Tik Tok President Zhang Nan: The Beauty and Value of Tik Tok

On August 24th, Tik Tok held a creator conference in Shanghai. Zhang Nan, president of Tik Tok, said in his speech that the development of short videos is beyond imagination. It is predicted that by 2020, the total number of daily active users in the short video industry will reach 654.38+0 billion.

At the scene, Zhang Nan expounded the product positioning of Tik Tok's "beauty" and the social value of short video.

Zhang Nan believes that in the past year, many people misunderstood the beauty of Tik Tok and opposed beauty and truth, but there was no conflict between them. The former is value judgment, while the latter is fact judgment. Tik Tok advocates beauty because it stands for optimistic value proposition. Zhang Nan also responded to some controversies surrounding Tik Tok and short videos.

When talking about the value of short videos, Zhang Nan said that Tik Tok is a tool to help users convey information. Short videos and Tik Tok bring about a significant reduction in the threshold of video creation and distribution, faster information flow and connection, and the value of information inclusion. "Every video left by every user on Tik Tok will be a historical copy, which will eventually gather into the' video encyclopedia' of human civilization."

The following is the full text of Zhang Nan's speech:

Hello, I'm Zhang Nan. I am very grateful and excited to see so many creators, media teachers and experts coming to the scene today. Friends who are familiar with me must know that I am a product manager, so I am not good at talking and I am not good at this occasion.

But today I see so many people, especially today is the first time that Tik Tok has held a creator conference, so I would like to take this opportunity to talk to you about some discussions and even controversies about Tik Tok and short videos in the industry.

At first, everyone thought about short videos.

As we all know, ByteDance is a technology company that publishes information. We are very concerned about the development of science and technology. Since the arrival of the mobile era and the popularity of large-screen mobile phones, our company has been paying close attention to the direction of short videos. We believe that mobile video should be a great opportunity, which may bring great changes to information dissemination.

Very big, but how big? In retrospect, everyone, including ourselves, may have greatly underestimated the possibility of short videos. I remember it was 20 14, and the company had a meeting to discuss that we were going to make a short video. At that time, the entire Zhichun Road subway was an advertisement for microvision. At that time, the product introduced by Weibo was called second shot, and we were a little hesitant. Should we do it or not? But by the end of the year, there were thousands of daus in American auctions. At that time, we thought we might have missed this opportunity.

In 20 15, Yi Ming took the whole team of our company to Okinawa to attend the annual meeting. After the annual meeting, a dozen of us came to izakaya and chatted about short videos. I was particularly impressed. Why? Because there were more than a dozen of us, we ordered two plates of sushi. At that time, we sat around the table and discussed whether short videos, especially UGC short videos, should still be done. At that time, the mobile phone I used was iPhone6plus, which was the first time that Apple introduced a 5-inch large-screen mobile phone. Everyone still has a feeling that this market space should still be very large, but for various reasons, we didn't start the short video project at that time.

Until 16, we discussed the short video again and felt that we still couldn't give up. This may be an opportunity to bring many changes to the world, and we should try it. Later, as we all know, there were Tik Tok products.

After Tik Tok went online 17 months, DAU broke through100000, which should be the fastest growing product of cmnet after WeChat. Just last month, we also released Tik Tok's latest user data-DAU exceeded 320 million. We found that this data is still growing in the background, and there is no slowdown at all.

So I personally think that if we make a bold guess, maybe by 2020, including short video products such as Tik Tok and Aauto Quicker, maybe in China alone, the whole short video will reach 654.38+0 billion DAU. What is the concept of 1 100 million DAU? Almost equal to the daily users of WeChat today.

In fact, I believe that even if these figures are not mentioned, everyone can feel the changes that short videos have brought to the world.

In the past, when we went out to travel, everyone would say to take a photo. Now everyone will say take a short video and take a photo of Tik Tok. I found many museums and scenic spots when I went abroad, which can be explained by watching short videos directly. In some places, you can even take short videos with your mobile phone and browse the entire museum collection.

If you use Taobao or Meituan to comment in China, you will also find that short videos have become the basic form of goods and food display. I remember Taobao once thought that "in the future, 90% of the content on Taobao may be presented by video". Even wechat, the most important communication tool for all of us, has released the restrictions on faster and micro-vision of Aauto this year. Even on the official WeChat account, let's take a look, including the circle of friends, and optimize the configuration for short videos.

It can be said that all walks of life are evolving towards short videos. To our delight, Tik Tok is loved by many users and sometimes even becomes synonymous with short videos. Nowadays, many people will say "Come on, let's take a Tik Tok" when shooting short videos.

There are many misunderstandings about the beauty of Tik Tok.

With more and more short videos entering the lives of ordinary people, the public and the media began to care about the value orientation of short videos. In fact, for Tik Tok, we have always had a very clear value orientation for products and content, which is "beauty".

At the end of 20 17, Tik Tok grew rapidly, from a product of a minority and hipster to a platform for ordinary people to record their lives. We found that many people recorded their happy and simple moments of life on Tik Tok. I think this is actually "recording a better life" in a word, and this sentence is especially in line with our initial intention, so it has become our slogan of 20 18, which is also our expression of the value of the platform.

However, we later found that many people misunderstood the meaning of "beauty" or were deliberately misled.

Last year, some colleagues mentioned that life itself is not beautiful, and most products are just using various filters to routine users and deceive users. Others ask, which do you choose, the flawed truth or the false beauty? In fact, these statements, I think, deliberately set beauty and truth against each other.

I don't agree with this statement. I think this is a routine. In my opinion, beauty and truth do not conflict. It's a factual judgment. Beauty is a value judgment and a value proposition. I remember once brushing a video on Tik Tok, in which a 69-year-old disabled person was trying to climb Mount Everest. His legs are all artificial limbs, but when I watch the video, I feel a sense of strength, which I think is beautiful.

I always think that good things must be diverse. Natural beauty is beautiful, flawed truth is beautiful, positive progress is beautiful, and carefree life is beautiful. Of course, I also admit that life is not beautiful everywhere, but sometimes life is hard, which makes life more beautiful and precious.

Life is a prism with 1000 faces. We hope everyone can see Tik Tok shining with courage and optimism. Pessimism has its unique aesthetic value, but as a platform that affects hundreds of millions of users, Tik Tok chooses optimism.

Not all the content is worth it, and it should be seen by everyone.

In addition to "beauty", I want to say a few more words about "truth" at the factual level.

In the middle of 20 17, a group of underage mothers began to appear on some short video platforms. Tik Tok is also very worried. At that time, we felt that although this was an objective phenomenon, it was inappropriate to rely on the status of underage mothers to attract traffic and cause other minors to imitate. So at that time, we unified the standards and restricted uploading such content to Tik Tok.

Of course, there are many similar contents, such as fortune telling, watching Feng Shui and so on. Although these phenomena exist objectively and their contents are very eye-catching, Tik Tok has imposed strict restrictions on them. On the whole, I really don't think all the content is worth or should be seen by everyone. Pursuing truth is valuable, but it should not be an excuse for the platform to avoid content management.

Pursue to bring value to users, creators, society and human civilization.

After talking about beauty, today I want to talk to you about my own thoughts on the value of short video and Tik Tok. The outbreak of short videos actually happened in the last year. There are some controversies and voices around short videos and Tik Tok. Such as fragmentation, meaningless, addiction, underage and so on.

I think there is a misunderstanding here, just as truth, goodness and beauty are not contradictory, short content does not mean that it is worthless and meaningless. Length is actually just a form, and its value depends on what the video carries. Actually, short content is the most important part of human culture.

Compared with the Book of Songs, the five-character quatrains are short. Compared with A Dream of Red Mansions, Liaozhai is a short story. Compared with symphonies, Jay Chou and Lin are short stories. Therefore, from the perspective of information dissemination and knowledge dissemination, there are long values and short benefits. I think it is misunderstanding and prejudice to regard short content as fragmented and meaningless content.

Of course, some social concerns are indeed justified, and we are also exploring improvements. Last year, we took the lead in introducing the minor protection system. Moreover, Tik Tok is still opening the video copyright of 1 to 15 minutes to help people express themselves better. Of course, this is not enough, there is still a lot of work to be done.

On the other hand, short video is really a new thing, and we are also thinking, what is the value of short video? I don't know if you know that the English word "Video" of video comes from Latin, and its Latin etymology is equivalent to the meaning of "I saw" in Chinese.

This Latin etymology sums up my own ideas about Tik Tok and short videos. Tik Tok is actually a tool, it is a tool to help users pass information. Short videos and Tik Tok bring about a significant reduction in the threshold of video creation and distribution, faster information flow and connection, and the value of information inclusion.

On this basis, Tik Tok will better improve its products in the future. I hope Tik Tok can finally show its value in four dimensions:

The first is of course the user dimension, because users are always our first pursuit. For users, short videos are first of all the value of recording and expressing. Video content spans time and space and connects people together.

Secondly, users can get valuable information through Tik Tok. Now, more and more knowledge information is beginning to appear in Tik Tok, whether it is life knowledge or some professional popular science knowledge. Some time ago, I brushed a short video of Professor Yi Zhongtian on Tik Tok, and he popularized a lot of historical and cultural knowledge for me.

You should know that Professor Yi Zhongtian used to be in Lecture Room, and now he is in Tik Tok. What changes is the platform, and what remains unchanged is knowledge. Tik Tok will also support and strengthen more knowledge content in the future. Recently, a new function is being prepared, in which creators can publish related videos in the same collection in a structured and orderly manner, and users can enter the collection through interested videos, so as to systematically watch related content. We will take the lead in opening this function to the creators of educational content, because knowledge and information actually have the highest requirements for communication, and we hope to do this function well.

At the same time, Tik Tok always brings happiness to everyone in life. I remember once I took a taxi home and talked to the driver about Tik Tok. The driver's master told me that Tik Tok was particularly good and brought joy to the people of the whole country. Although this is just a very common sentence, I was particularly moved at that time, because it made me feel that our work was valuable.

Today is the first creator conference of Tik Tok. I want to say that all the creators here are the protagonists of Tik Tok, and Tik Tok is wonderful because of you. Therefore, how to provide better service for the creators and everyone present is an important dimension of the value of Tik Tok.

Not long ago, my colleague told me that there was an account on Tik Tok called "Uncle Wen's Umbrella". Uncle Wen was talking in the video just now. He is a non-genetic inheritor and attracts customers by short videos. The monthly sales of his oil-paper umbrella has exceeded 654.38 million yuan.

I wonder if you have ever seen an oil-paper umbrella, or used an oil-paper umbrella? Actually, the oil-paper umbrella is very beautiful. Before the appearance of Tik Tok, it may be difficult for Uncle Wen to have a suitable platform to show intangible beauty to ordinary people. But the form of short video is naturally suitable for carrying such content.

Our platform is to provide such creators with richer creative tools, more accurate content distribution and better means of realization. I think this is the value of Tik Tok platform and short video. Later, some of my colleagues will talk to you about some services we provide for creators.

In addition, we also hope that Tik Tok can continue to create value for society. Last April, I went to Xi for the first time. At that time, the city of Xi 'an became popular in Tik Tok because of its crisp brush, terracotta warriors and horses, bowl-breaking wine and other urban cultural characteristics, and became a "network celebrity" city in Tik Tok. Local friends told me that during the Qingming holiday, the number of tourists in Xi increased by 40% year on year.

In fact, in the past, the information of cultural tourism relied more on pictures and words, television and movies. But pictures and texts are not as intuitive as videos, and the threshold of TV movies is too high. For example, "The Longest Day in Chang 'an" directed by Cao Dun invested hundreds of millions, shot for more than 200 days, and also brought fire to Xi 'an. TV plays are very good, but for most places, it is impossible to meet them.

At that time, we judged that the popularity of Tik Tok and short videos was greatly lowering the threshold for the spread of natural and cultural scenery, which would bring new opportunities for the urban promotion and poverty alleviation of cultural tourism.

In fact, in the past year, not only Xi 'an, but also cities such as Chongqing and Nanjing became popular in Tik Tok because of their local characteristics and became celebrity cities on the Internet. Many poor areas, such as Daocheng in Sichuan, Libo in Guizhou and Luanchuan in Henan, have also become popular on Tik Tok. Later, we also launched the activity of "all mountains are good scenery" to help poor areas promote tourism. Today, Tik Tok has become a good platform to show the beautiful scenery and customs of my hometown.

I think these are the social values pursued by Tik Tok.

Finally, if we make the video "inclusive information" to the extreme.

I have fantasized about this scene countless times, and I hope to share it with you. You can imagine what the city of Shanghai, even this building and this room, will look like in 100 years. Maybe it will become an exhibition classroom of a history museum. Where everyone sits, there are a bunch of lovely children sitting around the ground, in the air, through "image projection", for example, "short video" will be projected, one by one. ...

Yes, it may be an ordinary day after 100. They may watch short videos shot by the creator decades ago or 100 years ago. These videos may have daily life records and some professional teaching contents.

Tik Tok may still be there at that time, or it may have disappeared. However, every video left by every user on Tik Tok will become a copy of history and will eventually be collected into the "video encyclopedia" of human civilization. I think this is perhaps the greatest significance of the existence of Tik Tok and short videos.

Finally, I want to go back to the theme I shared today: the beauty and value of Back to. I hope all Tik Tok content creators will continue to create more and more valuable content in the future.

Beauty is value. Thank you!