Short and sweet

Brief videos are a big hit with mobile app users, and a growing number of investors are noticing

The ingredients of a successful Chinese digital cocktail of entertainment, technology, innovation and business are unmistakable in the rise of new industry-the short video.

They have once again combined to create an online segment that is spawning hundreds of startups, thousands of aspiring performers, millions of users and billions in investment.

By year's end, the number of online users enjoying short videos - defined as a duration of 10 seconds to a few minutes each - is expected to rise almost 58 percent year-on-year to reach a record 242 million, according to a report by iiMedia Research, a global mobile internet company that focuses on third-party data mining and analysis.

Zhu Feng (left), founder and CMO of Star Station TV, and one of her colleagues wearing a mask anchor a football program. Provided to China Daily

Short videos focus on themes like travel, food, beauty, animation, sports and other leisure areas, as well as lifestyle information and real-time market information.

Wang Xiaohong, secretary-general of the China Online Video Research Center, says: "It is an inevitable trend that the short video format will become part of our daily lives. It has become a promising business, attracting a large number of platforms and investments."

This world of social mobile internet is inhabited by startups that boast tens of millions of users each (and, sometimes, unicorn valuations) - young performers who rake in millions of yuan in personal earnings, along with established players that pump in billions of yuan for business expansion and investors that are ever eager to back potential success stories to the extent of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Aikelili, a 22-year-old photographer and a videographer in Guangdong province, best captures the unfolding story.

He likes to upload many funny short videos to Miaopai, a Chinese video sharing and live-streaming service platform. Typically, his videos are less than a minute long, but some last a few minutes.

They show him dressed as a thirty-something woman wearing ugly makeup, indulging in humorous antics - a big draw for the app's users. His fan base is over 6 million and increasing by the minute.

Aikelili is not a stray app-star. Papi Jiang, a female student pursuing a master's degree in theater direction at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, shot to fame after uploading similar original, funny short videos.

Her online videos have earned her countless fans. Last year, she received 12 million yuan ($1.8 million; 1.6 million euros; ￡1.4 million) from venture capital firms to help fund her startup.

Their videos may be short, original and funny, but performers carefully plan their creations to attract viewer eyeballs as well as investor attention, given that big money may be involved. Short videos are as much a platform for self-expression as they are a well-thought-out business model.

Wang at the video research center stresses that the distinction between short and long videos is not merely length.

"The most obvious feature of short videos is that they have become a means for people to express themselves. They exist not merely to convey information but to create opportunities for communication."

A good example is Miaopai, a sharing platform for short videos run by Yixia.com. A startup with strengths in video and live-streaming technology, it clocks average daily visitors of more than 70 million. More than 1.5 million videos are uploaded daily.

Han Kun, CEO of Yixia, says users can upload their videos to Miaopai, classifying them in various categories by content and user preference.

"More and more people are producing content, and more and more people watch these videos," Han says. "We aim to build Miaopai into an entertainment video platform, with funny and interesting content."

Yixia says it will invest 1 billion yuan to support Chinese short video creators. It has already raised $500 million in its latest round of funding by undisclosed investors.

According to Zhang Jianfeng, senior vice-president of Yixia: "Young mobile users have a growing demand for short videos, as their content consumption time tends to be fragmented and short. They prefer light, funny content. This is driving the explosive growth of short videos this year. Compared with long videos, short videos are more lively and vivid, with higher yields, lower cost and faster transmission."

Zhao Shuqing, dean of the Institute of Internet Information at Communication University of China, attributes short videos' popularity to user demand and deep penetration of mobile phones among Chinese people.

Moreover, with the development of 5G technology, short videos will grow more rapidly, Zhang says.

Rapid growth entails some challenges. The quality of content produced and the ability to harness its commercial potential are major issues confronting the evolving business segment. To be sure, there is a shortage of high-quality content, Zhang says.

"How can we pick excellent content and send it out to reach diverse groups of people? That is a problem. We are exploring ways of commercializing short videos."

The iiMedia Research report says high-quality content and business expansion will define market competition this year.

Another internet research company, iResearch, said that last year, as of July 1, the short video industry received a total of 43 investments. And that number is growing.

For instance, e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group Holding is set to jump into the booming market for short videos. It announced that its video-streaming subsidiary Tudou will be transformed into a short video platform. Alibaba will invest about 2 billion yuan to encourage individual users to provide original content to the site.

Tudou says it will reward 2,000 content creators each month. In addition, it will offer a cut in advertising revenue from Tudou, Youku and UCWeb - all Alibaba-backed platforms. It is an attempt to lure video makers away from rival sites.

He Xiaopeng, president of Tudou, says Alibaba sees short videos as the key for future development.

"Short videos are our future, which is of great importance to Alibaba and Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment Group, representing a kind of user demand and a trend that will take the place of graphics," He says.

Tencent Holdings, another Chinese internet giant, is also marching into the short video market. In March, it led a $350 million investment in Kuaishou, a photo-and video-sharing app popular with rural communities and migrant workers.

Kuaishou received financing from Chinese internet search giant Baidu Inc and Sequoia Capital last year. It is currently valued at over $2 billion.

Online content aggregation app Toutiao has also joined the frenzy. In February, it acquired Flipagram, a US-based mobile video creation and sharing company.

Zhang Yiming, CEO of Toutiao, said in September that the company will invest at least 1 billion yuan to support producers of high-quality original short videos this year.

According to Beijing-based internet consultancy Analysys, Miaopai reached 61.7 percent of Chinese mobile users in 2016, followed by Toutiao videos (53.1 percent) and Kuaishou (43.2 percent).

The explosion of short videos in a regulatory void has created societal concerns about the risk of vulgar online content proliferating unchecked, the absence of intellectual property protection and inadequate supervision by the authorities concerned.

Such factors could hinder the healthy development of the short video business, experts say.

Communication University's Zhao says: "The lack of supervision and specific regulations and laws is a problem."

The authorities concerned should intensify efforts to crack down on illegal platforms; and the businesses concerned as well as content producers should display self-regulation, he says.

As for the segment's future, Ding Daoshi, a Beijing-based internet expert, says: "China's mobile video sector could prove profitable with advertising revenue and games. Players may also consider combining short videos with e-commerce platforms."

Wang of the video research center says people's content consumption behavior will likely change and real-life emotions could become part of short videos.

fanfeifei@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 06/09/2017 page27)