Because I paid special attention to video websites in the past, there was also a separate "Podcast Observation" category in the blog article category. Suddenly I realized that I haven't written a video article for a long time. The last time I wrote it was at the end of 2008. More than a year has passed. Let's take a look at the current situation of video websites.
The leftover is king
In 2007, because I was responsible for the promotion of a certain video search engine, I had dealings with many video websites and established a relatively in-depth cooperative relationship. At that time, I mainly cooperated with video websites ranked within ALEXA 1000, which are so-called well-known video websites with traffic and brands. Now let’s take a look at the current situation of the video websites I have cooperated with before.
The world has changed. Some of the domain names of the video websites we cooperated with in the past can no longer be opened (TVIX is the representative). Although some are still alive, the websites are not as good as before, and they are still alive with some messy advertisements (mofile represented). Some are about to be merged (CCTV wants to merge with Baofeng Video?), some are on the market (I don’t know if Ku6 counts), and of course a few are still firmly in the first legion of video websites.
Video new force
From 2005 to 2010, after 4-5 years of cleaning up of video sharing websites, many video websites were eliminated and many new ones emerged. These new forces all have one thing in common: they all have strong website backgrounds. For example, Xunlei Kankan, CCTV, and Sohu HD have all joined the ranks of online video on demand, and Baidu Video is about to join this family of online video sharing. With the participation of some giants, the market structure of video websites has basically been finalized. But what is the real core competitiveness of video websites these days?
core competitiveness
As Internet speeds improve, user tastes improve, and national policies change, the core competitiveness of video websites is also changing. In the past, when building a video website, as long as the video playback speed was fast, the video content was rich and comprehensive, and the functions were perfect (full screen, fast forward, etc.), then spending money on advertising would attract a lot of users. But that’s not possible now, because some good video content is not something you can play if you want. Users are not only pursuing playback speed, but also have higher and higher requirements for picture quality. Therefore, the main comparison now is "film and television copyright and high-definition video". The former ensures rich and exciting video content, while the latter ensures user experience.
The pursuit of image quality
High-definition video does not have a high technical threshold for most video websites, but most high-definition video websites require users to install a plug-in first, which is a high threshold. Because many users are lazy, find it troublesome, and are unwilling to install clients or plug-ins. Xunlei Kankan's high-definition videos have developed rapidly in the past two years because of the advantages of Xunlei download, an already very popular client, which has lowered the threshold for users. Youku also launched the video client "i Cool" very early. It is also very convenient to download videos on Youku through "i Cool". I remember that when I wanted to download a video from a video sharing website, I had to think of various ways. Now many video websites have directly opened the download interface, which is more convenient for users.
Copyright is king
Finally, the most important thing is the copyright issue. With the national policy, the copyright management of audio and video is becoming more and more strict. Some video websites even directly block searches for these popular movie and TV drama keywords. Maybe at that time, some netizens could still download through some BT websites. Now BT websites are almost closed. If there are no video websites that provide online playback, they may have to return to the primitive society and spend money to buy pirated movies to watch.
On the other hand, if a video website has exclusive online broadcast rights or premiere rights for a certain popular TV series, how much will it help the website's popularity? For example, in the popular theater model, "My Leader, My Team" premiered on Youku in 2009. Subsequently, this film and television drama broadcast channel became the new favorite of new media. Various video websites have successively launched popular theaters and theme theaters. "Snail House" broadcast on Youku has also been played more than 90 million times. Copyright marketing promotes the process of genuineness, and copyright issues become the focus of competition. This also shows the importance of copyright. If some popular TV series can be exclusive or become one of the first broadcasts, the popularity they bring will be very obvious. Users who want to watch this TV series online will eventually find it here.
Video websites have also been involved in wars of words over copyright issues before. In particular, Youku has been hunted down by websites such as Sohu and Ku6 due to copyright issues. After a period of silence, Youku responded today. I saw relevant reports online. Youku was one of the first corporate representatives to join the Internet Copyright Working Committee of the China Copyright Association. At the same time, Youku announced the launch of a copyright management system to block infringing content (it should be videos containing infringing content, which cannot be uploaded), and stated that its copyright purchasing efforts will reach an unprecedented scale in 2010 (wait and see). I believe you can see it on Youku in the future. There are more good videos, and I don’t have to look everywhere for them.
Video websites supervise each other on copyright issues and promote each other. For ordinary users who like to watch videos online, they will not care about how the video websites compete, as long as they can see more videos. What a wonderful thing it is to spend the money of a video website to watch the videos we like to watch.
Mou Changqing (mcq0544) stayed
2010-1-20
The first address of this article is Mou Changqing’s Internet Promotion Blog: http://www.muchangqing.com (please keep it for reprinting)