1.9635 million ME live broadcasts lost fans in 9 months, coinciding with industry reshuffle and fear that they will leave early

ME Live Broadcast issued an announcement to stop operations, which showed that the official ME team decided after consultation that ME Live Broadcast will stop operations on June 30.

Original title: Industry reshuffle intensifies, ME Live Broadcast becomes a latecomer who leaves

early ME Live Broadcast is undoubtedly the most short-lived broadcast platform with a "background".

A few days ago, ME Live Broadcast announced the cessation of operations, which showed that the official ME team decided after consultation that ME Live Broadcast will stop operating on June 30. At that time, M-coin exchange and E-bean withdrawal on the platform will be inoperable.

The reporter was surprised by the announcement of the suspension of ME live broadcasts, so he wanted to find out the reasons from ME live broadcasts. Insiders told reporters that the old version of ME Live Broadcast was offline, but it has been upgraded to a new version and launched in the Android market. The new version has been transformed into a video social software. The other party added to the reporter: "All resources and users of ME Live Broadcast are there. After the new version was launched, the business has developed well."

However, when ME Live Broadcast was launched, Happy Gathering Times (YY) once announced that it would invest 1 billion yuan to build an exclusive live broadcast platform for young people, but now it has suddenly stopped. Faced with the above reply, the reporter still had many reasons in his heart. So, what caused the "transformation" of ME live broadcasts?

Being on the line with important responsibilities is

the dominant show live broadcast in the PC era. When the tide of Mobile Live Video Broadcasting comes, YY will naturally not miss this opportunity. Therefore, ME Live was born in 2016 as an advance team of YY Insight Mobile Live Video Broadcasting, and its main responsibility is to test the waters of Mobile Live Video Broadcasting.

On February 22, 2016, YY's Mobile Live Video Broadcasting social brand "ME Live" was officially launched. It is understood that ME Live Broadcast is a fashionable Mobile Live Video Broadcasting software designed for young groups. It focuses on elements such as "high appearance, fashion, personality, youth" and actively caters to the entertainment habits of the post-90s and even post-95s generation, with the intention of creating a new generation of communication.

Perhaps the choice of launch time was not ideal. The ME live broadcast did not start immediately after launch. It really attracted attention on March 5. "In the past, I created YY, but today I want to invent ME!" Li Xueling, CEO of Huanju Times, announced that his "ME Live Broadcast" has officially entered the field of mobile live broadcasting. It can be seen that Li Xueling was full of confidence in ME live broadcast at that time.

The reporter thinks it is not difficult to understand Li Xueling's confidence. In particular, Li Xueling has experience in creating an Internet celebrity economy and managing anchor fans. Even if he simply copies the existing YY model, he can still do Mobile Live Video Broadcasting with his own capital and industry status.

In fact, YY is indeed rich. In March 2016, YY announced that it would allocate 1 billion yuan to support ME live broadcasting and help it break the door to Mobile Live Video Broadcasting. However, YY did not disclose to the outside world the investment time and specific use of the 1 billion yuan of funds.

One of the most influential things that the outside world can see that ME Live Broadcast did was to sign Lu Han's concert live broadcast one month after it was launched.

According to data from ME live broadcast, during Lu Han's concert on the ME platform, it set a platform record of 1.8 million people online at the same time in 10 minutes. Moreover, this is also the day that ME Live Broadcast has attracted the most fans from launch to exit.

It seems that the initial completion quality of the tasks assigned by YY to ME for live streaming is good. Therefore, in June 2016, YY Live Broadcast, another live broadcast product owned by YY, was renamed YYLIVE, and expanded from PC to mobile to become a multi-terminal entertainment live broadcast platform.

So far, YY has three live broadcast products: YYLIVE, Tiger Tooth Live Broadcast, and ME Live Broadcast, with a cumulative number of users exceeding 100 million. YY's product matrix includes pan-entertainment, games and other fields, and already has a certain say in the live broadcast industry.

Why did he become an "abandoned child"?

However, YY has devoted less effort to ME live broadcasts than in the previous period. It seems that the transformation of YYLIVE indicates that the mission of ME live streaming has been achieved and that it is time to "retire after success". We can see this from the market performance of ME live broadcasts.

According to the monitoring data of Analysys Qianfan, it is found that the number of active users of ME Live Broadcast has declined since August 2016, and has decreased month by month (except in November), directly from 2.1343 million in August last year to 170,800 in May this year. By May, ME Live Broadcast ranked 57th in the field of entertainment live broadcasting.

It can be seen that the rankings of ME Live Broadcast are far from those of its brothers YYLIVE and Tiger Ya Live Broadcast. The real change began in May this year.

According to YY, the company has adjusted the positioning of ME live broadcasts since May this year, and the future focus will be on social aspects. Making social efforts is consistent with YY's existing strategies and advantages in the past. Coupled with the continuous decline in the number of users of ME Live Broadcast, making adjustments is easy to understand. However, it was unexpected for the outside world to completely withdraw ME Live Broadcast from the live broadcast field.

So, why did YY choose to give up ME's live broadcast business and turn to video social?

First of all, the ME live broadcast, which was born as an "aristocrat", lost at the starting line. Simply put, ME Live Broadcast was launched in February 2016, when the Mobile Live Video Broadcasting bonus period had passed, and Yingke, Zanthoxylum Live Broadcast, and First Live Broadcast, which are similar to ME Live Broadcast, have gained a relatively stable market position in the industry. Compared with these live broadcast platforms that were "born" half a year or a year earlier, ME Live broadcasts missed the opportunity to grab user traffic.

Secondly, ME Live Broadcast chose to enter the pan-entertainment live broadcast field with the lowest threshold and the greatest competition. In fact, YY itself is a pan-entertainment live broadcast platform, so it is understandable to choose this direction when opening up Mobile Live Video Broadcasting, and YY can also guide ME live broadcasts under smooth circumstances. However, this has also become the biggest hidden danger for ME live streaming, because the number of platforms positioned as pan-entertainment live streaming is the largest in the entire live streaming industry, and ME live streaming naturally has to face many competitors.

Moreover, the pan-entertainment live broadcast platform represented by Yingke and Zanthoxylum Live Broadcast already had a relatively mature business model in 2016. For example, for the star strategy of Zanthoxylum bungeanum live broadcast, Fan Bingbing, Liu Yan, Zhang Jike and other entertainment and sports stars have successively launched live broadcasts in Zanthoxylum bungeanum. Compared with ME Live Broadcast Lu Han's one-time powder absorption, other platforms have advantages.

Thirdly, YY's own strategic transformation of Mobile Live Video Broadcasting is also a key factor. Analysys Interactive Entertainment analyst Wang Chuansheng said that YY's strategic transformation in June last year has shifted the core of Mobile Live Video Broadcasting to YYLIVE, and the strategic role of ME Live Broadcast has been diluted.

In other words, the high degree of overlap between YYLIVE and ME live broadcasts has determined that YY does not need two identical products. Among them, because YYLIVE has the user base and profit model of traditional PC shows, it is naturally the one that YY strives to protect. However, due to its tepid market performance and its completion of the tasks assigned by YY, ME Live has become an "abandoned child" without suspense.

Finally, the shutdown of ME live broadcasts is not an isolated case. The entire live broadcast industry is undergoing a reshuffle. We can see that the Mobile Live Video Broadcasting industry in 2017 is no longer the scene of a hundred flowers blooming in 2016. Problems such as homogeneous competition and difficulty in making profits have forced many small and medium-sized live broadcast platforms to withdraw one after another, such as aperture live broadcast and curry live broadcast. ME Live Broadcast is just the one that left the scene early in the reshuffle of the live broadcast industry.

It can be seen that ME Live Broadcast cannot escape the battle due to multiple attacks due to its own reasons and industry background. Today, a new version of ME has been re-launched, and YY has positioned it as a video social software. Wang Chuanzhen believes that ME's transformation of video social is likely to be a model aimed at Momo, because Momo's success in the field of live broadcasting is also closely related to its social business, while YY has experience in anonymous social networking, community operations, and guild models. Exploring the new form of video social may be a new blue ocean compared to live broadcasting.

However, the development prospects of video social are not yet clear, and ME will face more competitors. Under the encirclement and suppression of Tencent, Momo and other platforms, whether YY's social calculations can do what they want remains to be verified.

Editor: Mary