What Platform Do Young People In China Use to Listen to Music?
It is known that music platforms such as Spotify and Soundcloud are not allowed in China due to political reasons. In addition, industry giant Apple Music’s performance in the Chinese music market has not been satisfactory. Today, the music platform I introduce to you is NetEase Cloud Music from mainland China. This paper will analyze the user experience of NetEase Cloud Music on mobile and computer terminals from various aspects and the reasons why it can win the favor of Chinese young people.
Introduction
NetEase Cloud Music is a music platform launched by NetEase on April 23, 2013 based on NetEase Cloud services. In addition to providing major music playing, downloading and searching services, NetEase Cloud Music also provides music social functions, such as song review, acoustic fingerprint (listening to songs to identify songs), playlist recommendation based on historical playing records, geographical location identification, etc. On December 2, 2021, NetEase Cloud Music was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Usefulness and purpose
We know NetEase Cloud Music itself is a music playing platform. Therefore, for users, the purpose of using this brand is of course to have a more convenient and practical, more humanized, more song copyright, more usage scenarios listening platform. For mobile users, they are more likely to enjoy music through headphones or car stereo during commuting, travel and sports. For PC users, they usually play music in their home or office Settings.
NetEase Cloud is also a platform for musicians. As a musician myself, I also use this software for the purpose of uploading and publishing my works, gaining traffic promotion and fans, and earning copyright income.
Brand message and personality
Why can NetEase cloud music beat giant Tencent QQ music, Kugou music and become the real leader in the young audience? I think the main reason is to convey and adhere to the brand message and personality of NetEase Cloud Music. The brand message of NetEase Cloud Music is inclusiveness, freedom, respect for originality, and personality is youth and vitality. As a young user, the UX of NetEase Cloud Music completely fits its brand message and personality. NetEase cloud music platform for the original works of the push selection is also very good to show this point. On the other hand, as a young musician, NetEase Cloud Music’s respect for original music and support for young and high-quality musicians give me a very good UX, which is one of the reasons why I choose to release my works on this platform and sign an exclusive agreement.
User-centered
I can not exaggerate to say that among all the music platforms I use, NetEase Cloud platform is the most user-centered platform. First of all, NetEase Cloud Music customized personalized daily playlist recommendation for each user according to the data of users’ likes, favorites, searches and downloads. Secondly, NetEase Cloud Concert analyzes and summarizes a personalized annual listening report for each listener by year. Finally, the biggest difference between NetEase Cloud Music and other platforms is that it attaches great importance to the creation of song comment area. Whether on mobile or PC, the comments section of every song serves as a platform for communication between listeners and creators. On this platform, listeners’ own opinions can greatly influence a song’s word-of-mouth, and this is clearly displayed in the comments section.
Simplicity of use, aesthetics and responsive design
The simplicity of use of NetEase Cloud music is the main purpose of its design. Compared with other software, NetEase cloud music is very easy to use. In the software, the layout of the whole page, the design of a single section and the display of special functions have a very clear logic. As a user, after getting used to NetEase Cloud Music, I will think that other music platforms have miscellaneous and useless functions, chaotic and disorderly layout. This is the reason why NetEase Cloud Music has high user engagement.
From an aesthetic point of view, no matter what kind of client, NetEase Cloud Music insists on red as the main color of the software. At the same time, the aesthetic style is mainly minimalist. The combination of these two points strengthens the impression and enhances the favorable impression for the user. This is also the reason why NetEase Cloud music is very popular among young people.
On Ipad, Iphone, Android, PC and web, NetEase Cloud Music adopts responsive design. First of all, user data and platform functions are interoperable in each client. Secondly, in a variety of different clients, the layout of the page has also been adjusted flexibly according to the device. As a result, users are free to switch between clients.
Content quality
In terms of content richness, NetEase Cloud Music has a very sufficient music copyright reserve. Basically, every single released in the world can be listened to for free or paid on NetEase Cloud Music. But from the quality of music, NetEase cloud music may be lacking. Because NetEase Cloud is committed to mining and supporting young original musicians, it is difficult for NetEase Cloud Music platform to guarantee the quality of each song on the shelf under such a large sample. Compared with this, QQ Music is more like a mature artists’ music distribution platform, of course, can better ensure the quality of songs.
Use of AI/Chatbots
In order to better user experience, NetEase Cloud Music has set up interactive AI customer service robots on both computer and mobile terminals. It can help users solve some basic common problems. However, its capability is very mediocre, and less common problems need to be solved by non-24-hour human customer service. I believe that the development of ChatGPT in the future will help the progress and development of Chatbots of NetEase Cloud Music and other music platforms.
Business Objective
As a rising star in the music platform industry, NetEase Cloud Music aims to participate in the niche music market at the beginning, to occupy the market of young users in the middle stage, and now to share the Chinese music platform market with QQ Music and other giants. In terms of market share, payment rate, copyright coverage rate and corporate profitability, NetEase Cloud has been growing since it entered the market in 2013. It is foreseeable that NetEase cloud music will have a bright development in the Chinese music market
