Douyin's Battle for 'Taste': Redefining Content Quality to Stay Ahead
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7-3Mia: So, when we talk about the digital world over in China, Douyin just looms large, right? Like this unbeatable behemoth. How dominant are they really, and is anyone even *close* to challenging them?
Mars: Oh, absolutely. They're not just big, they're like, *the* super app. We're talking over 800 million daily active users, and their revenue actually dwarfs even Alibaba's e-commerce in China. On paper, they look completely unshakeable. But that's precisely what makes the current situation so fascinating.
Mia: Wait, what's interesting about that? Do tell!
Mars: Get this: those very rivals everyone had written off? They're not just back, they're thriving! Xiaohongshu and Bilibili have both crossed the 100 million daily user mark and, crucially, they've actually become profitable. This is causing some serious heartburn inside Douyin. There's a famous story about the head of Douyin asking her team, If we're so much better, why on earth is Xiaohongshu growing so fast?
Mia: So it's like the king of the castle suddenly looking over their shoulder? And I'm guessing they didn't just sit there and twiddle their thumbs, right? They had to hit back.
Mars: Oh, they absolutely did. They went full-on, top-priority, with something they called Project L, specifically to clone Xiaohongshu's whole high-quality, image-and-text vibe.
Mia: A direct copycat, huh? Because *that* always goes well. So, how'd that little experiment pan out for the big guys?
Mars: It was a spectacular face-plant. A near-total wipeout. Even with all the resources thrown at it, they just couldn't conjure up the right content. They even built this whole fancy Experience section in the app to mimic the look and feel, but seriously, less than 1% of users even bothered to tap on it. Talk about crickets.
Mia: Wow. So, why the epic fail? Was it just that Douyin users were like, Nah, not on our turf when it came to this kind of content?
Mars: Exactly! It was fundamentally at odds with why people even open Douyin. They want those quick hits, the viral dance, the funny pet videos – not some slow, curated, thoughtful read. It's instant gratification baked into their very DNA. You can't just glue a gourmet restaurant onto a fast-food joint and expect it to fly.
Mia: Okay, so the copy-paste method was a bust. They couldn't just slap a premium content button on there. So, what was the next move? They had to dig deeper, right? Like, way, way deeper.
Mars: Oh, they went to the absolute heart of it all: the algorithm. And what they're trying to do now is something truly wild, incredibly ambitious – they're trying to teach their algorithm the concept of *taste*.
Mia: Whoa, hold on. How in the world do you teach a *machine* something as squishy and subjective as 'taste'? That sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie! What on earth made them go for such a radical pivot?
Mars: Believe it or not, it was their own data that slapped them awake. They discovered that users who were spending *too much* time on the app were actually reporting feelings of *guilt* and then just deleting it! They realized that just chasing raw engagement, no matter what, was actually poisoning the well for the long run.
Mia: Okay, that's fascinating. So how does this new, 'taste-aware' algorithm actually work? Is there a good analogy, like a simple way to wrap our heads around the difference between the old way and this new approach?
Mars: Alright, picture this: the old algorithm? That was your typical fast-food joint. Success was all about how fast you scarfed down your burger and fries. But the new one? It's like a Michelin-star food critic. It's not just, Did you eat it? It's Did you savor it? Did you save the recipe? Did you go home and Google the chef's life story?
Mia: Got it. So it's not just about the quick hit, the immediate dopamine rush. It's looking for those signals of *delayed* gratification. Like, I'm going to come back to this later because it's genuinely good.
Mars: Precisely! It's giving serious weight to things like actually *saving* a post, or diving deep to search for more info on a topic. Those are the golden nuggets, the signs that something truly resonated, instead of just being a fleeting distraction. It's a massive, fundamental pivot from just chasing eyeballs to truly battling for genuine taste and quality. A real content revolution, if you ask me.