A "Dark Horse"in The News Apps: Research On The Development Strategy Of "Zhi Hu Daily"

With the arrival of the era of mobile Internet, the distribution platforms of news and information correspondingly have undergone major changes. While the new mobile Terminal such as smartphones has been gradually popularized after 2010, App(mobile Application) which brings a new carrier for news and information has come into being. In the new environment, some traditional news Apps have been unable to meet the personalized needs of our audiences while audiences’ reading habits, reading interests, and reading needs are constantly changing. And meanwhile, the role played by audiences is also changed while audiences have become an important producer of media contents. This thesis is focusing on "Zhi Hu Daily" — a "dark horse" in news Apps from the perspectives of UGC(User Generated Content), to seek for the reason why "Zhi Hu Daily" could make audiences spend more time on reading news and get such a huge number of loyal users in a short time comparing with other news Apps, in order to provide a new way for the development of domestic news Apps.This thesis is started with a detailed card ing of the development status of domestic news Apps, and points out that the development status of domestic news Apps is charactered in the following three aspects: high- growth, massive scale, wide coverage; great variety, unbalanced development; intense competition, high homogenization. This have established a foundation for the research of the development strategy of "Zhi Hu Daily". After that, this thesis has given a brief introduction about "Zhi Hu Daily" and "Zhi Hu Community" which is the parent of "Zhi Hu Daily", and considering that it was the following three reasons that made the "Zhi Hu Daily" be born: Firstly, in the internet age, the cognitive Surplus is an important guarantee for the birth of "Zhi Hu Daily". Secondly, in age of information surplus, the need of audiences changed from obtaining the reams of information to the authoritative integration based on mass information while the "Zhi Hu Daily" is just right for this demand. Thirdly, the reading habit of audiences changed to the social reading made the "Zhi Hu Daily" which provides personalized reading be born.Then, analyse the development strategy of "Zhi Hu Daily" in three aspects: "content strategy", "editing strategy", "promoting strategy". Content strategy: "Zhi Hu Daily" could get a unique source of information that differ from traditional news Apps by three ways: 1. users from "Zhi Hu Community" create Q&A; 2. professional authoritative elite users lead contents; 3. encourage users to produce high quality contents by democratic voting. Consequently, "Zhi Hu Daily" is undefeated in the competitive market of news Apps due to its continuous high quality contents. Editing strategy: It is the key part of this thesis. Firstly, editors select and recommend the high attentional topic of community to users and do double guarantee with users. Secondly editors pay attention to the needs of users. Thirdly, editors are no longer as "beautician" as they were, in order to provide a original reading experience to audiences. Finally, editors strive to produce contents with the most professional authoritative attitude. Promoting strategy: This thesis has analysed the promoting strategy from the brand-building of "Zhi Hu". Firstly, "Zhi Hu Daily" and "Zhi Hu Community" are connected to each other, so they can get users from each other. Secondly, they both are based on topics, are promoting by many kinds of socialized media. Finally, "Zhi Hu" is promoting through publishing its books and holding Online or Offline activities.This thesis argues that in the day of User Experience and User Demand Supreme, under the fragmented and personalized New Media environment, News Apps also need to adapt the development and change of the Time Environment. "Zhi Hu Daily" is make full use of the high quality free resource in "Zhi Hu Community", formed the development mode that "App relying on Community, App and Community complement each other", provided other News Apps an example to achieve the success.