Top of the big era

However, Zhou Buqi didn't dare to be too sure about this matter. People must have self-awareness. The soil and water support a person. What he knows is what he knows and what he doesn't know is what he doesn't know.

He really doesn't know enough about the audiobook market.

Even if there is some foresight, it is very limited and the scope of effect is only in the domestic market.

Maybe foreign markets are different?

Just like Spotify's model can be successful overseas, but it cannot work well in China. Just because domestic audiobook products don’t work, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the model of overseas audiobook products doesn’t work.

The most typical example is Netflix.

This model is useless in China, and whoever messes with it will die. However, it can be very popular in overseas markets, killing everyone along the way.

In fact, this is indeed the case.

The trend of audiobooks has been brought up in overseas markets in the past few years and then spread to China. The fundamental reason why China cannot take advantage of this trend is that domestic consumption power is relatively weak.

With a monthly membership fee of US$30, you can live a happy life on Ximalaya and Dragonfly FM.

The country cannot afford it.

The membership fees for overseas audiobook apps are really higher than the last, and a one-year subscription fee may reach US$300. Even with such high fees, there is still a huge market. Even later, the industry has already had a big trend of "the end of the music platform is the radio station".

Of course, the reason why these overseas listening apps can charge so much is because the quality is so high.

For the audiobook services of the top products, the reader is either the author of the book, a well-known Hollywood actor, or a top voice actor.

Then you can create a series of high-quality listening books with strong enough appeal.

It can even be used as a course to learn English.

This is actually a virtuous circle. The higher the fees, the more income; the more income, the more top voice actors and reciters can be hired to record; the better the product quality, the more users can be attracted; the more users, the more income. will be further improved.

Similar domestic products do not work, and cannot take the first step.

It can only guide some amateur folk enthusiasts to read, and the level will be uneven. A good book will also be abandoned by the audience because the reader's level is too poor.

If it is a professional reader with an expressive voice, even if it is a not so good book, the audience will be intoxicated by their voice.

Zhou Buqi actually doesn't know much about what's going on here.

Personally, he is not optimistic about the model of listening to books. Listening to cross talk and talk shows is okay, but listening to books seems to be logically unworkable.

If it is a colloquial book, reading it is so fast, you can read ten lines at a glance, but listening to the book is too tedious; if it is a deep book, it is difficult to understand the truth even if you listen to it at a constant speed, and it will be in vain.

Daniel Ek is very interested in this, "Not only audiobooks, but also podcasts. In the past few years, it was difficult for podcast products to succeed because everyone had to use computers to listen to them or search for radio stations. It's quite troublesome. In the era of mobile Internet, there are apps with integrated functions. You can listen to it while driving, traveling, or walking."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "This is a reason."

Daniel Ek smiled and said: "If you listen to music, in addition to a fixed copyright fee, we also have to pay the copyright owner according to the number of times the song is listened to. Podcast programs are different, they have viruses. The potential for massive expansion. For example, if you invite Tom Cruise and his wife to do a podcast, you only need to pay them an appearance fee. As for whether the audience has 10,000, 100,000, or 100 million, it has nothing to do with the Cruises. This gives the product the ability to be infinitely copied.”

Zhou Buqi agrees with this point of view, "As a platform, self-operated products are indispensable. Use music to attract a huge audience group, and then earn revenue through more other self-operated services."

Daniel Ek sighed, "That can only be like this. Among audio products, the only services left are podcasts and audiobooks."

Zhou Buqi said: "This will be a big investment."

Daniel Ek said: "Well, so we need the support of Ziweixing. As early as two years ago, Amazon acquired Audible, the largest podcast product in the United States, for a total of 300 million US dollars."

Zhou Buqi was shocked, "Amazon?"

Daniel Ek said: "Yes, Amazon wants to build a huge membership system. They have been working in this direction, including music, videos, and e-books. The main purpose of acquiring Audible is to build an audio book service, which has been launched We have developed a mobile app and it is very popular in the market.”

"That's it..."

This time, Zhou Buqi had to pay attention.

It's okay for others to say, this is Amazon!

Regardless of the fact that Amazon is now an e-commerce platform, it is the largest e-commerce giant in the world. But a few years later, Amazon's core business positioning changed. Amazon Cloud became Amazon's most important business, putting e-commerce in a secondary position.

Coincidentally, Ziweixing International also puts cloud computing as its top priority.

There is competition between the two companies on the "road".

Moreover, Ziweixing International also gave feedback some time ago that a large membership system should be created to link many paid products.

This is very similar to Amazon.

Amazon is Ziweixing’s current number one competitor.

Zhou Buqi doesn't know much about the podcast and audiobook markets, but I heard that Amazon followed suit early and even spent $300 million to acquire Audible...

If this is the case, it is really necessary for Ziweixing to launch a tit-for-tat product.

Arrange early and end the game as early as possible.

It doesn't matter if you fail.

If it fails, Amazon also fails, and both parties are still on the same level; if Amazon succeeds, but Ziweixing has no similar competing products, then Ziweixing will have a shortcoming in this field, and it is possible that An amplification effect occurs.

Now, Netflix of "Ziwei Galaxy" is stronger than Amazon Video, and Spotify is also slightly ahead of Amazon. Amazon has IMDB, and MSI also has a complete set of movie ecosystem products such as Rotten Tomatoes and Flixster.

In addition, Ziweixing also has knowledge service products such as Quora and Knol that Amazon does not have, as well as some membership products from Ziweixing Digital Media that focus on football.

From a large structural point of view.

The membership service of Ziweixing is much better than that of Amazon. The only difference is that Amazon has its own e-commerce service, and Amazon members can get free shipping.

There is nothing that can be done on the e-commerce side.

Therefore, Ziweixing must firmly grasp the big advantage of "streaming media" that Zhou Buqi has planned long ago, and must be far ahead of Amazon in the field of streaming media, so as to make up for the disadvantage of not having e-commerce services.

In a few years, the market will become more and more mature, domestic Internet companies will become more and more powerful, and many e-commerce companies will even take root in Europe and the United States... By that time, Ziweixing's large membership system may not be able to follow suit. Online e-commerce services.

From this point of view, the podcast service and audiobook service mentioned by Daniel Ek really should be launched.

Podcasts and audiobooks, streaming too!

Daniel Ek further said: "After Amazon acquired Audible, it began to focus on launching audio book services. It seems that it wants to lead the second transformation of the book era. From paper books to e-books, this time it is audio books."

"How much does Audible charge?"

"There are still very few audiobooks now, and the fees are relatively low, only about $15 a month."

"15 dollars……"

Zhou Buqi twitched the corner of his mouth.

It’s so dark!

Netflix currently charges only $10 per month. This is still a situation where there are relatively few books on Audible. When more and more content is added in the future, it is not clear how high the membership fee will increase.

Daniel Ek seemed to see something and simply explained: "They are producing high-quality content. In addition to buying the copyright of the book at a high price, they will also invite some Hollywood stars to read the book."

Zhou Buqi deeply agreed, "Well, this is a good operating idea that we can learn from."

He already knows a lot about Hollywood.

Hollywood actors, especially well-known actors, are very particular about their personal image. Let alone appearing in variety shows, doing live broadcasts, and selling goods, it is very difficult for them to advertise.

Generally speaking, female celebrities can accept advertisements, while top male celebrities do not even accept advertisements, thus demonstrating their "lofty" status. Only when your status is high can you be better able to handle the box office.

However, books are different.

If you get involved with culture, not only will you not lose your status, but you will become more qualified.

So it was easy to invite some well-known actors to read. Celebrities like to get involved in culture to improve their personal level, and they can also make money, so why not?

For platforms, they can also rely on celebrity halo to attract audiences.

I have to admire Amazon's operations team, their level is really high.

Much better than Google.

Daniel Ek thought for a moment and said carefully: "I found that Amazon's product synergy ideas are similar to yours. They are also synergistic, complementary and mutually reinforcing. If the user opens an Amazon membership, he can try three Audible books for free. This is a benefit for Amazon members. At the same time, it is also a way to audition and attract traffic to guide Amazon users to sign up for Audible membership."

"Well, that should be the case."

Zhou Buqi nodded. This operation idea is correct, just like what Kurian said before about operating Knol.

If you want to make Knol a product, you cannot make Knol alone. You must cooperate with Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook, MSN News and other platforms to provide users of those platforms with the opportunity to "try it out."

"Okay, let's do this." Zhou Buqi doesn't need to know more. Regardless of whether this project succeeds or fails, it is right to follow Amazon into the market. Moreover, he also has a new idea, "The number of books is too large. If we hire Hollywood actors and voice actors to read them all, it will be too expensive."

Daniel Ek thought he wanted to introduce private readers, so he was worried, "It's better to create a high-quality product."

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "The future will be the era of artificial intelligence."

"AI reading aloud?"

"The current AI reading aloud is definitely not good. It's too fake. You can tell it's machine reading as soon as you hear it. But with the development of technology, I believe... in 15 years, Ziweixing's artificial intelligence team will be able to launch a fully It’s a reading tool that simulates the human voice. By then, the spring of audiobooks may really be here. It’s good to start planning in advance now.”