Duoduo Short Video, returning to the original ecology of "moving content"?

Does Pinduoduo's move to the Duoduo Video page on its homepage mean that it intends to join the short video market? Is this move intended to challenge Douyin and Kuaishou, or is it just a self-protection strategy for Pinduoduo under the fierce offensive of other short video platforms? This article analyzes Pinduoduo's new move in the Duoduo Video business in detail, and attempts to analyze the content characteristics of this short video page that was born out of a shopping platform. It is suitable for those who are interested in short videos.

Pinduoduo finally moved Duoduo Video, which had been idle on the second-level page, to the homepage, giving Duoduo Video the weight of a first-level entrance. This change allowed short video peers to see Pinduoduo's determination to enter the short video track.

At present, the short video platform structure, with Douyin and Kuaishou as the main ones and Video Number and Xiaohongshu as the auxiliary ones, is basically stable. The top ones hold the traffic and original content tightly, the second tier is constantly catching up, and the latecomer Duoduo Video is bound to go through the old path of opening up content and users again.

The entertainment value officer observed that Pinduoduo’s current strong support for Duoduo Video should be a defensive strategy against Douyin and Kuaishou. The old strategy of “withdrawing money after watching videos” is obviously not as effective in attracting new users as during the Pinduoduo period. Even the bonus system that encourages creators has been criticized by creators as “a scam”... Does Duoduo Video still have hope of challenging the fast versions of Douyin and Kuaishou?

1. Entering the short video track, Pinduoduo restarts the "coin throwing" mode

According to 36Kr, the DAU of Pinduoduo's (PDD) short video business "Duoduo Video" has exceeded 150 million from the end of 2022 to the beginning of 2023, and is currently stable at 100-120 million. The peak user duration is over 40 minutes, and is currently stable at around 30 minutes. Although Duoduo Video's DAU is still behind Douyin (over 600 million) and Kuaishou (nearly 400 million), it has now exceeded Xiaohongshu (nearly 100 million), and the user duration is also similar to WeChat Video Account.

Duoduo Video is a short video platform under the domestic e-commerce company Pinduoduo. Users can see "Live Broadcast" below the Pinduoduo homepage. This is the Duoduo Video entrance that was recently independent in the menu bar. The entertainment value officer found that the content of Duoduo's short videos is mainly for bringing goods and planting grass, and there are also some entertainment content.

The product promotion settings of Duoduo Video are similar to those of Douyin, Kuaishou, and Video Account. Below the live broadcast page is a link to the video-related products, and the commission income is settled after the order is placed . You don't need to open your own store to promote products on Duoduo Video, and you don't need to ship or provide after-sales service. The operation and entry difficulty are lower than those of Douyin and Kuaishou.

In order to attract more users, Pinduoduo chose to continue using its favorite method of attracting new users - cash incentives. Users who sign in for 7 consecutive days to complete the task can receive up to 34 yuan . Every time a user watches a video content, Pinduoduo will give the user a corresponding reward and transfer it directly to WeChat change. Pinduoduo's series of incentive plans and subsidy policies are all aimed at serving the video content traffic pool and retaining user viewing time. However, the entertainment value officer saw on Zhihu and many platforms that netizens expressed dissatisfaction with the cash withdrawal of Duoduo Video.

One netizen shared that he started with 100 gold coins for one yuan, and as the amount increased, the difficulty of cashing out also increased. "When it reached 7 yuan, I got it in less than half an hour on the same day, but it was a bit difficult to get to 15 yuan after 7 yuan. I spent several days on it and forgot the details. But the difficulties are still to come!"

"At the beginning, the rate was 10,000 gold coins per cent, but from 19.70 to 19.80, it became 20,000 gold coins per cent. And from 19.80 to 19.95, it became 80,000 gold coins per cent. After 19.95, which was almost 5 cents short of 20 yuan, it suddenly became 200,000 gold coins per cent. So in short, it is very difficult to withdraw cash." From the experience of netizens, we found that although the 20 yuan withdrawal incentive policy of Pinduoduo Video exists, the process of successfully withdrawing all the cash is still relatively complicated.

2. Want to get the free stuff, but get cheated by the platform instead

In order to enrich the content and encourage creators to join, Pinduoduo also uses the old routine of bonus incentives. At present, there are many courses on the Internet that teach experts how to join and earn rewards on Duoduo Video. The entertainment value officer saw from the promotional materials that the subsidy for Duoduo Video is very large and is indeed attractive.

According to the incentive policy of Duoduo Video, only those with at least 1 million fans outside the platform are eligible to apply for the platform's 3-month guaranteed subsidy. Different numbers of fans correspond to different subsidy amounts: 1 million to 5 million fans, 3,000 yuan per month; 5 million to 10 million fans, 8,000 yuan per month; and 10 million fans or more, 10,000 yuan per month. It is not that you will definitely get the subsidy if you meet the fan count requirements. You also have to complete the platform's task requirements, including the number of articles published each month, and the number of popular articles achieved on Duoduo Video that month must be greater than or equal to 2.

Therefore, although the amount of subsidies provided by Duoduo Video is not small, if the corresponding number of fans and task requirements are considered, Duoduo Video actually has limited appeal to influencers. Therefore, there emerged teams that took advantage of the early regulatory chaos on the platform and offered generous cash rewards.

However, after Pinduoduo gave Duoduo Video a higher weight, it also operated Duoduo Video more meticulously, relaxed the standards for introducing talents, and expanded the scope of incentives. The popular plan divides talents into Gold V3, Gold V2, Gold V1, Silver V3, and Silver V2. The grading assessment not only looks at the number of fans but also the quality of the content. The official page of Pinduoduo shows that the platform will determine the account level based on a variety of factors such as the materials provided by the user when applying, the content published, and the situation outside the site. Once the level is assessed, appeals are not supported for the time being. Creators with more than 100,000 fans outside the site can be identified as Silver V1 and above.

The cash subsidy for talents under the Popularity Plan is not based on a guaranteed income, but is calculated based on the number of popular posts. For example, a gold V2-level talent can get a cash subsidy of 500 yuan for each popular post he or she gets, and there is no upper limit on the number of popular posts.

A certain MCN agency started to build a talent matrix for Duoduo Video in mid-September last year. It has nearly 500 talents on Pinduoduo and a monthly income of about 100,000 yuan. According to the person in charge, this income is already high on Pinduoduo, as many MCN agencies only earn around 10,000 yuan a month. When Tencent launched Weishi in 2018, the monthly income of the agencies that introduced talents on Weishi could reach up to millions.

However, don’t think that the platform’s money is so easy to get. The entertainment value officer watched @比高bigao’s video sharing and found out, “ Why do some big guys have more than 500 gold medal accounts in the background, but are cheated by Duoduo Video ?” He shared this friend’s experience. Duoduo Video “has a backhand”: if you want to certify the gold medal, it is very simple to get started, and it also supports traffic, but when you want to withdraw the reward, Duoduo Video requires the expert to verify it through the backstage private message. This means that when you “port” a talent when you settle in, you have to use his identity verification, which results in the “big guy” not being able to withdraw the reward. It is equivalent to treating the “porters” as free workers.

3. “Acquiescence” in copying? Returning to the original ecology of content

In fact, as early as the beginning of 2020, Pinduoduo had already begun to lay out its video business. At that time, the Duoduo video entrance only appeared on the second-level page of the "Personal Center", behind the Duoduo Orchard, Duoduo Love Elimination and other functions. Many users did not pay attention to the existence of this column. In order to cope with the impact of short video platforms such as Douyin, Pinduoduo began to merge the scattered live broadcast and short video businesses, and internally referred to this business as "Video View", codenamed "VV". Today, Pinduoduo has upgraded the short video entrance to the first-level entrance at the bottom of the App homepage. This move is also to show the outside world its determination to increase its investment in short videos.

Duoduo Video has also introduced different levels of incentives for influencers and MCNs, with a basic income of 150 yuan and no upper limit on the bonus, ranging from 10,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan. Driven by the huge profits and traffic, the phenomenon of "video porting" has reappeared.

The entertainment value officer also saw some teaching content on how to "move" videos . After digging up news and videos about life skills that moms like to watch, they can find videos about common sense and add some products to sell. The cost is only to "move up the video", and there is also profit...

This shows that the Duoduo video content of hosts Wang Xiaoqian and Shen Tao reported by the media may indeed be produced by the copying team. In addition, Zhihu and Toutiao have published some content related to "Duoduo video product promotion project, brainless copying tips to make over 10,000 yuan a month", and the number of teams that take advantage of the short period of platform infringement to earn Duoduo video bonuses and commercial benefits is also increasing.

Regarding the fact that Duoduo Video does not deliberately pursue the phenomenon of "copying", the Entertainment Value Officer interviewed a head of an MCN organization, who told us that this is an old routine for new platforms to increase the volume of content, indulging the copycats and forcing the original creators to take the initiative to settle in, and ultimately achieve the goal of killing two birds with one stone . Regarding the issue of holding the original creators accountable, the head told the Entertainment Value Officer that the platform can first use the safe harbor principle to exempt itself from liability, and at the same time start supervision at the appropriate time, but at this point it has already "freeloaded" the results of the copycats .

As the content of Duoduo Video increases, the content governance issues that follow become more and more prominent. Porters of pure entertainment videos can hardly get subsidies, because the income of pure entertainment videos depends on platform subsidies, and Duoduo Video's settlement is very strict. The influencer needs to send the key of the video on other platforms to the platform to verify that the video being ported belongs to the influencer before he can get the income. The ported content on Duoduo Video is mostly concentrated in the field of e-commerce short videos . E-commerce short videos earn income from commissions for bringing goods. This part of the transaction and accounting does not go through the platform, so it is difficult to form effective system supervision and platform governance for the time being.

@比高Bigao also consulted with Duoduo Video’s BD to verify the withdrawal problem of the big V. The other party confirmed that the withdrawal requires a private message from the influencer. Therefore, those creators who want to take advantage of the platform are taken advantage of by the platform instead. The blogger also emphasized that we should not be superstitious about gold medal accounts, let alone matrix gold medals. We should sell gold medal accounts as soon as possible. On the contrary, newly registered newbie users have great advantages .

At present, the short video platform structure with Douyin and Kuaishou as the main players and Video Number and Xiaohongshu as the auxiliary players has been basically established. The top players hold the traffic and original content tightly, and the latecomers still need to go through the old path of pioneering. At present, Duoduo Video should be a defensive strategy of Pinduoduo against Douyin and Kuaishou . The old strategy of "withdrawing cash after watching videos" seems to have weakened effect. Will Duoduo Video attract users of Kuaishou Express and Douyin Express? The entertainment value officer will continue to pay attention.

Author: Liu Nana, Editor: Zhang Xian

Source: Public Account: Cultural and Entertainment Value Officer (ID: wenyujiazhiguan), value deconstructor of cultural entertainment, new consumption, and commercial technology.