How to Create New Media Products in the Mobile Internet Era

First of all, content is king: the thinking mode that hinders media transformation.

Providing valuable news information for the society has always been the basis for traditional media to settle down and an important guarantee for maintaining its platform value. Before the Internet was fully developed, content was indeed the winning rule of traditional media, which helped many media to open the market and create value. Therefore, high-quality traditional media have enjoyed long-term prosperity and development.

The development of Internet has changed everything related to traditional media. With the continuous evolution of the Internet, the traditional media is constantly adjusting its position in the new information dissemination pattern, but the belief that the content of traditional media is king has hardly been fundamentally shaken. Many people believe that even in the era of mobile internet, valuable content is still a scarce resource, which can continue to bring benefits to the media. However, this creed has not been recognized by the market, and the market value of traditional media content is constantly depreciating. And in retrospect, the mindset that content is king is also an important reason that hinders the successful transformation of traditional media.

With the rise of forums and blogs, online media has become the mainstream media in fact, and its influence on social reality has become increasingly prominent. Some people became popular and others fell, and some emergencies and social contradictions were dealt with quickly. However, contrary to the general cognition of the society, many traditional media had a voice at that time: even if the online speculation was lively, the traditional media would eventually intervene to promote the solution of the problem and become the mainstream topic of society. At this time, traditional media people are still full of confidence in the content and their ability to set topics.

After stepping into the era of mobile Internet, Weibo, WeChat and Self-media, which have achieved explosive development in a short time, once again swallowed up the traditional media as a source of content. Government agencies, various social organizations, entrepreneurs and celebrities release news from the media, and policy information is released at the first time. Information about social emergencies is shared and disseminated at an unprecedented speed on the Internet. At this time, the traditional media people who are unwilling to give up the content revise their beliefs again, saying that in the era of mobile Internet, the traditional media can only have a way out by giving up simple dynamic information reports and strengthening in-depth reporting and speech construction. From a positive point of view, this is another positive adjustment of traditional media to adapt to the era of mobile Internet. But from a historical point of view, we can also regard it as a retreat. However, can such a retreat hold the stronghold of traditional media? The answer should beno. When most people's reading platforms are transferred to the mobile Internet, when more institutions, organizations and individuals, including the traditional media itself, begin to produce and publish similar high-quality in-depth reports and speech products on the new media platform, the so-called content of the traditional media will face more and more embarrassment.

It is correct to attach importance to content construction and take content as the standard, even now. However, under the new situation of fundamental changes in the communication environment, sticking to content is king, thinking that traditional media can be unique in the market as long as they produce high-quality content, instead of facing the real challenges such as the change of readers' reading habits, the gradual transfer of reading platforms, and the increasingly important news distribution channels, blindly immersing themselves in the illusion of content advantages will only delay the opportunity for the reform and development of traditional media.

Second, the three focal points of the integration and transformation of Internet thinking and media

For traditional media people, replacing the belief that content is king with internet thinking is a conceptual revolution, which means that traditional media people step out of the fantasy that content is king, look back at the past road of transformation and exploration with internet thinking, and re-examine the content, services, platforms and profit models produced by traditional media in recent years.

Combined with the exploration of traditional media transformation, the author believes that Internet thinking at least includes the following aspects:

Platform thinking. Successful Internet companies are always good at and strive to build an open, shared and win-win platform to link all parties. For the traditional media seeking transformation, the platform is not only a place to publish content, but also a place for the audience to participate in news production and obtain various services. It is also a necessary carrier for traditional media to gather users, obtain traffic and finally gain benefits. In fact, every traditional media itself is a platform, but with the development of the Internet, this platform is shrinking and its value is derogatory. In order to meet the needs of the mobile Internet era, traditional media must establish their own new network platform and form their own network portal.

Think freely. Almost all successful Internet companies provide products and services in a free way, so as to enhance the user experience, accumulate the number of users, and cultivate and establish the path dependence of user behavior. Traditional media believe that content is king and hope to make profits by selling content. Domestic media try hard to sell their right to use content at a reasonable price, so do the pay walls model tried by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. As time goes by, these attempts may not succeed in the end, because they fundamentally violate the spirit of the Internet, or these strategies are not Internet-based at all. Even if it gains something in a short time, it will eventually be subverted by the free Internet model.

User thinking. In the era of mobile Internet, both enterprises and products will be recognized by users only if they find the pain points of users, meet the general needs of users and create value for users. Therefore, successful Internet companies must always put users' needs and experiences in the most important position. To transform traditional media with internet thinking, we must change the unified one-way communication pattern, adapt to the needs of different users, and customize information products that meet their needs, instead of just stuffing each other with a bunch of useful or useless things, no matter whether others need them or not. In addition, the path of communication cannot be one-way, and users' feedback on products should be obtained through interaction, and products should be adjusted and improved in time to meet users' needs to the greatest extent.

Product thinking. Product thinking requires enterprises to provide users with the ultimate products. Producing the ultimate product is not only conducive to retaining existing users, but also attracting new users at low cost or even zero cost, because in the social era when everyone is from the media, good products can speak and spread themselves. For traditional media people, product thinking is very important. We used to provide all users with information of the same category, specification and quality, rather than product information that meets the individual needs of different groups of people, so it is difficult to form stable consumption among users. To realize the transformation of traditional media, we must first strengthen the research and development of unique information products and transform the so-called content advantages into information products with business models.

According to the above understanding of Internet thinking, combined with the current actual situation, the author believes that traditional media should focus on the following aspects to create new media products:

First, build your own communication platform. Without its own platform, the media cannot establish its influence and gather users and traffic. Of course, it is imperative for traditional media to rethink the platform construction. In the era of mobile Internet, the new platform is best based on the mobile Internet. With the development of communication technology and the popularity of mobile intelligent terminals, the platform for people to obtain information has gradually shifted to the mobile Internet. In order to adapt to this changing trend, traditional media should invest limited funds and resources to build a mobile Internet platform. Continuing to invest money and resources in the desktop Internet may not necessarily generate much income. Of course, the platform construction should also be done within our capabilities. In the absence of sufficient technology and financial resources to develop new platforms, it may be a good strategy to use public technology platforms such as Weibo and WeChat, or to use the open interface of public platforms for secondary development.

Second, the content positioning of products is based on user needs and even business models. In the era of desktop Internet, news portal is valuable. With the advent of the mobile Internet era, the winner-takes-all era of portal websites is becoming a thing of the past, and its business model is also facing challenges. In the era of mobile Internet, traditional media is most suitable for running localized and heavily vertical social products on the established new communication platform. On the one hand, such products are easier to meet people's deep demand for information and services in a certain aspect, which is conducive to enhancing user stickiness; On the other hand, the target users of heavy vertical social products are clear, which is conducive to developing online and offline service activities, absorbing advertising investment in the same field as the products, and realizing the business model of the products.

Third, innovate the business model of new media products. Although some critics believe that when users and traffic reach a certain order of magnitude, it will cause qualitative change, but apart from advertising, if there is no reserved platform interface, users and traffic will not be automatically converted into commercial value. At the beginning of product research and development, traditional media should have a clear design of their own business model, and even as mentioned above, they can reverse the content positioning of products according to the requirements of business model. Advertising, offline activities and O2O (online and offline sales of goods and services) are all business models that can be considered.

Third, face the future and change to the editorial department.

Over the years, traditional media have made a lot of explorations in promoting the development of media integration, but they have achieved little. In addition to the overall coping strategy mistakes mentioned by Professor Yu Guoming, it is also related to the inherent editorial department structure, operation mode and evaluation mechanism that cannot meet the needs of media integration development. It is urgent for media people to reconstruct the traditional editorial department and improve and reform the operation and evaluation mechanism of the editorial department that has been followed for many years. The author believes that in order to achieve the goal of integrated development and create new media products with commercial value in the era of mobile Internet, traditional media should at least make new explorations in the following four aspects:

First, build each activity unit around the product core.

In the past, traditional media often structured the editorial department according to region and specialty. For example, newspapers usually divide the editorial department into news department, local news department, domestic news department, international news department, financial news department and sports news department. Many metropolitan newspapers also have editorial departments for supplements and special issues. In order to meet the needs of the development of new media, many newspapers have set up new media departments in addition to the regular editorial departments. This division of departments may meet the requirements of traditional news gathering and dissemination, but it does not meet the requirements of information production as a product in the new media environment. On the one hand, this division is too rough and does not meet the needs of producing news products with heavy vertical segmentation; On the other hand, under such a framework, the old and new media departments are actually completely separated, and the traditional editing department is still the boss, while the new media and new technology departments are only vassals of traditional newspaper production and cannot play an important role. When traditional media create new media products in the era of mobile internet, the department setting of editorial department should be reconstructed around the product core, and the personnel engaged in new media and traditional media should be completely integrated.

Second, implement the editor-led system and strengthen the leading role of the "news center".

Implementing the editor-led system is actually the product manager responsibility system. In the traditional newspaper operation mode, some journalists are relatively strong, so the reporter-led system is implemented. Journalists can often find clues and topics independently and control the direction and process of reporting, while editors often do the work of integration and editing in the rear; Some editors are powerful, so the editor-led system is implemented, and the editor decides the topic, directs reporters, controls the direction of reporting, and finally presents the layout. In the era when the Internet is not fully developed, both the editor-led system and the reporter-led system have their rationality and benefits. Whether a media chooses editor-led system or reporter-led system mainly depends on the strength of editors and journalists of various media. However, in the new situation of pursuing timely, interactive and integrated communication in the era of mobile Internet, it should be an ideal choice to strengthen the role of the editorial team as the news center and implement the editorial-led system. Because this operating mechanism is most conducive to timely and effectively adjusting communication content and strategies according to the progress of news and the feedback and interaction of the audience. However, the reporter-led operation mechanism cannot meet the new requirements of timely, interactive and comprehensive communication.

Third, simplify the production process and optimize the authorization regulations.

In the content production system of traditional newspapers, there are strict procedural restrictions and authorization regulations for news writing, editing, auditing and publishing, which is also an important guarantee for the authority and credibility of traditional media reports. However, if this production process with strict procedural restrictions and authorization regulations is introduced into the production of new media products, serious problems will arise, because this process can not meet the requirements of immediacy and interactivity of network communication at all. Therefore, it is necessary to simplify the production process appropriately, adjust the authorization regulations appropriately, ensure the staffing of key links, and avoid problems or omissions due to changes in the process and authorization.

Fourth, introduce external evaluation and implement the result evaluation system.

In the traditional editorial department, the assessment of editors and journalists is determined by two factors: quantity and quality. For journalists, quantity refers to the number of manuscripts that appear in newspapers; For editors, quantity is the number of pages edited. As for the quality standard, it mainly depends on the judgment and evaluation of the internal quality monitoring department of the newspaper. In actual implementation, subjective problems such as excessive emphasis on quantity and quality evaluation are easy to occur, while external evaluation indicators that are crucial to the influence and survival and development of the media are often not included. In order to realize the transformation of traditional media, we must attach importance to the feedback from the audience or users on the content products, especially to incorporate the objective communication indicators such as the reading volume and reprint rate of works, and take this as one of the important yardsticks to determine the salary and performance of employees.