Tianya establishes an IP subsidiary to dig deep into content IP operations still face two major problems

In fact, there was another thing worthy of attention in the Internet industry that day. Tianya Community announced that it would invest 10 million yuan to establish an IP operation subsidiary. This established traditional community website finally took an important step.

The hot spot in recent days is obviously none other than Ali's acquisition of Youtu, now known as Heyi Group. In fact, there was another thing worthy of attention in the Internet industry that day. Tianya Community announced that it would invest 10 million yuan to establish an IP operation subsidiary. This established traditional community website finally took an important step.

When Tianya landed on the New Third Board more than two months ago, Xing Ming also claimed that he would lead Tianya to transform games, e-commerce, finance and other directions, but did not mention the content industry at all. The news of the establishment of an IP subsidiary now shows that Tianya has indeed listened to some suggestions from the outside world and embarked on a relatively correct path that is more in line with his own reality.

Tianya finally realized the value of content

. Tianya's current main advantages are content and traffic. If you want to increase the website's revenue and profit level, you are nothing more than using content and traffic to realize monetization and turn advantages into real money.

The way to monetize traffic is usually relatively simple, just connect to advertisements or Taobao customers for promotion, but the value is relatively low. If web advertising could bring huge profits, Tianya's financial report would not be so ugly. At present, Tianya's revenue mainly relies on advertising investment, and Baidu is its largest customer. The Internet has become increasingly active in recent years, but Tianya's revenue has continued to shrink due to the impact of new media and mobile Internet, resulting in increasingly serious losses. In 2014, the loss reached more than 40 million yuan.

The content has huge value potential, but the development investment is large and the difficulty is higher. A very ordinary film,"Get the fuck off, Tumor King", won both fame and fortune because of the touching story itself, and accidentally squeezed out other competitors to represent China in the Oscars. Not to mention other super IPs originating from Tianya such as "My Own Swordsman" and "Ghost Blows Out the Lamp", the huge value and economic benefits behind them.

According to an announcement issued by Tianya Community,

the main purpose of this investment is to increase investment in IP operations of original works, and based on Tianya Community's original content and online literature resource advantages, it will carry out digital publishing, paid reading, copyright operations, publishing and film and television crowdfunding business. Tianya Community said that this investment involves entering the reading and literary industries, conducting film and television production and distribution, copyright operation and publishing, which will help the company cultivate new profit growth points.

That is, Tianya finally realized the value of content, or finally thought of developing the gold mine behind the content to increase its precarious revenue.

How to mine the value of IP is a difficult problem

. Just as we often say, big data processing is far more important and valuable than collection. Original content, like big data, is an original diamond mine that needs to be screened, smelted, polished, and packaged to become a bright gem. Tianya's establishment of an IP operation subsidiary is only the first step. It is important to realize the value of content, but how to tap the gold mine in content from it is even more critical.

There are two main practical difficulties faced by Tianya IP's operations:

First, the funds it can invest are only a mere 10 million yuan, which is obtained through mortgage real estate loans, which is really very limited;

second, it lacks a set of relatively mature operating models and lacks experienced teams in operations.

You should know that the copyright of Tianya's excellent original content is not owned by Tianya, but belongs to the creator himself. The copyright owned by Tianya is limited to the shared copyright on this site. Its rights and interests are very limited and are not enough to directly use it for development and operation. The fact is: Tianya's content is indeed a rich ore, but the property rights do not belong to Tianya. It faces many competitors, and Tianya has no chance of winning directly with opponents for IP resources.

But Tianya also has its own advantages. Most creators grew up here and are full of closeness and belonging to Tianya, an old BBS forum. If we can cleverly make good use of this emotion, it will be of great help to Tianya's future development of the IP industry.

Taking into account Tianya's current current situation, it is recommended to carry out strategic cooperation with other experienced and powerful companies such as LeTV and other film and television companies and publishers, work together, and jointly develop IP gold mines. In the early stage, we can even subcontract all unfamiliar tasks such as professional operation, marketing, and promotion, and focus on the early cultivation of IP and author support.

Build a youth training system similar to football talents, and discover and cultivate new people through early low-cost signing. Tianya IP Subsidiary can set up a training and guidance team to help newcomers grow professionally, use its own traffic to guide promotion and enhance the influence of newcomers, and build itself into an IP author incubator similar to Xu Genbao Football School.

If he just bought and bought, with the amount of money Xu Genbao invested, it would be impossible for him to form a club and enter the Super League. As long as he sells one Wu Lei, Xu Genbao can recover all his investment, not to mention that he still has a group of Wu Lei, large and small. Of course, now he has sold the club and retired from fame, but Tianya can refer to Xu Genbao's path to success.

While resisting foreign affairs, we must not forget that Annei

also paid attention to a small incident in the establishment of the IP subsidiary, that is, Xing Ming resigned as general manager of Tianya and replaced it with Yang Xiaomin. Yang Xiaomin's qualifications are not very prominent. She once served as the vice president of Tianya, then left Tianya, and now she is back again. In Tianya's internal words, she is a typical twice-cooked pork.

Whether Yang Xiaomin can lead Tian Ya to find some new paths that are different from the past is still unknown. But at least it represented a trend. Xing Ming began to want to change Tianya's internal management mechanism and methods, and tried to take the first step.

Tianya's current crisis is not just a simple matter of sluggish revenue, but the declining influence and user activity. The grand occasion of "national topic, made at the end of the world" in those days is long gone.

Since there is no active user data for reference, it is impossible to determine whether the number of users is declining. However, it can be clearly observed that many well-known and charismatic writers have fled to Weibo, WeChat or new media platforms, which has reduced the quality of the overall content. Whether it is current affairs, online literature, sports, finance and other sections, the quality of content in recent years has not been as good as that of then.

In addition, judging from the output of writers, there were a large group of talented people such as Yan Lieshan, Shinian Cutting Firewood, Ning Caishen, and Kong Ergou, but now there are few people in the world who hope to betray them. This shows that Tianya's soil for cultivating new people is not as fertile as before. The UGC model, which once exploded with astonishing energy, is facing the test of the new situation. Tianya's community management and operations need adjustment and transformation.

Putting aside the objective fact of the rise of new mobile media, Tianya's current dilemma stems more from the backwardness of its own product operation and management levels. As a result, Tianya is unable to adapt to the pace of the times in terms of products and mobility, and it is difficult to meet the needs of users. His self-proclaimed tenacious way of survival is actually stubborn to the outside world. Xing Ming's resignation as general manager represents a new idea for management, but the pace of reform can be even greater.

Although it is important for Tianya to explore new revenue growth points, it is also important to solve internal product operation and management mechanism issues. This time, Tianya established an IP subsidiary, hoping that while Tianya actively invades foreign countries, he must not forget Annei. After all, if there is no foundation for content and traffic and basic users are lost, Tianya's foreign invasion will lose its meaning and value, and that will be Tianya's real crisis.

Finally, I sincerely wish Tianya's IP operations will develop smoothly and become a new revenue and profit growth point, helping Tianya get out of business difficulties and embrace a better tomorrow.

Editor: yvonne