Himalayas, can the sound be endless?
Text |She Zongming.
Many times, people rush to conclusions just because they don't see more aspects of things.
At the beginning of last year, Pinduoduo engaged in insider optimization, and many people said that the growth myth of Pinduoduo was over, and as a result, its market value has soared this year, making many people cover their faces.
At the beginning of this year, ByteDance engaged in internal personnel optimization, and many people analyzed Byte's internal and external troubles, and as a result, not long ago, it became a big factory to make money, which made some wild prophets feel embarrassed.
The lesson from this is that there is no need to rush to conclusions before the coffin is closed.
Now, after the rumors of the big layoffs have been scraped into many leading Internet platforms, they are also besieging the audio brother Himalayas.
Although the Himalayan side responded that the news was untrue, there were no layoffs, just a normal personnel replacement, and they are still actively recruiting;Those gossip are also the number of Internet exposure channels, and there is neither multiple parties to verify nor sources to corroborate;Some**and**Since** also deleted the post after the news was released, but the tree wants to be quiet and the wind does not stop.
At the moment, words like "big layoffs" often point to a bearish tendency. So, will the Himalayas have enough "viability" to resist the unfavorable wind created by rumors of "mass layoffs"?
Now, Himalaya is giving the answer with the picture of hugging podcasts, AIGC, and AIoT.
In recent years, reducing costs and increasing efficiency has become a common action for major Internet companies. Since layoffs are associated with negative signals, large companies will use more terms such as "personnel optimization" to transform concepts and downplay them.
However, whether it is an increase or a layoff, it is a normal operation and management behavior of an enterprise at different stages of development. Of course, it is worth encouraging enterprises to solve more jobs for the society, but we should not reverse this and then exaggerate the atmosphere of moral kidnapping in which downsizing is irresponsible.
For enterprises, the premise of creating greater value is always to live first. Only by surviving first can we create more social value in the creation of business value (including increasing employment, contributing tax revenue, cultivating an innovation ecosystem, etc.), and only then can we be responsible to all parties.
It is a survival strategy for enterprises in a specific period of time, as long as it does not violate the law, there is no need to be harsh.
Layoffs are not a stain on the company, and replacement is not. This time, Himalaya, which was in the spotlight because of the rumors, clarified that there were no layoffs, only replacements. This is reminiscent of one word – agile organization.
In response to rumors such as layoffs, Himalaya said that the news was untrue.
Agile is a common feature of the organizational model of Internet companies. Agile is emphasized because Internet companies are often close to users and have a strong sense of crisis. It is their basic skill to have a keen insight into the complex and changeable user needs and industry environment, and to better meet user needs and respond to market changes in the course of changing adaptations.
In reality, the advent of ChatGPT has opened a new era of AI, and it is not a distant saying that AI will change thousands of industries. In this context, many Internet companies are using the organizational structure to change with the times, in line with the trend that all industries will be redone in the AI era.
The prescient Himalaya has taken the initiative to make changes since last year, and organizational upgrading is an important point: whether it is to strengthen cross-departmental collaboration for new business needs, or to introduce AI operations, the accompanying organizational structure changes will bring corresponding personnel adjustments. This is a step in the chessboard of improving strategic and organizational clarity and enhancing the vitality of enterprise development.
To be sure, there will always be a discrepancy between the long-term perspective of corporate development and the modern thinking of individual judgment. For those who are in the vortex of organizational change, there will be different perspectives from different perspectives: those who seek stability may feel that organizational change is a toss-up, but hopefully innovators will argue that only change can lead to vitality.
This dictates that if you ask different people in the know and internal employees, there may be different feedback.
But whether the real effect of change is good or bad, you may have to look further away to see it.
For Himalaya, now is indeed an important node moment for its enterprise development. The node here has nothing to do with the rumors of major layoffs, but with the arrival of new opportunities.
After all, what determines the prosperity and decline of the Himalayas is by no means the so-called "layoff rumors", but whether they can grasp the new opportunities under the trend of the times.
The new opportunities include several aspects: in terms of content, the rise of podcasts;From a technical point of view, it is AIGC that is mature;From the perspective of the scene, it is the extensive penetration of AIoT (artificial intelligence + Internet of Things).
Those who observe the situation are clear, those who are trending are wise, and those who control the situation win. As far as Internet companies are concerned, it is very important to occupy the momentum if they want to continue to become stronger.
Over the past decade, there have been a number of technology companies that have grown rapidly from start-ups to industry leaders in China, such as ByteDance, Pinduoduo, and Xiaomi. Their rapid rise is largely due to the fact that they have seized several important trends: the exponential growth of the number of Internet usersIn the consumer market, the grading trend is obvious;In terms of the characteristics of the total time distribution of the people, the fragmentation characteristics are prominentIn terms of content production, the decentralization situation in which everyone has a microphone and everyone is a producer has ......
As the number one player in China's audio track, Ximalaya is no exception. Born in 2012, Himalaya has been able to change from a functional app with mostly online radio enthusiasts as seed users to a voice body that connects tens of millions of anchors, hundreds of millions of users, and countless terminals with listening, which also stems from its homeopathy and momentum. According to relevant ** reports, as of the third quarter of 2023, the number of monthly active users in all scenarios has exceeded 34.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 2147%。
The Harry Potter Chinese audiobook was launched in the Himalayas in June last year.
Covering multi-level and differentiated content including radio dramas, audiobooks, live broadcasts, talk shows, cross talk jokes, professional knowledge, etc., the content production mode of UGC, PGC, PUGC, AIGC aggregation, and the presentation system of universal radio stations and personalized push of private customized FM coexist ......Let it become a representative of advanced productivity in the field of audio.
At present, Himalaya has accumulated more than 100 categories of 3400 million pieces of audio content. Its from 0 to 1 to n, from scratch to excellent, is the epitome of the development trajectory of China's Internet audio industry in the past 11 years, which not only drives the vigorous growth of the entire audio industry, but also verifies the rich possibilities of audio in the era of mobile Internet.
The rise of audio also fulfills the prophecy of communication master McLuhan a few years ago - in the electronic age, the ear will make a comeback, compete with the eye, re-achieve the balance of the senses, and realize the return of man.
In the era of AI, AI is the anchor of the potential. With the rapid development of AI, podcasts, AIGC, and AIoT will all be matured.
This is a new window of opportunity in front of Himalaya: in the past 10 years, Himalaya has built a huge audio voice circle from the content side, platform side, and distribution side, and continues to consolidate its head advantage in the audio track.
At present, the organizational upgrade of the Himalaya is to build momentum for this.
Podcasts have ushered in an explosive momentum in the past two years due to the characteristics of casual form, high-knowledge density content, superimposed scenes, and extractable acceptance atmosphere. While being able to be busy with the work at hand, I can listen to a high-level celebrity conversation, and I need to have a sense of presence and immersion, which makes many young people more sought after.
Ximalaya has copied the advantages of its first-class audio platform to the podcast field: organizationally, through the establishment of a special business unit to break through departmental barriers, strengthen the strategic position of podcast as a key layout of business;In terms of policy, a series of podcast support policies such as Thousands of Stars, Podcast+, and New Voice Power have been launched to support podcast creators from multiple aspects such as intelligent tools, traffic tilt, and commercialization capabilitiesAt the event, online and offline events such as Podcast All-Stars and Podcast Development Conference are carnivals for podcasters, increasing their opportunities to reach new users and increase penetration.
Podcast Development and Development Conference The high-quality podcast experts on the joint platform shared industry insights and tips for the audience to make money.
The numbers speak for themselves: Himalaya's podcast had more than 1 listeners in May this year600 million, at present, there are more than 240,000 podcast programs with commercial value on the whole platform, becoming a veritable head platform for Chinese podcasts. Since June 25 this year, Ximalaya has become an Apple Podcasts certified hosting platform, which is the only Apple Podcasts certified hosting platform in Chinese mainland.
AIoT is now reconstructing people's living spaces with the integration of software and hardware. Hardware terminals such as automobiles, smart homes, smart speakers, and smart wearables are strung together by the Internet of Everything ecosystem, which also expands the landing scene for the best audio.
Himalaya has been committed to the construction of intelligent ecology early on, creating a new model of connecting hardware products with the audio content platform as the core, and all its content consumption scenarios have been integrated into the people's smart life with a penetrating trend.
In the case that the car space has become an important extension scene outside the mobile phone, Himalaya has also created a special team to focus on the layout of the Internet of Vehicles, which is currently being used at 93With 5% coverage, it has become the number one player in this field, and as of June 2023, more than 100 million car owners have enjoyed the services of Himalayan Internet of Vehicles.
Himalaya has designed a comprehensive solution for the Internet of Vehicles.
The AIGC now brings new content production tools that can greatly enhance the richness of the content ecosystem of audio platforms.
Himalaya has set up a special voice technology research and development team through organizational upgrading, and quickly implemented the application of voice technology, from the automatic role recognition, timbre distribution, speech synthesis, and emotional transformation of multi-angle audio AIGC technology, to the cinema-quality panoramic sound audio experience created by AI, and the empowered creative tool Cloud Editing, all of which have lowered the threshold for audio content creation, improved creative efficiency, and broadened the creative direction.
Today, Himalaya uses a large number of AI technologies in the process from text processing to audio content generation, and the average daily volume of audio content generated by AIGC has exceeded 2.5 million hours. According to the latest data, Himalayan AIGC content accounted for nearly 5% of listening in September this year, an increase of about 100% from December last year.
Under the guidance of the organizational upgrading and reform strategy, Ximalaya is increasing its efforts in these future-oriented businesses, scenarios, and technologies, which will help to open up the positive enhancement loop of reversing the audio production cost structure, improving the richness of the content ecosystem, and continuously improving the user listening experience, forming a positive cycle of value flow among creators, users, brand owners and platforms.
When podcasts inject more source of fresh water into the audio track, AIoT enables audio content to achieve full-scene coverage, and AIGC ushers in an innovation in the audio content production model, which will inevitably leverage greater future imagination for the sound circle of Himalaya to grow.
This is undoubtedly a counterpoint to the declining voices that have been rumored to be redundant. In fact, some of the underestimations, intentionally or unintentionally, are underestimating the resilience of the audio track and the Himalayas.
We all know that people receive information with two senses: eyes and ears. The former undertakes content forms such as ** and **, while the latter is audio.
In recent years, the development momentum of short ** is fierce, and compared with this kind of rich ** form products, the audio does not seem to be so fast.
But it's precisely its slowness that makes audio a comparative advantage in wide-area spatial deep immersion. Its full-scene penetration, full-life cycle characteristics and strong companionship attributes give it a stronger ability to traverse cycles.
Audio is the only medium with companion properties. Audio** often uses good voices as a guide to take people to other places, comfort people's loneliness and sadness, and become people's voices**It is also often used as a wedge for privateness, embedded in public life, evoking people's emotional connection.
Many podcasts have become the voice of the listener.
Because it is not limited to the screen, the audio will not disturb the user's current behavior state, and it can provide companionship value in scenes that are not suitable for viewing, so the information reception method with the ear as the contact medium can be highly integrated with food, clothing, housing and transportation, eating, drinking and playingIt's hard for us to brush up on the short ** when we work, but we can listen to the light **....When listening to the Himalayas, we can be systematic, fragmented, focused, distracted, Xi and leisure.
Because of this, in the fast-paced life where there are so many time-killing products that are almost overflowing, and in the current era of visual overload, many people use audio as a solution to get rid of short-term addiction and avoid FOMO (information loss phobia): to obtain knowledge nutrition and spiritual nourishment in listening, and to avoid dry eye syndrome, it is a double harvest.
Tsinghua University professor Chen Changfeng previously said that the ear economy adapts to the current people's fragmented chemical Xi + companionship to meet the needs, as a fragmented information package, effortlessly squeezed into the fragmented gaps of life, filling and soothing people's sense of emptiness and anxiety caused by brokenness, thanks to the accompaniment of mobile audio, the 'ear economy' does not need to occupy the user's eyes and hands, can allow users to multitask, make good use of the fragmented time that is difficult to use. 」
Audio is the only medium with companionship attributes.
To meet the needs of spiritual companionship, it also gives ** audio a strong resilience, which strengthens its ability to travel through cycles. Therefore, even though the Internet industry is suffering from cyclical difficulties, Ximalaya has been able to usher in steady growth in user scale and profits: in the first three quarters of 2022, the average daily listening time of Ximalaya mobile users was 140 minutes. In the fourth quarter of 2022, it achieved a single-quarter profit of 10 million yuan for the first time.
Now, Himalaya is evolving its ability to leverage organizational upgrading, turning the new opportunities brought by podcasts, AIGC, and AIoT into its own new advantages, which can enhance its future competitiveness.
Nokia may not live past 100 years, but Coca-Cola can;Many amusement parks can't be IPs, but Disney can ......In the long period of history, the stronger the cultural attributes and the deeper the emotional connection with the public, the more resilient the company will be through the cycle - Coca-Cola sells more culture than happy waterDisney offers more culture than amusements.
Himalaya is deeply involved in the audio track, and sound is an important carrier of culture and the center of emotional connection. The poet William Copperer once said that sound resonates with the heart. The French thinker Adali also said that people can close their eyes, but they can't close their ears - compared to ** images, sound can point to people's hearts more directly and resonate with the depths of the soul.
A few years later, whether Himalaya can become the Coca-Cola and Disney in the audio field is indeed too far away, but Himalaya's upgrade of organizational structure and embrace of podcasts, AIoT, and AIGC undoubtedly show a positive attitude towards the new.
Ultimately, time will tell. And in this answer, there may be a line of words:
The sound is endless, and it has its own sound vitality.