As Youku closes the front-end playback volume, the traffic era is also coming to an end. | asian games slot, megapoker88 link alternatif, jos88 slot

"Break the noise and return to your true heart."

On January 18, Youku said this in a new statement. According to the statement, Youku said that it will turn off the front-end play volume display on the entire site and replace it with the "Youku Popularity Index" calculated by calculating the multi-dimensional behavior of users on the entire Youku platform. This approach is exactly the same as last September when iQiyi announced that it would shut down front-end playback.

In Youku's statement, it said that this move is to create a more benign industrial environment and return to the essence of content. Ratings and playback volume cannot fully reflect the social value of film and television programs. The influence and guiding significance of a literary and artistic work cannot be measured by such a single indicator. He said, "This is only the first step. I believe that more online platforms will join in the future."

After iQiyi closed the front-end playback volume, Youku also became one of them. It seems that the only "standard" used to judge the quality of film and television works-the number of views has gradually been abandoned by the market. Instead, it is a more comprehensive and objective "heat index". Judging from the operation of iQiyi's popularity index, this criterion seems to be more comprehensive, and makes "brushing volume" to buy playback volume a thing of the past. The data starts to look more realistic.

Does Youku's move mean that online content will end the traffic era? Will more platforms choose to turn off playback in the future? What should a truly objective and healthy evaluation system look like?

Close the playback volume and break the two "supremacy"

Once upon a time, broadcast volume and ratings dominated the film and television industry. The two represent online platforms and TV stations respectively, and are important indicators for measuring the quality of film and television works. This time, Youku chose to turn off the front-end playback volume in order to eliminate the two "supremeties": ratings first and playback volume first.

As the word "traffic" becomes more and more important in film and television content, situations such as "traffic" and buying ratings are gradually appearing in the market. However, although major video websites have increasingly tightened control over the phenomenon of brushing, they still cannot completely curb it. As a result, in order to make the industry more high-quality and benign, both regulatory agencies and the platform itself have made useful explorations.

In September 2018, iQiyi issued a statement, announcing that it would close the front-end playback volume of all iQiyi sites from now on, and replace it with content popularity based on comprehensive user discussion, interaction volume, and multi-dimensional playback indicators. After the statement was released, triggering huge discussions and controversies in the industry. At that time, the other two major video platforms Youku and Tencent Video did not follow suit, but were in a wait-and-see attitude.

In fact, relevant departments have already taken action to supervise data such as broadcast volume and ratings. In July 2016, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television made it clear that it would conduct a special survey on the click volume of online audio-visual programs and sort out the release and use of communication effect evaluation data. At the 2017 National People's Congress meeting, Cao Kefan also proposed a motion to establish a fair and objective literary and artistic evaluation system to combat the falsification of film and television data.

According to Entertainment Capital, the big data system for the comprehensive evaluation of radio and television program ratings of the State Administration of Radio and Television has been basically completed and has been put into trial operation. This system can reflect the ratings of film and television programs and various time periods, and is regarded as the "official ratings" in the future. Making viewing data public data is seen as an important step in eradicating the fraud of film and television data.

It is imperative to further supervise the authenticity of online audio-visual program data from a regulatory perspective. It seems that whether it is iQiyi last year or Youku this time, this statement to close the playback volume is not only out of a sense of responsibility for regulating the market, but also in response to the call of the General Administration.

Youku stated that after canceling the display of playback volume, it will be replaced by the newly launched "Popularity Index". According to Xiaoyu’s understanding, the popularity index reflects the popularity of current video content on the Youku platform. It is calculated by calculating the multi-dimensional user behavior data of users on the entire Youku platform (such as continuous watching, dragging, collecting, abandoning dramas, etc.), and strives to obtain the most realistic portrayal of data. In addition, in order to ensure the objectivity and fairness of the data, Youku also uses big data and artificial intelligence to correct errors that may be caused by abnormal viewing behavior.

Through such a multi-dimensional vertical and horizontal comparison, an "index" that is far more comprehensive than a single playback volume can be obtained. As a standard for film and television works, it also seems to be more convincing to users.

Is the traffic era over?

Youku’s move also declares that the traffic era of online content is finally coming to an end.

2018 was a year of “failure” in traffic. A large number of "traffic stars" and "big IP" film and television content, although the playback data is acceptable, the reputation is not satisfactory. At the same time, a group of "dark horses" who focus on polishing content are quietly emerging, and good content is sought after. In addition, there are also more acting actors who are gradually becoming well-known to users with their good abilities.

With Youku’s decision to close the playback volume, Youaiteng’s three major video platformsAmong them, two companies have chosen to abandon playback volume as the single data criterion. It can be seen that network platforms are gradually giving up the inherent market thinking model of "traffic theory" and trying to find a new way out.

What positive changes will be brought about by turning off the playback volume? Based on various information, Xiaoyu found that its benefits mainly come from three aspects.

First of all, establishing comprehensive evaluation criteria can allow truly good content to emerge. In addition to calculating the playback volume and click-through rate, it is also necessary to calculate the user's multi-dimensional operation path on the video website, such as user clicks, comment interaction, collection, abandonment and other behaviors, and use a series of algorithms to calculate the popularity. The popularity index obtained in this way is relatively fair and can more truly reflect user preferences.

In addition, this calculation method is more friendly to short episodes. In the "traffic-only" era, longer dramas mean that they will naturally have higher playback volume, thus driving the drama's popularity to rise. It is undoubtedly unfair to those "small but beautiful" dramas. In addition, the lengthening of the series will lead to serious "water injection" of the plot. While the cost of the film producers will increase, the quality of the series will decrease, forming a vicious circle. The introduction of the popularity index will effectively curb this situation, give short dramas more room to survive, and reduce the occurrence of "water injection" phenomena.

Lastly, and most importantly, the introduction of the popularity index can eliminate brushing and make online content truly user-oriented. According to Xiaoyu's understanding, the behavior of brushing up the volume of video websites has long been an open secret and is a "fixed routine" for many publicity campaigns. The "brush volume" of each major video platform also has its own price. However, the cancellation of the number of views has suddenly increased the cost and difficulty of "brushing", stopping the brushing behavior from the source. And the data calculated through the popularity index is the multi-dimensional data of real users without moisture. For film producers and advertisers, it is more worthy of reference than a single playback volume.

It can be said that in the future online content, "traffic" no longer has reference value. What will follow will be a more objective and healthy data system and content evaluation benchmark. This is also the move by video platforms before TV stations to put an end to the single data dimension of “play volume” or “ratings” as the basis for consideration.

What should be the reasonable evaluation criteria?

Since traffic doesn’t work, what should be a reasonable data evaluation standard? From the current popularity of Youku and iQiyi, we may be able to get a glimpse of the clues.

Looking at the popularity dimension models of Youku and iQiyi, we can see that although the two video platforms have similar original intentions, their standards are different.

iQiyi's popularity dimensions include: user viewing behavior data (referring to the overall length of time a video content is watched by a user and data on the user's completion of viewing a video content), interactive behavior data (data such as comments, likes, forwarding, barrages, clicks and drags generated by users when watching content), and sharing behavior data (data on internal and external sharing generated by users when watching content).

Youku’s popularity dimension is similar to that of iQiyi, which reflects the popularity of video content on the Youku platform by analyzing users’ multi-dimensional behaviors on the entire Youku platform. In addition, Youku also has strong technical support. In order to ensure the objectivity and fairness of the data, big data and artificial intelligence are used to correct errors that may be caused by abnormal viewing behavior. In the future, we will use the most comprehensive knowledge graph on the site to link behaviors, add user interaction data, etc. to describe the popularity of videos from multiple dimensions.

From this, it may be concluded that an objective and reasonable video data evaluation standard should include the data generated when users watch, interact, share and other behaviors, and use artificial intelligence and other technologies to correct errors and ensure the authenticity of the data.

Obviously, whether it is abandoning "data only theory" or establishing more scientific data standards, these indices are gradually moving closer to the C-end. Whether it is these new indices or the scheduling strategies of major platforms, it can be seen that platforms are paying more and more attention to paying members. When the video platform becomes more oriented towards C, the focus will return to content creation itself, guided by user needs. Youku’s move this time is a good start.

Under the guidance of scientific data standards, we will generate high-quality content to attract paying users, and then use users to drive revenue, thus forming a virtuous market cycle system.

The traffic era is a thing of the past, and a new era is coming.

[Source: Entertainment Capitalism Author: Liu Jingmu ]