Tik Tok and Bilibili are jealous of each other

A new APP "Qingtao" released by Douyin has made the author think about why Douyin has never given up trying in the field of medium and long videos, and even imitated the model of Bilibili. The author analyzes and discusses the current market situation and future development prospects. If you have also paid attention to this phenomenon and are very interested, then let's think about it and share your insights together!

Tik Tok has never wanted to miss out on the medium and long video market.

As early as May 2016, ByteDance launched "Toutiao Video". In June 2017, it upgraded "Toutiao Video" to "Xigua Video", which mainly features PGC (professionally produced content) videos, usually about 5 minutes long.

Recently, Douyin has quietly launched an APP called "Qingtao", with the slogan "See your passion". According to the introduction of the application, "Qingtao" is a knowledge video platform for young people's interests, and a related version of medium and long videos produced by Douyin. The video content of Qingtao is in line with the tastes of young people, including digital technology, science popularization, trendy sports, culture and art, etc., as well as special topics such as technology talks, new product evaluations, Chinese and foreign cultural stories, etc. Users can watch them continuously. Most importantly, there are no advertisements on the interface of the Qingtao APP.

From Qingtao, we can see that Qingtao Video has many similarities with Bilibili in terms of product positioning, user interface, video display format, etc. In 2023, why is Douyin still working on medium and long videos, and seems to be on the road of "imitating" Bilibili? Perhaps Douyin keeps trying to make medium and long videos, both to serve creators and to extend the user's usage time.

Zhi Ying, former head of Douyin content products and Xigua Video, once said in a public speech, "Douyin is not a short video, live broadcast, or graphic. Douyin cannot be summarized by any one content genre... What we need to do is to serve different people and meet the needs of different creators and users."

On the other hand, as the growth of user scale of major platforms stagnates, the length of time users spend on the platform has become a new focus. Therefore, in this case, compared with short videos, medium and long videos, which have a greater viewing time, are obviously not to be missed.

However, in the field of medium and long videos, the current top player Bilibili has firmly occupied the minds of users. According to the financial report, in the fourth quarter of 2022, Bilibili had 92.8 million daily active users, and the average daily usage time of each user was 96 minutes, a year-on-year increase of 51%. The average monthly paying users in 2022 reached 27.8 million. Compared with Bilibili, can Qingtao, which suddenly emerged, find a breakthrough in entering the medium and long video market?

1. Qingtao = Douyin’s knowledge content collection?

From the actual experience, Qingtao did not choose to access the content ecosystem accumulated by Xigua Video, but directly selected content from the Douyin content ecosystem. Users can select keywords of interest in the search box to find the content they want. The search results currently presented are all content that has been published by Douyin influencers.

Qingtao APP screenshot

The homepage of Qingtao is arranged in a double-column waterfall flow, and users can see the knowledge content recommended by the system. After clicking on the video, unlike Douyin, the video playback interface of Qingtao is not full screen, but there are recommended videos of the same type at the bottom.

Users can like, comment, collect or share videos, and follow the author. Once the author they follow releases a new video, users can see new messages in the follow column on the homepage. At a glance, except for the lack of the "one-click three-link" and barrage that are unique to Bilibili, Qingtao's playback interface and content style are similar to those of Bilibili. Since Qingtao videos have not been promoted on a large scale, the video playback volume we see on the homepage is relatively low, only between dozens and hundreds.

In the field of knowledge, Qingtao Video has a more detailed classification. On the discovery page, the content vertical categories include Internet frontiers, scientific exploration, sports and fitness, and culture and art. Below the categories, content is recommended according to themes. Compared with the knowledge area of ​​Bilibili, the classification is more detailed.

Qingtao APP screenshot

After checking dozens of pieces of content, Kas found that Qingtao's videos were basically migrated from Douyin. Although there were no advertisements, there was no fresh and exclusive information. Compared with Douyin and Bilibili, Qingtao's viewing experience was greatly reduced because it had no comments and bullet screens. However, in the knowledge category that Qingtao wanted to focus on, the high-quality creators seemed to be concentrated on Bilibili.

In June 2020, the Knowledge Zone of Bilibili was established. As a new force, it quickly adapted to the needs of Generation Z and also established the brand of "learning platform" for Bilibili. In 2021, the Knowledge Zone has taken an advantageous position with the achievements of 13 top 100 UP masters on the list. In 2022, the boundaries between various content platforms have become more blurred, and Bilibili, as a long video platform that produces PUGC content, has become particularly important to strengthen content barriers and build a solid content "moat". Therefore, general knowledge content is still an important engine of Bilibili's content ecology.

The desire for in-depth content is the keyword for Bilibili in 2022. At the same time, the knowledge area has begun to move towards verticalization, specialization, and refinement. This trend is born out of user content consumption needs and is closely related to the age stage and interest circle of Bilibili. According to statistics from Kas, a total of 13 knowledge area UP hosts were on the top 100 list in 2022, covering many fields such as law, history, international, reading, classroom, and popular science . In addition to the familiar @罗翔说刑法 and @硬核的半佛仙人, there are many well-deserved UP hosts, such as the biological science expert @芳斯塔芙, the Tianjin history teacher who can't speak fast board @正正讲史-李Str, etc.

B station UP master @正正讲史-李Str

For a new product, the problems facing Qingtao are still obvious: how to attract better creators? How to enable creators to continue to create high-quality knowledge content? How to gain highly sticky users and make them trust and rely on the platform?

Judging from the successful content-driven platforms in the past, a product must first clarify its platform positioning when it is first created. It is difficult for users to fit a second Bilibili in their mobile phones, and there is not enough motivation to download a horizontal version of Douyin. Therefore, if Qingtao wants to occupy a place in the market, it must be unique in its positioning and provide users with social needs that cannot be met on other platforms. However, from the existing information, Qingtao is more like a collection of Douyin knowledge content, and does not carry more value.

The tool attributes of a platform can quickly attract the first batch of users and cultivate certain user usage habits, but at the same time there will be problems with static information flow and insufficient user stickiness. The lack of user stickiness is mainly reflected in the small number of platform usage scenarios and low opening frequency, and the platform and users cannot generate two-way sticky interaction.

If Qingtao wants to gain a firm foothold and compete with Bilibili, its next step will most likely be to expand its product categories and content around the core needs of users and occupy the minds of users with high-quality content.

2. Tik Tok and Bilibili are jealous of each other

Qingtao Video is not ByteDance’s first attempt at medium and long-length videos.

Xigua Video was once ByteDance's leader in the field of medium and long videos. In 2020, ByteDance paid 630 million yuan to buy the movie "Lost in Russia" directed by Xu Zheng, and then invited people across the country to watch the movie on Xigua Video for free. In October 2020, Xigua Video launched the "Mid-length Video Partner Program". At that time, Xigua Video stated that it would spend 2 billion yuan within a year to subsidize creators.

At the same time, Xigua Video also started a crazy war to poach people. Many UP hosts with a lot of reputation on Bilibili, such as @魔师财经, @毒角show, @信誓蛋蛋, etc., have entered Xigua Video. In August 2022, @魔师财经 returned to Bilibili. (After "leaving" and returning, @魔师财经 cannot reproduce the glory of yesterday)

Image source: @Wizard Finance video screenshot

Judging from public information, Xigua Video is not strong enough in the battle of medium and long videos, and Bilibili still occupies an advantageous position. In the fourth quarter of 2022, Bilibili had 92.8 million daily active users, a year-on-year increase of 29%. The average daily usage time of users was 96 minutes, and the total usage time increased by 51% year-on-year. In 2022, Bilibili's total revenue reached 21.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13%. Among them, the revenue in the fourth quarter reached 6.14 billion yuan, and the net loss narrowed by 29% year-on-year.

However, the content and business model of Bilibili, which is mired in losses, are not perfect examples.

Starting from 2022, Bilibili has reduced the share of playback rewards for UP hosts because its top priority is to increase revenue and stop losses and it pays more attention to monetization. At that time, some UP hosts said that "creator incentives have been reduced by 90%."

From the financial report released later, it can be seen that the income distributed by Bilibili to UP masters has not shrunk, but increased. In 2022, Bilibili's operating costs were 18 billion yuan, and the revenue sharing costs increased by 18% year-on-year to 9.1 billion yuan . In the fourth quarter of 2022 alone, more than 1.3 million UP masters earned income on Bilibili through various channels, a year-on-year increase of 64%. As for the use of the increased sharing costs, the financial report stated that it was mainly used to incentivize/share UP masters in live broadcast and advertising businesses.

But inevitably, by March 2023, the Bilibili community began to face a crisis of "UP hosts collectively stopping updating". According to statistics from Leopard Change, among the top 100 UP hosts of Bilibili in 2018, nearly 20% of them have stopped updating.

Qingtao Video was just starting out, and the UP masters on Bilibili were "stopping updates" due to a sharp drop in creative income. This coincidence is also full of drama. Technology blogger Lan Xi once joked, "Whenever the UP masters on Bilibili who generate electricity with love can't survive, ByteDance will launch a product to subsidize the UP masters on Bilibili to help them get through the trough."

Of course, this statement is just a joke. At least until today, we have not seen Qingtao announce any creative incentives and subsidy policies.

Bilibili, which is being "imitated", is actually also "imitating" Douyin. The two have learned and penetrated each other, Douyin is making long videos, and Bilibili is making short videos. In 2021, Bilibili began to vigorously promote the popularity of vertical screen short videos on the site, and named this mode Story-Mode. The video playback volume generated by Story-Mode not only brings new business to the entire platform, but also its own growth rate on the site is also very fast. The financial report shows that in 2022, the user activity of Story-Mode on Bilibili was 28%; in the fourth quarter of 2022, Bilibili's average daily video playback volume reached 3.9 billion times, a year-on-year increase of 77%.

It may be the norm for Internet platforms to enter each other's territory. But being able to stay at the forefront has never been about imitation. Previously, within the ByteDance system, new apps were released one after another, but there seemed to be very few that could stand out on their own, and only Douyin remained at the top. Whether Qingtao can successfully stand out from the crowd of projects remains a big question mark.

Author: Lou Xingchui

Source: WeChat public account: "CaasData (ID:caasdata6)"