In recent days, anyone watching the World Cup must have seen zhihu’s advertisement on CCTV. Interestingly, Zhihu set the theme of the advertisement as “If there is a problem, go to Zhihu”, which reminds us of baidu’s advertising slogan of “Search baidu, you will know” that has been used for 13 years.
In the literal sense of the word, both ads send the same message to the masses: I have what you need. In other words, what Zhihu and Baidu are doing is distributing information in the Internet age, but in this vast information factory, the division of labor of the two is very different, one is more quantity, the other is more quality.
Baidu in the pre-search era: diligent in information quantity
Talking about Baidu, most people’s initial impression of it must be a search engine. Although Baidu’s AI label is very bright now, it is an indisputable fact that Baidu started as a search engine. As a search engine, Baidu needs to attract people to search, but only if baidu has packaged the information.
About Baidu and information connection, we can come from two respects unscramble.
First, from the way Baidu handles information. In 2003, Baidu launched its news search website, which on the one hand showed users hot news and on the other hand provided users with the function of searching news. Like the big four portals, Baidu has media attributes, but the intention is to make search more sticky when users want news.
Later, For information processing, Baidu has launched baidu Know, which is mainly about questions and answers, and Baidu Encyclopedia, which is mainly about science popularization, which makes Baidu further in information processing ability. But the launch of these products is still aimed at consolidating Baidu’s position as China’s leading search engine. But from baidu know, in addition to the simple packaging of information, have to say that Baidu also provides users with a platform for information production.
However, in the early stage, Baidu’s core positioning is still a search engine, so its centralized thinking of serving traffic will not change. The greatest value of these products centering on PC and mobile terminals is the continuous flow of traffic. And in the information processing, whether it is to provide news entry, or to provide a question-and-answer platform, Baidu has done in fact is relatively light work.
Second, from the user’s demand for Baidu. When people step into the Internet, they often have a variety of clear and unclear purposes, and search engines like Baidu naturally need to provide massive information, it is possible to achieve the maximum degree of satisfaction. This determines that the main purpose of users coming to Baidu is to obtain enough information, or to obtain useful information through self-processing of enough information. Therefore, limited to the characteristics of search engines to obtain and display information, people’s demand for Baidu actually lies in the amount of information.
But people’s requirements and demands for information are constantly changing. On the one hand, the processing and difficulty of massive information will trouble users, so users want to see the processed information, which is a very good evidence. The AI recommendation function adopted by the media now is catering to the taste of users. On the other hand, as the user becomes comfortable with Internet tools, the underlying need for deeper information will be aroused. Therefore, search engines like Baidu have some difficulty in meeting users’ demands for such information. Even if they can, users often have to go through a complex search path to find the information they want, so there are platforms to meet people’s in-depth information needs, such as Zhihu.
Zhihu in the post-search era: Loyal to information quality
Unlike Baidu’s search engine, Zhihu started as a question-and-answer platform. Similar to Baidu Know, Sina Aiwen and Sosowen, Zhihu also uses the form of interactive communication in content production. However, it is this one-to-many question-and-answer format that makes Zhihu gradually become professional and a community in its future development.
Based on the form of question and answer, Zhihu has two characteristics in terms of information or content. Firstly, the content of question and answer is produced by users, which is very primitive. Moreover, due to the instinct of users, it often reflects the real information needs of users, such as the needs of self-improvement or entertainment, so it has a strong reference value. Second, through further processing, q&A content can produce synergistic effects, in the form of special topics or series to help users to solve problems and meet their quality requirements for information.
Therefore, even in the face of individual differences, that is, problems and variables existing in individuals, the historical content of Zhihu can meet the needs of the vast majority of people for special information. However, this will not be easy to do, thanks to the characteristics of Zhihu’s user base. According to a previous data report by iResearch, most of Zhihu’s users are university graduates. Clearly, content produced by highly educated people is more professional, at least to some extent ensuring the quality of information.
In addition to meeting users’ demand for in-depth information acquisition, Due to the characteristics of users and interactive means of information production, Zhihu also meets users’ demand for in-depth information processing, such as putting forward their own professional opinions under professional questions, which is also an information processing link that is difficult to be reached by general Q&A platforms.
From this point of view, users can not only obtain in-depth content on Zhihu, but also produce and process in-depth content. The reason why Zhihu can meet users’ comprehensive demand for information lies in that it is not only a platform that provides massive amounts of information, but more importantly, it pays great attention to the control of information quality from providing in-depth content to cultivating users’ habit of answering to the display and recommendation of the platform.
In simple terms, all around the information of the Internet age, zhihu is actually absorb by numerous personalized and the commonness of information, through the reasonable processing the information classification, zhihu output of finished product is the past, present and future users will want to get the information, the value of the information will remain. From this point of view, the information in the form of questions and answers really confirms the slogan of Zhihu: “If there are problems, go on Zhihu”.
Information needs stratified, Baidu and Zhihu how to go in the future?
To sum up, from the perspective of meeting users’ information needs, they can be defined respectively. One is Zhihu, which solves problems, and the other is Baidu, which provides information. In psychology, there is a theory called Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which states that human needs are divided into five levels, from physiological needs at the bottom to self-actualization needs at the top.
Zhihu and Baidu also fit this hierarchical mode in meeting people’s information needs. From the degree of information processing difficulty, Baidu it is the huge information into the same bag, so that users can access at any time; Zhihu not only collects information, but also marks different information in different bags so that users can access it more clearly.
It can be said that the clear division of labor between the two enables users to easily obtain the information they want at different cognitive stages and in different states. For example, when users want to kill time with information during fragmentation time, they can browse baidu’s news and information stream, and when they have specific problem solving needs, they can search keywords on Zhihu to find accurate answers.
Of course, no matter what state people’s information needs are in, in the long run, as a socialized species, human beings’ demand for information is obviously endless. Because of such borderless, Baidu and Zhihu also have different development directions.
Although the focus of Baidu’s development has shifted, the function of providing information in Baidu’s DNA cannot be erased. It is an exaggeration to say that as long as Baidu has been a search engine, its responsibility to provide information will always exist. However, Baidu can continue to increase this kind of information service, and continue to transfusion for its own cash needs, information flow is a very good proof.
However, there is no denying that because of the need for transformation, Baidu’s exploration boundaries in information seem to be limited to this. But the younger Zhihu is different, and his ambition to expose himself to the public is increasingly apparent. On the one hand, Taking advantage of the knowledge payment, Zhihu upgraded its market into Zhihu University, aiming to make knowledge produce universal value. On the other hand, Zhihu APP recently launched a short video section, which aims to provide a popular outlet for knowledge while providing diversified ways for knowledge production.
It is very clear that Zhihu’s ambition is not only to expand the boundaries of the platform, but also to recognize the channels through which people acquire knowledge. Combined with its extensive advertising on TV and Internet channels, These moves suggest that Zhihu is ready to embrace users from all over the world and do something big.
Last month, On its Yanclub platform, Zhihu announced that 160 million registered users and 100 million total users had answered questions on the platform. In the past seven years, From Zhihu to Zhihu Live and now zhihu University, Zhihu is exploring a broader world and gradually becoming a popular knowledge service platform.
Zhou Yuan, founder of Zhihu, once said, “Since its inception, Zhihu’s original intention is to help people share knowledge, experience and opinions, and to produce, disseminate and share useful and valuable information. It’s zhihu’s mission to help people understand the world better.”
Now it seems that under such a mission, zhihu’s ultimate goal may be to become the largest information center in the Internet era by constantly meeting people’s requirements for information quality. In any case, nowadays it is easy for us to get the information we want, which is not only due to the current information explosion era, but also due to the information tools represented by Zhihu and Baidu in this era.
Article/Liu Kuang public account, ID: Liukuang110