Retaining users after special traffic still needs to practice internal skills
"House economy" is facing the test of falling popularity
In the early stage of the outbreak of the New Coronary Pneumonia epidemic, the flow of a variety of apps based on the demand for "home" surged. However, as the speed of resuming production and resuming production has accelerated, the popularity of some apps has declined.
Taking the "Home-to-Home Food Talent Competition" as an example, the download volume of the next kitchen app skyrocketed nearly 6 times from the end of January to mid-February. However, as the domestic epidemic is gradually controlled, from the last week of February to mid-March, the number of daily active users of the App decreases at a rate of 10% per week, and it stabilizes at the end of March.
The epidemic prevention and control is not slack, the "house economy" is still standing in the air, but online entertainment, remote office and other apps to retain users still need to hone their internal skills.
After the resumption of work, "house economy" data fell
When the epidemic broke out, many young people walked into the kitchen and were forced to "open." On Weibo, there was a "competition for home-cooked food talents", with a cumulative reading of 380 million topics and over 110,000 discussions. Xiaohongshu, WeChat circle of friends and other public opinion fields were quickly captured by food.
Wang Xusheng, CEO of Xia Kitchen, recalled that Xia Kitchen App specially launched "One-click Generation Menu" and "Guidelines for Surviving Homes in the Epidemic Period" and other columns, so that the cooking skill "Xiao Bai" became a "master chef". However, as the domestic epidemic situation is gradually controlled, the number of daily live users in the kitchen has dropped. "We speculate that the flow will return to a relatively normal state after the whole school starts throughout the country."
Although social activities such as visiting relatives and friends, chess and card entertainment were forced to be cancelled, the Internet connected every “island”, and the popularity of social games rose rapidly during the epidemic.
The game app, which allows players to exchange voice online, ushered in a new high on Jan. 24, with a 10 times increase in downloads and a 5x increase in daily users. The founder of the ever-changing detective Liu Jian told reporters that at present, the number of users has stabilized. Although it has fallen by half from the peak, it is also twice the number of daily active users during the same period.
The prices of game console Switch and fitness ring, which netizens call the "best financial product of 2020", have also dropped. In order to meet people's needs for indoor activities, the price of fitness rings has risen steadily, reaching a maximum of 1900 yuan, almost four times the selling price. In early March, after the enterprises in various regions resumed work one after another, the price of fitness rings also dropped to about 1,500 yuan.
Home office makes the remote office system "just needed". After more than 10 years of development, the online office and video conferencing apps that are not on the popular track quickly overtake. Baidu data shows that from January 28 to February 3, the search index for "remote office" soared 521% month-on-month.
Qian Min, general manager of Tencent Cloud Office Collaborative Product Center, said that during the epidemic, the online office industry was born with new application scenarios and user needs.
Need to grind the details after the flow test
Staying at home gives people the opportunity to try things they did n’t have time to do.
After the 90's cooking "Xiaobai" Wang Huanhuan participated in the online homemade cold skin contest, which lasted 8 hours. In her view, this kind of food is not usually done because of the high difficulty factor and the cumbersome steps, but now there is time and energy. "It is the only choice at home, not only a sense of accomplishment, but also a There is work all day long. "
Apart from cooking, young people still miss the days of meeting with friends. They ca n’t meet offline and meet in online games. Liu Jian told the reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily that during the period of the "home", the ever-changing detective server crashed 4 times, and then 17 new servers were added. Programmers need to work overtime to repair and expand the capacity.
"The surge in users is both an opportunity and a challenge." Liu Jian said frankly that it was difficult and time-consuming to organize, and it has always been the pain point for the script to kill the industry. However, during the epidemic, this pain point was resolved, and online social games not only met the entertainment needs of young people, but also met their social needs.
Not only that, when young people in first- and second-tier cities return home for the New Year, they also bring new gameplay back to their hometowns, which is also an important reason for the surge in data. In addition to the increase in users, he also found that the number of scripts submitted by original authors has tripled, and the quality of the script has also improved significantly. "For many part-time creators, they have a lot of time to calm down and think about combing logic and creating peace of mind." .
But the proliferation of users and creators has also created new problems. Liu Jian said that in addition to insufficient capacity, there is also the problem of server architecture. Because the original App is a stand-alone version, programmers need to change the entire server architecture to an unlimited expansion mode. "During that time, everyone worked day and night to completely solve the traffic problem and let the entire system get a training experience."
A large number of office needs in extraordinary times have made remote office apps become popular models. At the end of December 2019, Tencent Meeting, which supports multi-person remote meetings, went online. Within two months of launch, the number of daily active accounts exceeded 10 million. Starting from January 29th, the Tencent meeting will expand resources every day. The average daily expansion of cloud hosts is close to 15,000 units, and the total capacity expansion exceeds 8 million units in 8 days, involving a total of more than one million cores of computing resources.
The online meeting app also needs to solve detailed issues such as online multi-person speeches, communication files, and online screen recording, and even "whether to be beautiful" has become the focus.
Qian Min explained that in a meeting, "seeing" is more efficient than "hearing". If you can see each other's expressions, perceive each other's emotions, and read each other's eyes, the meeting efficiency can be greatly improved. However, many people have a psychological burden on the video connection, worrying that their image is not good, or their own messy environment will affect the meeting effect. To this end, Tencent Conference launched video beauty, background blur and other functions.
Whether staged needs can become a habit remains to be tested
Nowadays, people who have been at home for more than two months can't wait to go out. The high German map index shows that the congestion in Beijing's morning and evening peaks is gradually returning to normal. On April 1, Beijing's morning peak congestion rate increased by 2.4% compared with March 16, and the evening peak increased by 6.3%.
Can previous staged needs really change people's habits? Qian Min said: "Working online during the epidemic has made people gradually accustomed to the efficient communication method of video conferencing." This does not require additional competition for conference room resources, and can quickly join the meeting through mobile phones, computers, and small programs to improve communication efficiency. .
Qian Min said that the epidemic flow has its particularity, but it is not unsustainable. Through the practice during the epidemic, existing problems, such as cross-enterprise communication, have been reduced to a more cost-effective solution.
"The epidemic seems to bring the family closer. The picture of the family squeezing together in the kitchen to cook and eat together around the table is the simplest warmth." Wang Xusheng believes that there will be a group of users who feel the joy of cooking. Stickiness will also result from this.
In addition, the fever of instant food products caused by the epidemic remains unabated, which will drive catering companies to continue to research and develop online semi-finished products and fast food products. Following the launch of convenience dishes in early February, Haidilao launched two instant food products, such as instant hot and sour powder and rice, in online stores in early April.
At the same time, the epidemic situation abroad is still grim, and China's "house economy" enterprises may usher in overseas market layout. Currently, the international version of Tencent Meeting VooV Meeting has been launched in more than 100 countries and regions around the world.
China Youth Daily · China Youth Network reporter Chen Lu Xie Wanfei Source: China Youth Daily