastic Art sinking the channel will inevitably compete for this market.

But there are also video practitioners that are in the minds of users have a brand positioning, such as watching animation in Tudou, watching Sohu in Sohu, and so on. The general path is to give the user a reason to use your product, and then give him the appropriate recommendation. By a point to attract users, users may be more willing to believe you. However, this positioning must first find out, followed by independent support from a certain market size, such as the United States corresponds to the tens of millions of users, Sohu video can get it to work. On the contrary, if you always stress that everything has to attract users but more difficult, one is hard to do what you have, and second, users do not necessarily believe you have everything. "Spell big and you fight all but the user is very smart, even strong brand, in the user's mind is also a differentiated positioning."

Based on this reality, for the 56 network and other non-first camp video site, the fight volume and size of the basic war has ended, the content can only find their own differentiation by seeking to find their own position and seek stable. It is said that this year 56 network in the content input will no longer large-scale procurement of film and television and other resources, but mainly for the development of UGC and PGC.

At the traffic entrance, many video websites are embracing third-party platforms, and some websites even rely heavily on third-party diversion. "Because most companies are able to see that they can not become the industry's first, then more realistic at this time is to divide up some of the benefits you can get." The video practitioners said.

For Iki in the first camp, there is no escape route. The face of "users follow the status of content", can only continue to increase investment in content. In addition to purchase drama, they also pin their hopes on home-made dramas. Ma Dong and Gao Xiaosong Studio are the major sources of output for the content. However, Gong Yu also said that compared to the purchase of drama, home-made content traffic and income volume is not large, but we spotted this trend, may have made a home-made drama may be like "