On September 30, there are some zhihu users said that they had received an official invitation from zhihu, and the live broadcast of zhihu will be launched on October 11.However, Domatters China digital marketing found that on October 11, zhihu live did not support clicking on the headshot to jump to the user’s homepage.Just one day later, on Oct. 12, the live streaming port at the upper right corner of zhihu disappeared.According to ma li who is the first anchor of zhihu and an excellent respondent of topics such as user experience design, in her reply, “zhihu live broadcasting has been temporarily closed due to the need for development and improvement. It is estimated that it will be open again in a week.There is a feature to upgrade, so it is temporarily hidden.”Therefore, the live broadcasting port of zhihu may be “in and out of view” for a period of time and in a state of constant update.
Domatters China digital marketing asked zhihu for confirmation and received a reply that the live broadcast function had just started test operation.”We invited some anchors to conduct the test experience of the live broadcast, hoping to further debug and optimize the technology and content according to the operation situation and feedback, so as to bring better user experience.”That is to say, zhihu live broadcasting is still in the process of multiple rounds of technical adjustment and function improvement, and will be fully open in the future.
As for the live broadcast of zhihu online, although the function experience and other aspects are still being further improved, the related discussion has been gradually carried out, and the sound of looking down or questioning can be heard endlessly.As the largest knowledge content community in China, every adjustment and change of the community function of zhihu is accompanied by huge controversy. This time, it is still the old issue of zhihu — “commercialization”.Whether zhihu can catch the free ride?We don’t know.
Zhihu live broadcast is still a story of paying for knowledge
If it were not for the news report, many regular users of zhihu have not found that zhihu has launched a live broadcast function.Currently, zhihu’s live broadcast entrance is located at the top left of the homepage.When you click into the stream you can see the live content that users can make an appointment to watch.The start button is hidden in the top right of the secondary page.Not like the short video in the entire zhihu content stream, nor in the opening screen or home page position to do a strong promotion, the overall seems rather low-key.
In addition to the separate webcast page, you can also see live preview in the webcast’s “thoughts”.The “recommended” content stream does not yet have a relevant live presentation.Zhihu told Domatters that “high-quality live content will enter the recommended content stream in the future.”This also means that at that time, like short video, live broadcast will become a standard means and regular content in the content ecology of zhihu.
At present, zhihu video supports users to ask questions, comment on bullet screen, chat with users through the Internet, reward, and other behaviors. The reward gifts are based on “salt grains”, and various kinds of “salt grains” are set up.The settlement of salt grain and RMB is 1 RMB equal to 10 salt grains, which basically follows the normal rules of reward setting in the live broadcasting industry, and currently supports two payment methods of WeChat and alipay.As the first anchor of zhihu, ma li’s live broadcast lasted nearly two hours at noon on October 11, and more than 8,000 people watched it.Zhihu live streaming support back, but it seems that only live in the “idea” dynamic to find links.The entrance is deep and hard to be found.
Many people think that live streaming has a strong entertainment attribute, and web celebrity is a natural association for chatting.However, in terms of the selection and presentation of the webcast of zhihu, the selection and presentation of the webcast did not deviate from the category of knowledge payment, but still organized the content around knowledge.This is more like the video version of zhihu live, which is also similar to the “job broadcast” function.
Is zhihu live broadcast not expected by many people?
” Is Zhihu doing a live broadcast?This goes against the simplicity of zhihu, and it doesn’t accord with its audience and user habits.”Many people’s first reaction when they heard zhihu online live broadcast was two words: not match.
Many people are not optimistic about the prospects of zhihu live streaming.However, from the perspective of zhihu, it seems that there is no more effective breakthrough method.In the past few years, a lot of media and big V discussed and discussed, but also failed to really say why.Therefore, live broadcast seems to be a straw in zhihu’s eyes. No matter it is a compromise or a helpless choice, zhihu must seize it. Maybe only by trying can it have a chance.
At the beginning, zhihu was based on pictures which was more suitable for the expression and dissemination of serious content.Later, zhihu launched a short video function, which has made the outside world call it microblog and joke.Now zhihu has launched a live broadcast function, which has been criticized as “the sinking and falling of elite communities to mass entertainment”.An Internet product manager said, “at the end, I don’t realize that there is a gene for live streaming.”
Only from the discussion of the live broadcast itself, it seems that zhihu live broadcast is difficult to avoid fragmentation and low concentration of knowledge.At present, it seems that zhihu live broadcasting has not been able to solve the problem of uneven content quality existing in zhihu live in the past. In particular, it is more difficult to control the quality of content.Ma li also said frankly when answering related questions: “I feel that zhihu is more suitable for interactive and relatively fragmented sharing.Too structured sharing users may not be able to stop all the way.It’s easier to get everyone involved by answering questions and chatting.”
Of course, one way to combat fragmentation and low sensation is to make it more interesting.If the live broadcast can be called gao xiaosong’s xiao shuo, perhaps it is also a good way.But the question is how many people can make it interesting?Also afraid of low sense of gain, and very boring.At this point, the effective length of time subsequent users stay on the stream is telling.
“Live streaming is not a way to learn knowledge, but a follow and pastime behavior based on strong fan relationship,” said by an industry insider.However, when various gifts and comments appeared on the live interface of zhihu dav, some people thought that this kind of reward behavior was perfectly normal in the show studio.But this place in zhihu is full of a sense of ingratiation, even full of cheap sense.One person even offered this judgment and opinion that “it fully shows that the iron foot of barbarians will eventually break through the civilized society and the quick hand will reap the content platform.””We should either focus on education and focus on the purpose. Now the content of Live broadcasting is still paid for knowledge. How many people have this demand, or this demand is not satisfied by e-books, private courses and Live broadcasting, but Live broadcasting?”Some people in the industry think that zhihu live broadcast does not broaden the knowledge acquisition scene, and proposes better solutions to the existing problems in the past without a kind of feeling that shine at the moment.
From the perspective of the company, the live broadcast is obviously another commercial attempt and an approach to a mature profit model of zhihu.However, it is worth a huge question whether zhihu can achieve actual utility to what extent, create actual benefits to zhihu, and become successful.After all, if you look outside, zhihu live neither has barriers, nor has exclusive competitiveness.”We don’t deny that it may be a good thing, maybe a 6 or 7, but what zhihu needs is obviously something above 8 to solve its current practical problems.”
Are you optimistic about zhihu live broadcast?
When many people are eager to express their negative views on zhihu, there is no lack of rational and tolerant voices.
Many excellent respondents on zhihu spontaneously participated in the discussion on zhihu live broadcast.According to zhuang zexi, “the essence of zhihu live broadcast is” chatting with interesting people “.After all, those interesting souls used to appear only in two-dimensional pictures and pictures, but now they can communicate and discuss directly, which is a good thing in satisfying fans.But she thinks to want to develop good atmosphere: anchor answered my problem, just reward, what anchor says is dry goods is very useful, just reward habit, can benign development.Don’t get into the awkward situation of the anchor trading knowledge with the audience. Dee, the arbiter of zhihu, thinks that the changes brought by zhihu live broadcasting are as follows: “the demand changes from knowledge to content, the focus changes from information to people, and the consumption changes from rationality to sensibility.”
On the other hand, in the form of tools and plug-ins, live broadcasting is becoming the standard allocation of various video websites and information platforms. Whether it is youaiteng, toutiao, daily express, etc., live broadcasting is becoming a fixed page at the bottom. From this perspective, the introduction of live broadcasting on zhihu is not unexpected, but reasonable.
“Live broadcasting is a mature business model that has been proven by the market. The key to zhihu is how to adapt to local conditions.”Previously, some media expressed their attitude towards zhihu’s live broadcast.Whether it is a forced action under the business model or a “vulgar” action following the market form, zhihu live broadcast is only a new function which is put online for 2 days and is constantly adjusted in the internal test.Who can say that zhihu will not start a new wave of knowledge broadcasting?Or maybe, from the country to the city, from cooking to makeup, everything is knowledge, everything can live.
Meanwhile, zhihu’s exploration of commercialization has never stopped, but this year seems to be particularly urgent.From the first launch of membership service “salt selection members” on zhihu, to the production of “lang lang’s piano lessons” by PGC, the quality of the course content on zhihu has been improved.In August, zhihu launched MCN institutional recruitment and internal test of “good recommendation”, as well as the online live broadcasting function, which enriched the realization channels of users.Zhihu has been trying to develop a sustainable business model.
