Aauto Quicker and Tik Tok undoubtedly occupy half of the short video industry, but it is hard to say what is the difference between the two products. I have seen the same answer before: Aauto attracts grassroots users faster because of the differences in user attributes, while Tik Tok is a trend gathering place for young people.
But why is there such a difference? With the increasing homogenization of the functions of the two products, it is difficult for us to judge this difference through the existing product forms. This article hopes to start with the process of a user entering the APP to watch videos and see what the real difference is.
Let's start with the faster Aauto. When Aauto Quicker was first launched, it was actually a video editing tool. At that time, video editing was a difficult technical activity for many people, and it needed to be realized with more complicated software on the computer. However, those computer softwares are actually very professional. If it is not necessary for work or has great enthusiasm for video creation, the general public rarely uses it.
Therefore, when Aauto Quicker was first introduced, its main task was to let users make simple editing with their mobile phones, which was essentially a video processing tool. It was not until 20 13 that Aauto Quicker gradually transformed from a tool to a short video content community, and from video processing to video creation. It can be said that it entered the blue ocean market of short video very early.
However, Tik Tok was launched in the second half of 20 16 and became popular in less than a year. 20 18 years is the outbreak period of Tik Tok, and there are basically no people around who don't play Tik Tok. Although Tik Tok appeared much faster than Aauto, it appeared at the right time. During the period of 20 17-20 18, under the situation that major short video platforms were competing for exposure, it became popular and ranked among the top short video lists.
I won't elaborate on the specific development process here, but whether an app can stand out from the crowd ultimately depends on its "product experience+operation means".
Obviously, Aauto Quicker is a lightly operated product. The early Aauto Quicker did not have the concept of KOL, and all users were equal. As long as the content is published, it can be displayed on the platform.
Tik Tok is a heavy-duty product, which is good at marketing events. At first, we invited a large number of stars to stay and get fan traffic. Later, we supported online celebrities, our own platform. When the platform has a large number of well-known users and massive content, it relies on powerful recommendation algorithms to do thousands of people.
Zhang Yiming has a point: In the past, users took the initiative to search for content on the Internet, and the representative at that time was Baidu; Now the Internet is actively asking for content, and users will get more content through recommendation, represented by headlines and Tik Tok.
At present, all kinds of apps are full of fragmentation time of users, and there is not much time allocated to each app. The best way to extend users' stay time is recommendation, which is the main reason for Tik Tok's success. Up to now, Aauto quickless is actually moving closer to recommendation. What we see on Aauto quickless is no longer all the content, but what we are interested in.
However, when it comes to products, Aauto Quicker and Tik Tok still have many differences in interaction details and function points. For example, when playing the video of Aauto Quicker, you can't pause by clicking on the screen, and you won't show the video playback progress. You can only interrupt by clicking back. The purpose of this design is to let users play the video continuously and reduce the influence of gesture operation on the video completion rate.
So, I want to compare their product designs and analyze their differences.
User usage process
I. Entrance entry 1. I found that the "discovery" I understand is actually a cognitive thing-that is, whether the user knows what the positioning of this APP is (what this APP is used for).
In order to improve users' awareness of the products, Tik Tok and Kuai Auto have been renamed. A auto quickless changed its name from "GIF Aauto Quicker" to "a auto quickless", and Tik Tok changed its name from "A.me" to "Tik Tok", which also means that the product strategy has changed. If Tik Tok is still called A.me, maybe everyone doesn't know what it is, so it is much clearer to directly position itself as a music short video community for young people.
Under what circumstances do we watch short videos?
No matter on the subway, during lunch break, when eating or when waiting in line, it is fragmentation time. Although we can't set aside a lot of free time for entertainment, the value of these fragmented time is far beyond our imagination. So, why do users think of visiting Aauto faster or Tik Tok when they have nothing to do?
It is said that Tik Tok is "poisonous". Once opened, it's hard to stop. It is quietly "devouring" users' time.
The most terrible thing is, I wanted to use the debris time to entertain myself, and I didn't know it until a few hours later. The most critical factor is its precise push. It will roughly divide the content into several categories, and determine your favorite category through your browsing behavior and viewing time. For users who have just entered Tik Tok, it will accurately push the explosions of the same category, and then expand the boundary when you fall into the information cocoon of this category, and continue to push the category to you, which is effective, simple and rude.
The popularity of Tik Tok makes people think about the meaning of life, and many users question that it is a waste of time and life to brush Tik Tok. It's cool to brush Tik Tok for a while, but then you get bored, because you find it hard to resist the temptation of Tik Tok when you want to do something more meaningful with this fragmented time, such as understanding current affairs and reading books.
Aauto Quicker is actually aware of the competitors' problems. Founder Wang Xin once said:
"There are many ways to increase the duration, such as enhancing immersion, enhancing the continuous experience between videos (these are the characteristics of Tik Tok products), and putting the most profitable things forward. If we do this, it is not difficult to improve the length of 20 or 30 minutes a day with our current content. But the key point is that I don't think these means are very consistent with the goal of recording and sharing life. Users only have 24 hours. You spent a lot of time immersing him here. What kind of growth and benefits he can get also needs to be considered for him. "
Therefore, Aauto quickness still maintains the original product logic in the iterative update, and does not follow the example of Tik Tok for immersive experience, giving users the feeling that I watch Aauto quickness but I am not addicted.
2. At first, the slogan of entering Tik Tok was "focusing on the music short video APP of the new generation", but last year it was changed to "recording a beautiful life", which is very similar to Aauto Quicker's "recording life and recording you".
The previous slogan is to reflect the positioning of the product. "New Generation", "Music" and "Short Video" clearly tell the public that this is a product for young people, and you can shoot the short video you want with trend music. After changing slogan, it shows that Tik Tok's user base is slowly expanding, no longer limited to users in first-and second-tier cities, but is extending its claws to the general public in non-first-tier cities, and the content inside is becoming more and more popular.
In fact, the mentality of users in first-and second-tier cities and third-and fourth-tier cities will also be very different. Most users in third-and fourth-tier cities just use this platform to gain eyeballs in content. They pay more attention to the sharing of daily life records, and the scene of life is very prominent, so Aauto Quicker attaches great importance to creating the atmosphere of the living community.
Tik Tok's initial user groups are "hipsters" who pay attention to music selection, special effects and personal creativity, with few life scenes and many skills. Tik Tok's change of brand slogan this time must be to attract and promote those potential users and expand its own market.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that I was deeply impressed by a detail of Aauto Quicker. For new users who have just entered the APP, there will be a guide prompt in the upper right corner of Aauto Quicker, which is roughly as follows: "If you like the video of the rural anchor, please like ta" (I can't remember the specific words, so I can't take a screenshot). It will make people feel that every ordinary person should be seen. Don't look down on him just because he is not a city white-collar worker. I can't help praising them. This is much hotter than the double-click praise prompt on many short video platforms.
Second, watch the video 1. Entering the page (left) is automatically faster; (right) Tik Tok
After opening Aauto faster, the default entry is the video list page. In order to present more content to users, users can choose their own content. When you open Tik Tok, you will enter the play page by default, and users can slide up and down to switch videos. This is to reduce the user's independent choice, hoping that users can directly consume content.
Compared with other content-based applications, Tik Tok's sliding guidance is more intense. In addition to the "swipe to see more" gesture, the page will automatically pull up the half screen with the gesture, revealing the half screen of the next video. This kind of strong guidance improves the user's expectation of pulling up the page, hoping that the user can slide up as much as possible to watch the video.
Another obvious difference is the location of the search function. Aauto quickless puts search in an obvious central position with the explanation of "search what you want to see", which shows that Aauto quickless wants users to have search behavior.
Tik Tok's search function is placed in the upper right corner, and there is no text to explain the meaning of this search icon to the user. The reason may be that users have a clear understanding of search icons, even if they don't say much, they know that this is a search function. Secondly, the logic of searching content and recommending content is completely opposite, while Tik Tok is re-recommending, and I don't want too much traffic to be distributed to the search portal.
2. Automatically select content from the left side faster; Right -Tik Tok
Selecting content is to let users actively select content. The common way is to search and display massive content. However, most platforms now combine search and recommendation, as do Aauto Quicker and Tik Tok.
Because the cost of pure search for content is too high, users may not find what they are interested in on the platform, and it is easy to lose users. In addition, users don't know how to search for hot content and need to explore it themselves, which is inconsistent with the increasingly "lazy" characteristics of users in the Internet age.
Aauto Quicker's approach is to use the user's herd mentality to tell the user that the content that "everyone is watching" is actually the hottest content on the platform, and the judging standard may be the amount of play or the amount of praise. But if you change the packaging and tell users that everyone is watching these related topics, users will have a mentality. If they don't understand these, they will fall behind and will be curious to open these topics to see what they are.
Tik Tok's approach is similar to Weibo's, making a hot search list, and at the same time making a popularity list, including music list, brand list and good things list. Music list can be understood as users' favorite music when recording videos. Tik Tok was initially loved by young users because there are a large number of bgm with personality trends, and the other two lists can show the deployment of Tik Tok in the e-commerce field.
Aauto Quicker also has a topic section in the search portal, where users can choose topics of interest to participate in video recording and stimulate users to generate content. However, the entrance of this section is hidden deeply, which can only be seen by logged-in users, leaving only one line of special entrance for automatic carousel on the popularity list. However, as we all know, the first few versions of the vibrato short video are all composed of recommendations, topics and activities (such as hip-hop music * * * enjoying cycling with mobike). What is the reason behind this change now?
The initial activity is to create a community atmosphere, guide users to imitate and stimulate users to produce content. In this way, the platform can obtain massive content and prepare for recommendation. When the platform has a huge amount of content and enough content reaches thousands of people, it will be based on recommendation. Tik Tok is a very typical centralized product. Not every short video work can be seen by people, and those repeated high-click works are basically KOL of the head. Tik Tok has gradually entered a mature stage and is facing the transformation from a content platform to a social e-commerce platform. Content production and distribution is no longer the focus of this stage, so the adjustment of layout can show the strategic changes of the whole product. Aauto Quicker just enters the play page and slides to the right to return to the list page, which further proves that the list page is not what Tik Tok wants users to see.
3. Consumption content is left-automatic and faster; Right -Tik Tok
Aside from the functional area, the consumption content level involves the display and interaction of playing pages.
One of the most obvious features of Tik Tok is that it has a rich background music library, and the video special effects card fits well with the concert. So the name of music will be put on the interface, and users can go to the music platform to search when they hear a nice song. We see that Tik Tok is also a platform for the production of online celebrity songs, and many songs that are popular all over the streets are actually from Tik Tok.
4. it is faster to guide the consumption of left-a -Aauto; Right -Tik Tok
Tik Tok's playing interface has many guiding factors to stimulate users' potential consumption desire.
For example, if a scenic spot appears in the video, there will be a scenic spot icon on the interface, and the name of the location of the video will be marked. After clicking, you can see more videos taken by users in this scenic spot, which will stimulate users' desire to travel to this scenic spot. There is also the wearing of the characters in the video, and the interface will pop up a link to the clothes. When users click on the link, they will jump to the e-commerce platform (which may be Tik Tok's own or other shopping platforms), thus stimulating users' desire to buy clothes.
Aautopicker is also developing in the direction of e-commerce. Not long ago, it launched the function of Aauto's faster store, which is similar to WeChat's micro-store, but it has not been vigorously promoted. Only the logged-in user can see the entrance of Aauto Faster Store in the settings.
Embedding commodity information and purchase links in the video requires real-name authentication and good credit. If you want to put an auto faster store on your personal homepage, you need to show your official business license. I have probably browsed more than a dozen videos of Aauto quickless continuously, but I haven't found a video with a product link, mainly because the threshold for users to release products is high at present, and the background of Aauto quickless has certain restrictions, which shows the efforts made by Aauto quickless to develop e-commerce without hurting the user experience.
However, since Aauto Quicker's store is only in the exploratory stage of a few tests, it is uncertain whether it will be promoted as vigorously as Tik Tok in the future. However, we need to weigh the user experience and the realization of e-commerce. After all, the problems exposed after Tik Tok launched the e-commerce function are also obvious.
Although both of them are trying to realize e-commerce, there are still some differences in the mode.
Tik Tok's early way is to divert traffic to Taobao, and the video playback interface pops up product information. Users click and jump to Taobao shop, and the revenue generated is divided between the two platforms.
This way of development is easy to understand. At present, the active users of Tik Tok have reached 1 100 million, and many platforms hope to get traffic from such a huge platform.
Last year's Double Eleven, Tik Tok started the first attempt of e-commerce and opened the shopping cart sharing function. The related accounts sold 654.38+10,000 pieces in a single day, the direct conversion sales exceeded 200 million, and the order increased by 1000%, which verified the content realization strength of Tik Tok. However, Tik Tok is unwilling to be a platform for turnover reversal, and this realization mode is relatively limited and single. As a result, it opened a free store and built its own e-commerce system. Merchants can settle in the assured mall (headline's own mall) and open stores on the platform owned by several bytes, such as Tik Tok. When users click on the products that pop up on the video interface, they will jump to the shops on this platform and inquire about orders, logistics and other related information on this platform.
But it also exposed many problems, such as: the proliferation of fake and shoddy goods, no after-sales protection and so on.
III. Summary 1. On the whole, active acquisition and passive recommendation, in fact, the most obvious difference between the product logic of Aauto Quicker and Tik Tok is that Aauto Quicker attaches importance to letting users choose the content they are interested in from the massive content; Tik Tok wants users to watch the content recommended by the platform without making a choice.
Active acquisition is actually a search logic, and passive recommendation is a recommendation logic. Only by effectively combining the two can we improve the utilization rate of content. Neither Aauto Quicker nor Tik Tok gave up the other for one logic, but combined them in different ways to improve the efficiency of users watching videos.
2. Decentralization and centralization Aauto Quicker makes a fuss about decentralization, and does not support network celebrities to tilt resources so that all users can be found.
This has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that it can really attract more mass users. The disadvantage is that the reds fled Aote faster, and a large part of them went to Tik Tok.
On the other hand, Tik Tok chose a completely opposite path. From the beginning of centralization, we spent a lot of money to invite stars and support network celebrity anchors, which catered to the attitude of young people in the city who pursued individuality, coolness and fun. Therefore, doing e-commerce is much faster and easier than Aauto. Because the consumption potential of young people is the most endless, Tik Tok is cultivating the consumption habits of many young people, and its e-commerce liquidity will be faster and stronger than Aauto, and the road will be smoother.
3. As the underlying logic of media or community operation, there are great differences between lightly operated communities and heavily operated media short video platforms. The media pursues the creation of explosive content, and then breaks through the original user circle and radiates the public.
In the past six months, Tik Tok has produced a variety of content explosions, from music and dances such as meowing and seaweed dancing to eating methods such as sea fishing, as well as various short videos that are frequently turned over.
However, we will also find that neither of them is satisfied with the status quo. Tik Tok is gradually expanding to third-and fourth-tier cities to "win" users of Aauto faster. Facing the challenge brought by Tik Tok, Aauto Quicker constantly optimizes its own algorithm to improve the loyalty and stickiness of users.
This article was originally published by @ Everyone is a product manager. Reprinting is prohibited without permission.
The title map comes from Unsplash and is based on CC0 protocol.