Which is better, interesting headlines or Sohu information?
Most netizens think interesting titles are better.
In the past, we have seen information apps that earn points by signing in, reading, commenting and forwarding. Recently, a number of news apps with the gimmicks of "reading information to earn gold coins", "brushing news to earn pocket money" and "brushing news to earn cash" have entered the public eye. You heard me right, not earning points, but earning "glistening money". The operation form is not difficult. Most of them encourage users to share links with friends, invite friends to register and earn gold coins, and have cash subsidies.
Friends, do you believe in this kind of "pie falling from the sky"? I don't believe it anyway. No, before the product "caught fire", all kinds of doubts emerged. Will this "bounty is king" news communication mode make the content quality stand aside? Is the so-called "apprentice mode" of "recommending friends" compliant?
APP induces sharing, and the "apprentice" mode is similar to the disguised "MLM"
Read the same information every day to make money. This is the slogan of a news information APP.
User Ms. Zhang told reporters that she was idle anyway. She can watch the news, share her circle of friends, earn some pocket money, not pocket money, and earn a bus and subway money.
In an APP called "Huitoutou", almost all user behaviors are "clearly marked". According to the current regulations of the platform, whether watching news, watching videos, signing in, sharing or sharing links with friends, you can get different amounts of gold coins on the platform. For example, you can get 100 gold coins for reading information for 5 minutes, 50 gold coins for watching videos for 5 minutes, and 50 gold coins for sharing news information. According to its exchange principle, the gold coin of 10000 platform is approximately equal to 1 yuan in reality, and users can only withdraw cash on WeChat or Alipay by accumulating at least 10000 gold coins. In other words, users have to read news information for more than 8 hours in a row on the headlines, or watch videos for nearly 17 hours to earn 1 yuan. It seems that this pocket money is not so easy to earn.
Many "brushing news to make money" apps
Industry insider Mr. Gong revealed that "subsidy+apprentice" has become the main business model of some news and information apps. The so-called subsidy means that users get cash rewards for completing designated tasks, and the apprenticeship model is more important. By inviting apprentices, users can get a continuous income share.
Teacher Gong said that in essence, this model is equivalent to the apprenticeship model, which is somewhat similar to the "pyramid scheme" of apprentices. In this way, one person can be expanded to three people, five people and ten people. There is a certain hierarchy in it.
"If you want to make money quickly, you can accept an apprentice." . After sharing the invitation code "apprentice", if the apprentice has not read, shared or continued the "apprentice" behavior for a long time, the master can also remind the apprentice to read the information through the "wake-up" function, and then continue to receive the reward. The reporter opened a news information APP called "Interesting Headlines". Its public ranking shows that the total income of the number one user currently exceeds 93,200 yuan, and the number of registered users exceeds 40,000.
According to interesting headline data, there are more than 40,000 apprentices with the highest income.
Take the headline of the industry giant as an example. It only took more than a year, and its DAU (daily active users) exceeded10 million. It is reported that Fun Headline announced on March 16 this year that it has completed more than 200 million US dollars of financing. Mr. Gong, an insider, said that this business model has been recognized by the market.
Mr. Gong said that this business model is equivalent to taking this part of cash flow as a new way of delivery, not in major markets, but switching to this model, which mainly solves two problems. The first is to have stable users, and the second is to have stable activity.
In first-and second-tier cities, everyone defaults to "headlines" = "headlines today". However, in the sinking market, there is a huge "headline system" matrix, which refers not to the products of Beijing companies such as Che Huang, Watermelon Video and Volcano Video, but to the information flow products such as interesting headlines, Hui headlines, Taobao news and Oriental headlines, which are mainly operated by rebate subsidies. Interesting headlines are the earliest and fastest one.
According to Tan Siliang, CEO of Fun Headline, the penetration rate of the first place in this industry in third-tier and below cities has not exceeded 20%, "not as exaggerated as everyone thinks". The remaining 80% is a blank for interesting headlines. Most of the users they came into contact with probably didn't install any news and information applications on their mobile phones.
According to previous media reports, the overlap between interesting headline users and today's headlines is only 20%, and the overlap with Pinduoduo can reach 60%. The ratio of male users to female users is about 3: 7, and it is opened more than 50 times a week, commented more than 280,000 times a day, and read more than 20 times per capita, mainly women, leading household consumption.
Obviously, such a strategy helps interesting headlines avoid confrontation with industry giants and expand rapidly in third-and fourth-tier cities. According to cheetah big data 20 17 China APP ranking, interesting headlines rank 4 1 in the whole network of apps, second only to Tencent and today's headlines in information products. Especially in the TOP25 list of news information in June 20 17, the growth rate of interesting headlines exceeded 500%.
However, the "fragrant cake" in the eyes of the investment market is full of controversy in the legal field of vision.
Zhao Zhanling, a lawyer of Beijing Zhi Lin Law Firm, said in an interview with the media, "Master, apprentice and apprentice constitute the upper and lower levels, and master can also benefit from apprentice and apprentice. This apprenticeship model meets the constitutive requirements of pyramid schemes. "
Zhao Zhanling introduced that judging whether a model is suspected of pyramid schemes mainly depends on two points: First, organizational elements, that is, developing personnel, form a network, which is also commonly known as "developing offline". Offline can be further developed to form an online and offline interpersonal network and form a "personnel chain" for pyramid schemes; The second is the reward requirement, which is based on the number of offline participants directly and indirectly developed by participants themselves, or on the offline sales performance directly and indirectly developed by participants themselves, forming a "money chain" of pyramid schemes. "Obviously, the income model of interesting headlines meets these two points and is suspected of pyramid schemes." Zhao Zhanling said.
However, Zhao Zhanling pointed out that this model is not new. In the early days of Internet development, this model was popular in the PC era, and there were many similar practices in the mobile Internet era.
"It's just that in the interesting headline mode, people contribute time instead of money; In addition, when it promoted the apprentice model, it did not vigorously promote the rewards of apprentices, so many people felt that it was not suspected of pyramid schemes. " Zhao Zhanling said.
Liu Mingxiang, executive director of the Criminal Law Science Research Center of China Renmin University, expressed different views. If all the rewards that users get from the apprenticeship mode on the platform and all the advertisements put on the platform are legal advertisements, then although the mode seems to conform to the characteristics of pyramid schemes, because users have not lost money in the whole process, they cannot be considered as suspected of pyramid schemes.
"The platform's reward system for user apprentices is more like a paid service, or it can be understood as burning money promotion, which is essentially different from pyramid schemes." Liu Mingxiang said.
There is no problem with the "bounty priority" mode, but there is a problem with playing the ball with vulgar content.
According to reports, despite the constant doubts, it does not prevent such news and information apps from deriving new "business". Even, there is a shop called "Interesting Headlines, Amoy News Apprentice" in Taobao Store. The store claims that all apprentices are valid apprentices, and the registration of non-virtual mobile phone numbers is purely manual, with one in 5 yuan.
Think about how scared you are. When news gives way to business, and when "content is king" encounters "bounty priority", what does the news pushed by such news and information apps leave for users?
It is worth noting that the reporter encountered such a detail when using the APP. In front of the information title pushed by the interesting headline, there is a "box" which reads "Read+10 Gold Coin". Sometimes when the content is long, the number will be 30 gold coins.
This model is not unique to interesting headlines. It is not difficult to find out by opening Taobao News APP. Almost every tweet is marked with the gold coin value corresponding to reading this article. The reporter opened one of the articles and found that as long as he dragged the article from beginning to end and stayed for a few seconds, the words "10 gold coins have been accounted for" would pop up.
Interesting title page
At the same time, a reporter's investigation found that the content of this kind of information app is mainly based on health tips, celebrity gossip and feng shui dreams. "It's all fake news with no nutrition and no basis" and "there are too few meaningful articles. It's not difficult to find the promotion of" brushing news to make money "by looking at the comments of netizens in the app download store. Although it is well-known, it has received little praise.
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These "chicken soup texts" that were once encouraged or encouraged are now "spoiled" by many netizens: some articles use sensational wording, but in fact they contain false advertising content such as fake and shoddy health care products; Others are directly mixed with pornographic and obscene content, and use explicit language to scratch the ball.
Why is the spoiled "chicken soup" still spreading? According to industry insiders, at present, some articles known as "one-click forwarding artifacts" have been forwarded to the platform of receiving orders and sending orders, which has become the "behind-the-scenes pusher" for the spread of vulgar and illegal articles, forming an industrial chain involving distribution, marketing and profit. The common means is to induce users to share with cash rewards.
An APP called Zhuanzhuan has almost achieved the ultimate mode of "subsidy+apprentice". After opening the APP, there is no news push, only options such as forwarding to make money and inviting big money. Click on the "Forward to Make Money" page, and the reading unit price of each article is marked. If it is forwarded to a circle of friends, some people will get corresponding rewards for reading, and the income for each reading varies from 8 cents to 1 cent. Most of these titles and articles are vulgar, filthy and provocative.
Hongbo, an independent commentator on the Internet, said that such a "bounty priority" model is understandable in itself, but it is the key to the problem to play the edge ball of vulgar content under such a model.
Hongbo: Generally speaking, people generally think that it is difficult for you to get users with elegant things. A little vulgar, a little marginal is easier to get users. As far as these products are concerned, it is hoped that more people will participate in the reading of the content with a small amount of incentives. This problem is not big, but in terms of operation (platform), they often take some exaggerated things to attract attention. This is their problem.
Interesting title page
"If the content is illegal, it should be the responsibility of the forwarder." Song Jianwu, a professor at the School of Journalism, Renmin University of China, pointed out that users should improve their literacy, do something wrong, strengthen their ability to identify vulgar and illegal content, and avoid becoming "accomplices" in the dissemination of bad information because of greed for small profits. In addition, Song Jianwu suggested that all social platforms should also strengthen monitoring and improve the monitoring accuracy of highly concealed illegal content.
The "Regulations on the Management of WeChat External Content" issued by WeChat platform clearly stipulates that once it is found that vulgar, vulgar and indecent content is shared and disseminated in the form of external links, it will be dealt with immediately. According to the introduction of the WeChat team, we will continue to intensify efforts to rectify and crack down on pornography and other illegal content in the future.
"In order to crack down on the industrial chain behind the wanton spread of illegal content, in addition to the platform taking the initiative to assume the main responsibility, the regulatory authorities such as online information and culture also need to strengthen cooperation, coordinate and eliminate the blind spots of supervision." Zhu Wei, deputy director of Communication Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, pointed out that the definition of pornographic and obscene content in actual punishment still needs to be clear, and it needs to be defined in combination with relevant laws and regulations and existing precedents of regulatory authorities, so as to further improve the effectiveness of supervision and form a more effective constraint and warning role for platforms, content producers and ordinary users.
"The platform can't become the source of low-quality or even vulgar content dissemination under the guise of fancy promotion." Professor Song Jianwu believes that Internet platforms and applications should pay attention to their own content construction, highlight the publicity of products, and devote themselves to spreading positive and high-quality content that users like.