Youdao dictionary How to use the Internet to do online education?

Youdao Dictionary is NetEase Company's most users of the client products. This March, this figure exceeded 300 million. When the size of the user base is established, according to the Chinese internet company's layout habits, the product will begin to assume the "channel" responsibility.

Youdao dictionary as a channel will lead to where? Answer: Online education.

Just released last week in the mobile version of the Youdao dictionary version 4.0, the development of nearly seven years of products officially with a new "posture" opened the exploration in this direction.

Recently, Youdao commercial products vice President, Youdao Dictionary product owner Bauta accepted the Tencent technology interview. He gave a detailed description of the proper way to understand the online education and the goal of their efforts.

Youdao Dictionary Application version 4.0 what does it mean?

Youdao dictionary for product upgrading has always appeared cautious. In the rapid upgrading of mobile application products in the environment, this product in addition to having added a "camera to take word" function, it is difficult to let people remember whether the interface has changed.

But this time, after six months of planning, Youdao dictionary with a brand-new interface to the user announced their new start.

In addition to zooming in and out of the search box, the most obvious change is the more bilingual reading and cloud book features that waterfall shows. The new dictionary application has become a carrier for carrying more content by modifying the architecture.

All this effort is a small attempt to develop online education. "Users will think of dictionaries as a helper in the English learning process, not just word-checking tools," he said. "Bauta explained.

It is easy to underestimate the potential of this function if you simply interpret it as an ordinary ebook. "This book is not only to see, but more importantly, there are many interactive functions to do." ”

Bauta, for example, is an ebook compiled by Youdao dictionaries. Books of this type, if placed online, can reach 100 million or 200 million sales a year. But to move to a mobile phone, the electronic image is not suitable for reading. So, Youdao team through their own labeling pictures, to help users realize the click of the picture-related location to understand the specific word expression function. This kind of human-computer interaction has a role to play in cultivating users ' understanding of online education.

In addition to learning the words, another type of English learning direction such as oral and listening learning can also be achieved through the use of cloud books. In the case of a crash course in spoken English, the user clicks on a sentence to hear the corresponding conversation. If you later upgrade this book, it will realize the machine to judge the accuracy of the user's oral presentation of educational testing tools.

In addition to allowing users to gradually form an online education in the form of awareness, in pay reading, this will become a dictionary of a revenue point.

As early as 2012, the mobile end of the Youdao Dictionary day installation has exceeded the PC side. At present, whether the installation of the day or the number of active users, the mobile end is more than a PC end of about one times. In Youdao Dictionary Online education exploration, the mobile end naturally becomes the important experimental plot of product innovation.

Youdao Dictionary How to understand online education?

Youdao dictionary to do online education confidence comes from the product accumulation of the user base.

"The dictionary itself is a channel where we can get users who have language learning needs, and the user's main body is white-collar workers and students." In this channel, there are many other needs, in addition to the content demand, such as the civil Service examination, the various English examinations or the professional subjects. Youdao dictionary as an entrance, you can complete the user to Youdao in the future of online education products introduced function. ”

Bauta Introduction, Youdao Dictionary is one of the largest advertisers are English training and online English education institutions, including EF, and so on. Such advertisers can spend tens of millions of of their advertising money each year. Their goal is to Youdao dictionaries to buy users, some institutions even for two or three consecutive years, this shows the platform's user value.

But how do you do online education? Bauta that the core should be the adoption of a more Internet approach, that is, more emphasis on learning time compact, more emphasis on interaction.

Like evolution from blogs to microblogs, the internet is moving toward a more simplistic form of product, and users ' product usage time is fragmented. Stretching to online learning can be found that students will also become more and more difficult to concentrate, therefore, online learning products need to be more streamlined.

In contrast to the relatively good online education products developed abroad, the Khan education content system is very short, a few minutes to explain a concept, so that students can be very focused to understand some content. In addition, there are more and more interactions in product design, including the way of doing problems or the form of interaction, can let students quickly test the effect of learning.

This kind of intelligent human-computer interaction technology will need to be solved by the human problem before the machine to complete. Machines, for example, determine the accuracy of a student's spoken language or the test of a student's ability to learn.

The other advantage of the Internet way of doing education is "personalized learning", through data mining, the product can understand the degree of knowledge that each student grasps. Compared to the traditional way of teaching thousand people, this kind of adaptation of individual learning methods can be targeted to help students, improve learning efficiency.

Industry competition and Cooperation situation

The current online education companies are divided into two categories, one is the traditional industry companies, one is the internet companies. But from the development of online education in China, these two kinds of companies do not really do online education.

Although there are a number of language training institutions through the online teaching attracts a group of students, and even make money, but the main model is still only to move offline, such as in the video to see the teacher teaching or voice telephone. This does not play a crucial role in detonating the market value of online education.

In Bauta's view, traditional industry companies, including the new Oriental, are not really able to put the best resources online, because online revenue is low, the introduction of resources on the line will depress the company's profitability. Therefore, the exploration of online mode is also very elementary.

But for internet companies, they lack the understanding of education and the lack of teacher resources, such a group of seemingly education in the field of outsiders to subvert the industry, now seems to be only in the process of learning.

Like NetEase Open class is also groping an online education model, but the entry point is different from Youdao dictionary. Teams of both sides sometimes need to learn from each other to analyze the market together. "Online education for NetEase is a very important thing, we need to try from different angles." ”

Bauta introduced, in the early stage of the industry, we are more than competitive relationships, but to find opportunities to cooperate. Just like Youdao announced into the online education market, some online education companies even volunteered to cooperate, hoping to put their own paid products to the channel to sell.

Judging by the future of the market, Bauta believes that although opportunities will be sought by startups, but rely on the internet to do things, according to China's actual situation, large companies will certainly participate. As for who can really dominate, netease expect Youdao dictionary can become their hands this "ticket".