Chapter 1138： Analysis of user behavior

These days, streaming is like Christmas.

With the maturity of Netflix's profit-making methods and the initial effectiveness of the industry environment, a group of investment institutions watched Netflix's stock price hit a high price for several consecutive days, which inevitably breeds a positive motivation for betting.

Before there was the miracle of Netscape, and after the rise of Facebook Comet, the wealth myth of the Internet has always been so fascinating, and it does not require much skill, and you can make a lot of money by pressing the direction of the wind.

Not to mention Netflix is ​​a benchmark for a mature monetization model that has users.

So much so that the top priority for many executives of investment institutions recently is to first understand Netflix's stock price, and then urge themselves to find other "Netflix".

With the influx of hot money, the corresponding industry personnel can naturally enjoy the benefits.

The threshold for this industry is not high, and they all focus on how to sell content efficiently. Many people watch Netflix to make money, find a team, and rent a server to start work. Even if there is no money, the seed round is easy in this big environment. loose to.

If you know a little bit about business methods, focus on a certain category to play different cards, and survive several rounds of financing assessments, it is not difficult.

After all, film and television is a very wide range of things, and users with the same preferences and pursuits tend to have stronger aggregation capabilities. Just like horror is to Lionsgate, and comedy is to Universal, everyone has their own answers when they think of a representative of a certain theme.

The labels are all like this. Isn’t it easier for streaming media based on film and television content to shape the image of the platform?

Of course, there is a drawback to doing this. Too much emphasis on the shaping of impressions can quickly and accurately target audiences. The advantage of labeling is that the promotion cost is low and the effect is good, but it adds difficulty to the later transformation. Just look at Lionsgate. If you want to make some youth films to make money for young people, you have to acquire Summit Entertainment and differentiate the business. It is because the audience's impression of Lionsgate begins to have the look and feel of B-grade films.

However, for those investors, the only bad thing about streaming media is that there is no technological leadership, and no matter how many users there are, they have to be retained. It is not like other Internet products, once they become bigger and stronger, users are very sticky. When the user arrives here, it is difficult to go to another home.

However, if this pain point is very easy to keep users active compared to streaming media, it does not seem to be a big problem. As long as the audience still needs to watch dramas, the industry will not collapse.

That is to say, in such an atmosphere, as the top five streaming media shares, Amber has also attracted a lot of attention, excluding long videos such as YouTube and Amazon as additional supplements, and the products ranked third in terms of activity and traffic.

in the industrial park.

Ron Brandon is listening to the report of his subordinates.

After a while, I received another call.

He picked up the phone, signaled to stop, and then asked, "Hello, who is it?"

"Hello, Mr. Brandon, I'm Fuller French, a partner of Sequoia Fund. At present, your company..."

Balabala said a lot, and finally gave a 10% investment of 60 million, with a pre-investment valuation of 540 million US dollars, and Amber's registered capital is 80 million, Mann Media has successively injected more than 200 million, paying users The current month's capital is 13.5 million, keeping this amount unchanged, the annual revenue is roughly 160 million, and the follow-up investment is not counted for the time being. That is to say, taking advantage of the rising market value of Netflix, the profitability has been affirmed by the market, and the value of Amber is flat. increased by a third.

Of course, the reason why valuation is valuation is that it is a judgment with a bit of gambling nature.

As far as Ron is concerned, he only knows that there are several institutions that are interested in amber right now.

Investors such as Google and Facebook are also interested in investing.

According to the attitudes of these people, he combined the quotations. The one with the most has estimated 720 million, but it was only a comprehensive quotation, and neither party gave an accurate answer.

If you want to sell things and get the best conditions, you can't just refer to the money.

"By the way, the boss will come over in the afternoon. We will make a list of our data analysis and give it to the content director." Ron ordered.

……

If you like "Star Trek" in the 1960s, Amber will recommend the "Mission: Impossible" series in the recommendations on the homepage; and if you like the TV series "Lost", then Amber is likely to I recommend you the British drama "I Want to Be Human", which also tells about the supernatural theme; if you like watching "Dawn of the Dead", then your homepage will also appear frequently on your homepage: the violent action film "Kill Bill" with stunning visual effects, It won't disappear until you look at it, or click into it and then exit.

Streaming media screens interesting information behind the vast ocean of big data and immeasurable user traces.

After a new round of recruitment expansion, a data capture team consisting of 30 engineers is relying on algorithms to recommend episodes that each registered user may like.

The existence of these people has played an important role in Amber's user stickiness. According to data, 75% of video service viewers' viewing activities are driven by recommendations. The reason for this is that most of the time people don't actually know what they want to watch, and many times there are still difficulties in choosing. This is why big data sometimes understands a person's taste better than a person.

Through the method of consulting metadata, the preliminary simulated user behavior will not lie - browse, play and search, capture all viewing traces on the platform, viewing duration, etc., and find various similarities .

Moreover, this analysis of user behavior is different from that of e-commerce.

E-commerce is mainly based on search traces, such as eBay and Amazon. 90% of user shopping comes from search, because these people have needs first and then look for them; while streaming media is on the contrary, it is to create demand and then recommend it, search Features exist only if the user has a particularly strong purpose, and the home page does not recommend what the user wants to see.

Going a step further on this basis is to supplement the content of overlapping users, which is what Lehman is doing now.

The development history of Netflix is ​​very clear. Their self-made episodes are estimated based on the distribution of existing users and the possible values ​​of their preferences.

This kind of real-time follow-up and continuous expansion of applications can play a role in the continuous retention of platform users.

"So, our visiting users are mainly men in their 20s, and they generally like sensory stimulation?"

"Yes, most of the more than 10 million users who visit our website are chasing popularity. After watching "Thor 2" in the paid group, three-quarters of people watched "Bad Guy" again, especially Elevator God of War In that scene, many people choose to watch it repeatedly or even enjoy it at a slower speed.”

"Then do you have any production ideas?" Lehmann asked: "According to the user's behavior, shoot the episodes that we think they should watch."

"We have refined a lot of elements, and there are roughly two directions: one is a black crime-type gang drama, which is shot in the form of a main line where the protagonist's emotions and behaviors gradually adapt to street laws, adding meat scenes, vendettas, face-turning, fire and conflict. Filled with content based on actual facts, for example, I believe that the audience will romanticize and streetize the allusions to characters like Guzman (Mexican drug lord). A favorite of Seth's crime movies;

The second word is only for the thriller dramas with a strong sense of atmosphere and psychological stimulation, mainly murder. I found that "Death", "Death" directed by Wen Ziren, and other murder case dramas that revolve around a few people are also different. Few people like it. "After Blake got the data, he summed up the two templates with the market smell of a senior producer.

"What are the advantages and disadvantages of these two schemes?"

"In the first case, the investment cost is high, but the audience is also very popular, and the scheduling ability of the crew is very considered; in the second case, the investment is small, the deployment is convenient, and there are requirements for the director's style, but it may not necessarily be produced after production. There are so many people who like it, the market for the horror element is easy to distinguish the audience."

"Blake, according to your opinion, which one is more suitable for the current platform environment." Lehman sipped his coffee and continued to ask.

"I choose the second one."

Well, for the cost issue, the experimental significance of trying to figure out the elements of the drama with user behavior is greater than the substantive significance. Blake thought.

"The sum of these elements is that our audience might like a series of thrillers with a small number of actors acting around a theme?" Lehman said: "Then find some suitable writers to pat it in the form of a single story."

......

Units, thrillers, themes, medium cost and no need for extensive transitions all come together, what do you think?

Looking at the refined production backbone based on the preferences of some paying groups, Lehman's mind naturally came to the horror unit "American Horror Story", also known as the American version of "Liao Zhai", which was cast by the original FOX TV network.

With ideas, Lehman also carefully analyzed the success factors of this series. They rely on FOX's youth subscription group, and each season is carried out around a topic, with murder, death, weirdness and other types of elements plus handsome men, beauties and perverts. , Paradoxical killing methods, killing locations to set a slightly different tone for each season.

Furthermore, this kind of series is very open, because it is produced in the form of units and has little connection with each other, so it is also very inclusive in terms of tolerance, and can freely design various strange frameworks.

More importantly, Amber is now mostly young men, and the number of paid members accumulated is relatively average, which is very suitable for this medium-cost drama that caters to the taste of the age.

As soon as this new idea came out, Lehman said immediately: "We first determine the creative team, and then decide how to proceed with the shooting."

Blake nodded. The boss often came up with some ideas that catered to the audience. He just accepted it, so he immediately took out a pen and paper to record.

"The advantage of big data is that we can control what the audience wants to see at any time, and how many people can accept it, which facilitates our judgment on market research and supports the direction. Looking at it now, it can be regarded as a group of deep users of Amber Video, About three-quarters of them can accept the style of the thriller type, so we can find the most certain parts of these people, integrate them into a team, and give them the freedom within the framework. You know this part of the user we want to reach Is there a sure-fire producer of coincidence?"

Blake was stunned for a moment, and immediately reacted: "Use the exhaustive method to summarize the general situation, and then take the best solution? BOSS, you don't mean to pick out those thriller dramas with the most user ratings, and then find someone from there, right? ."

"That's right."

Lehman smiled and said: "The market review of many production companies is to first have the script and then deduce the possible audience of the script. With the help of the algorithm, we have found the common points of a certain type of users, and directly start from this aspect. The higher the performance, the higher the efficiency of precise docking, so why can’t we achieve a more vertical positioning, that is, a general induction for each user.”

Blake's eyes lit up, he thought this method was not very reliable, because there was never a necessary template for creating this kind of thing, but if it is to shrink and eliminate those unnecessary things, what is left in the end not only means There is a wide space for trial and error, which also means that the possibility of success is greater. "I remember that there are not many universal horror resources in our film library, and the degree of discussion and topic includes the most marked films. If so...I understand."

Blake's voice was excited, "I think users will be impressed by Ray Warner (Director Wen's main screenwriter), Ryan Murphy ("The Surgery Room", "Survival"), Drew Gundam ("Darkness") Angel", "Double Spy", "Vampire Hunter" and others are the most interested, and these are also the ones who have a good grasp of the thriller element and are more capable, and are deeply favored by horror and thriller lovers. Find them to write the script, polish the story around a theme, at least this drama is shot, the quality is good or not, the audience has already come up with their expectations when they see the main creator."

"The idea is right."

Another point is that the more capable a type producer is, the more difficult it is to fail. Just like a movie made by a famous director is always more popular than a movie made by a newcomer. of professionals.

"The shooting of the drama is not very expensive, but it is definitely not to save money. We must pay attention to this aspect, and usually analyze the user's behavior. As for this drama, let's make sure the idea is to use the real source. Historical events are processed artistically. Hmm..." Lehmann thought for a while, and said, "Let me start, the first unit of this series will revolve around the haunted house."

The news of the haunted house is endless, and it can be said that it is one of the most dramatic symbols in thriller and horror films.

"Schedule?"

"I will bring someone to interview them," Blake replied.

"However, you can't focus too much on the data. It is up to the professionals to decide how to implement it."

Still remember an interview, Netflix concluded: Users may like to read the story of a U.S. senator and prepare to set up a project for "House of Cards", but David Fincher's leading production team subdivided the rules and regulations summarized by Netflix How many episodes must create conflict, so that the audience will not lose the patience of watching the routine and throw it away This is the big explosion of that political drama.

It's important that the data is only a guide, and the shooting is not a step-by-step plan.

Lehman was about to leave, and as soon as he got in the car, Kevin made a phone call: "The people from Universal want to start the one-line sequel to The Hulk."

"what's the situation?"

"The second week of "Captain America 2" is also good. The big explosion is sure. When Universal President Jeff Hill called to congratulate, he asked about this. He wanted to know our next release plan. Then, hasn't the warm-up news of "Guardians of the Galaxy" spread out, and I didn't hide that I wanted to shoot a different story, an interstellar chapter after leaving Earth." Kevin explained in detail: "After listening, He was a little surprised and wondered why he didn't arrange the Hulk's position."

Well, it's actually very simple. The Hulk's big profits are in the hands of Universal, and the company's executives, including Marvel Entertainment, are reluctant to waste too much effort on other works that are difficult to get high returns. Maybe, Universal I also discovered this, and recently there have been more voices urging the establishment of the project.

"I'll take care of it, you'll be busy with your business first."

Parking the car, Lehmann walked past the front desk and waited for the elevator. The door opened and he saw an acquaintance.

"Hi, Mr. Ryman, we were just about to see you."

The other party was also very surprised, and greeted him respectfully and enthusiastically.

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