China News Network, June 6 (Zhongxin Financial Reporter Zuo Yuqing) "Our main focus is companionship. To say something revealing: I'll be back..." its official Weibo post said after the Tianya community was inaccessible.
However, how to save the "youth" of the first generation of netizens? Tianya, which encountered difficulties in liquidity of funds, finally chose the answer to the "end of the universe" - live streaming goods.
Can feelings triumph over reality?
The people who initiated the live broadcast were the former employees of Tianya.
On May 5, Song Zheng (Xiaohei), one of the initiators of the event and former executive editor of Tianya Community, confirmed the news, saying that through the "Seven Days and Seven Nights to Restart Tianya" live broadcast charity sale, 16 million yuan will be raised to help Tianya pay its arrears to telecommunications, so that Tianya can restart.
Can feelings help the end of the world create miracles?
On the evening of June 6, Song Zheng announced the final delivery data in the live broadcast room: as of 3:3 on the 18rd, a total direct income of 00,14 yuan was completed through the Douyin platform, of which 99,6451 transactions were made, with a total transaction of 36,1, an estimated profit of 8,43 and a tip income of 6,56; in addition to donations brought by other platforms, 368 people donated a total of 54766,20 yuan. According to this calculation, the total amount raised by the live broadcast bazaar was only about <>,<> yuan.
"We're just off the air, it's not over." Song Zheng said.
Weibo screenshot
This result was already foreshadowed on the day of the live broadcast debut: third-party data showed that the sales of the "Restart Tianya" live broadcast room on the night of May 5 were 28,2-5,5 yuan, of which only more than 120 commemorative T-shirts printed with "Seven Days and Seven Nights to Restart Tianya" were sold.
In the face of the new product of the Internet of "live streaming goods", Tianya, which only prepared for half a month to "catch ducks on the shelves", obviously showed that it was not adaptable. There are reports that these activity volunteers, mainly based on the "post-70s" and "post-80s", are basically the first time to contact live broadcasting, and they are learning and selling now, starting from scratch.
For example, its live broadcast debut caused some users to be dissatisfied due to the many noise and chaotic rhythm of the live broadcast; On June 6, the fifth day of the live broadcast, a lychee was listed in the live broadcast room, but because the cover image of the shopping cart was not prepared in advance, it could only be replaced with the picture of the "Tianya Timeline Commemorative Card", and there were many interruptions, and the live broadcast mobile phone was also changed during the period. At that time, there were only more than 1,5 people online in the live broadcast room.
On June 6, there were many stutters in the live broadcast room of "Restart the World".
However, the "Tianya people" who appeared in the live broadcast room did not avoid these "questions". Song Zheng even took the initiative to reveal in the live broadcast that he had considered displaying the real-time figures of the funds raised on the back panel of the live broadcast room, "but his ability was really limited and he didn't do it."
Zhongxin Finance noted that on June 6, the sales volume of the "Restart Tianya" commemorative T-shirt did not exceed 2, while the sales volume of the Tianya commemorative gift box with a price tag of 300 yuan was 999. Even if there are Tianya "old people" such as Tianxia Basing and Kong Ergou to help, and Xing Ming, the founder of Tianya, personally appeared, the live broadcast of the Tianya community has always been "bleak".
Can't keep up with the times, not just because of money
The Tianya community, which has been online for 24 years and has registered 1 million users, once widely covered the "post-3s" to some "post-60s" Internet groups, carrying the youth memories of a generation of netizens.
"Once you enter the world, it is as deep as the sea." An old Tianya user in his 40s recalled to Zhongxin Finance, "Tianya's entertainment gossip section is the hottest, and I often read breaking news on it when I was in college. ”
In its heyday, Tianya Community was not only the birthplace of many popular Internet events such as "Xiaoyueyue", but also a group of Internet celebrities such as "Sister Furong", circulating Internet buzzwords such as "Banzhu", "Tu Version" and "Shenma are floating clouds", and many super IPs emerged: "Wulin Gaiden", "Ghost Blowing Lamp", "Those Things in the Ming Dynasty" and "Get Out!" Tumor Jun" ...
However, after more than ten years of prosperity, Tianya, which was listed in 2015, fell into continuous losses and chose to delist in 2019 due to "listing maintenance costs" and other reasons.
On April 4, Zhongxin Finance found that the official website of Tianya Community displayed "This page cannot be accessed".
Pan Haidong, founder of Interactive Encyclopedia and an investor in ByteDance, believes that the most valuable thing for Tianya now is its brand, not its content.
From Baidu Tieba and QQ Space to Weibo, WeChat, and now Douyin and Kuaishou, in the wave of mobile Internet, Tianya has never been able to seize the second opportunity of the times, and it is difficult to regain a place in the online world after allowing popular IPs to leave in the early stage.
Is it the times that abandon the end of the world?
On June 6, Xing Ming appeared in the "Restart Tianya" live broadcast room and responded: "The decline of Tianya is not the cause of the times, but its own reason. ”
"Tianya positioning is 'home', only providing basic rules, is a decentric model that allows netizens to become the master." Xing Ming admits that Tianya's transformation was very unsuccessful: "I did a short video live broadcast from 2014 to 2016, but because I couldn't burn money, I couldn't keep up in 2016." ”
"There were differences in the development of social networking or on the media function, and there were often internal differences." Xing Ming said, "We don't have enough concentration and focus. ”
If it can be restarted, where should Tianya go?
Although there is little hope of crowdfunding through live broadcasting, Tianya still envisages the arrangements after the restart in the live broadcast room.
"Actually, we were still working on it at the last minute." Xing Ming said in the live broadcast room on the evening of June 6, "Even after the shutdown, we are still communicating with many parties. ”
In fact, Xing Ming has repeatedly promised in the live broadcast that the data of the Tianya community will not be lost, and he will try his best to retain the posts, blog posts and god posts made by netizens on Tianya.
On June 6, Xing Ming, founder of Tianya, Song Zheng (Xiaohei), former executive editor of Tianya Community, and Pan Chao, a technology self-media person, connected microphones in the live broadcast room.
In the live broadcast, Song Zheng also proposed, "We don't want Tianya to restart in the form of a vegetative person, but hope it can be revived." ”
"Netizens gave great motivation." Xing said, "If there are 300 million, we hope to resume providing basic services in about a month." Everyone wants to upgrade the version of Tianya, we also have a 3-6 month upgrade plan. ”
He envisions a reboot as the first step, with subsequent restructuring and refactoring even more important. "How to go from niche to mass, we hope to start again from the accumulated user base."
"The green mountains are not covered, and the end of the world is not far away." On May 5, the official Weibo of Tianya Community wrote in response to the recent announcement of the suspension of access to the service: "First of all, we must find the original intention of Tianya and find the genetic code that Tianya people once had a sense of belonging. Generations will eventually change, and cooking tobacco will be gone, but people's desire to find their homeland and homeland will become stronger from generation to generation. ”
Zhongxin Finance noticed that although there were also "post-95s" who appeared in the live broadcast room and left a message, "Pure passers-by, who have heard of the name of Tianya, have ordered a book, and hope for a long time and will not be disappointed", but the data of the seven-day "restart Tianya" live broadcast obviously did not reach the original goal.
Xing Ming seems to have expected such a result in his previous live broadcast. Regardless of the outcome, he said, the seven-day livestream would be a "rescue operation marked by history." (End)