In this feast of Olympic Games, what new tricks did the news client play?

The schedule of the 31st Summer Olympics has come to a successful conclusion. Since its opening on August 6, this event has not only brought together outstanding athletes from all over the world and presented wonderful competitions to everyone, but also Through various media and social platforms, audiences from all over the world can see a more realistic and comprehensive Olympic Games. The media have used their best tactics to attract users’ limited attention.

As one of the main channels for users to obtain information, news clients must seize this opportunity: the Olympic Games are long-lasting, the topics are high-profile, and the threshold for public discussion is low. It not only has eye-catching event reports, but also has in-depth discussions on the "national system", as well as entertainment highlights such as "The Girl from the Wilderness" that the whole country can watch. Compared with daily news that only meets users' information access, Olympic special topics can provide users with various needs including obtaining major news, participating in social interactions, and engaging in entertainment and recreation. In order to serve users such a delicious feast that suits their appetites, the news client needs to make various arrangements.

1. Appetizer: Interactive topics to attract attention and build momentum

The Olympic Games are not only a stage for athletes to compete, but also a battlefield for news media to show their talents. In traditional Olympic coverage, user needs are mainly reading and watching games. However, in the mobile Internet era, breaking through the traditional Olympic reporting framework means incorporating more considerations into user interaction and continuously cultivating users' sense of participation.

At the same time, as the main entry point for news information, the news client must follow the user's attention track, find the right entry point for interaction, get the upper hand in the warm-up stage, and fully guide the traffic.

So, how to find the best entry point?

Sohu News client’s approach of attracting netizens to join the competition is worth learning from. For many sports fans, knowing the event data as soon as possible is their core demand. For the Olympic Games held every four years, who will win the gold medal is even more interesting. Therefore, guessing the results of competitions can often add a lot of fun and topics to people. Even before the opening of the Olympic Games, opinion articles such as "The Chinese delegation will win a maximum of 45 gold medals in the 2016 Rio Olympics" and "Prediction of the Rio Olympic gold medal list: China will win 31 gold medals and rank second, unable to shake the United States" were published. Every Every time it attracts heated discussions among netizens.

In this regard, Sohu News client seized the opportunity and teamed up with Microsoft to launch the world's first artificial intelligence prediction of Olympic results before the Olympic Games, including athlete/team analysis, event prediction, gold medal prediction, and each country's performance, etc. Attract more netizens to join this guessing carnival.

This new gameplay not only makes up for the lag in the reporting of information information, but also achieves an ice-breaking warm-up of information before the start of the game; it also satisfies users' curiosity, peeping, and gaming psychology, and stimulates their interest in the game. The Olympics gives more attention and interaction.

2. Dinner: Exclusive planning and in-depth interpretation of the Olympic Games

With attention, the media needs to rely on its own professional reporting to improve user retention, so its responsiveness and planning capabilities are the key. It is necessary to do a good job in comprehensive coverage, timely updating and in-depth analysis of information.

Set Olympic channels, personalized tags, and get all the event information at once

In the era of information explosion, what should users watch? How can you make users enjoy watching your content? This is a problem faced by every media person. The solution is to focus on user needs, use the platform to aggregate their preferences, and enhance the connection between users and the platform. During the Olympic Games, in order to meet users' one-stop reading needs, the Sohu News client launched the Olympic Channel. This channel is tailor-made for users who follow the Rio Olympics. It has multiple independent sections such as medal lists, schedules, live broadcasts, pictures, etc., allowing users to access the Olympic information they care about most with one click.

Not only that, users can also automatically search for tags such as "Fu Yuanhui", "table tennis", and "swimming", and click to instantly generate channels they care about to meet their personalized reading needs.

24-hour direct coverage of the event, presenting professional reports from multiple angles

Due to the time difference, the results of this Olympic Games are mostly concentrated between 6 am and 12 noon Beijing time. Therefore, the timeliness competition of new media is extremely fierce. The Sohu News client provides "direct access" to Olympic events 24 hours a day, and has signed contracts with sports teams such as the Chinese men's basketball team and women's basketball team to obtain fresh information as soon as possible and showcase the style of Olympic athletes.

In terms of in-depth reporting, Sohu News specially sent dozens of professionals to Rio, including senior writers, photojournalists and videographers, to go deep into the front line to bring users the latest and fastest first-hand information.

In addition, Sohu also cooperated with the Capital Institute of Physical Education and invited 22 senior sports professors and experts to conduct in-depth analysis of various Olympic events and figures, bringing professional and authoritative reports to users. A series of special topics such as sharp sports, spectator guides, Olympic highlights, and exclusive conversations were also launched before the game. After the game started, Sohu News successively launched columns such as Daily Morning News, People's Chronicles, and Mathematics Research Institute, and set up gold medal heroes, Special pages such as medal maps allow users to watch the Olympics from multiple angles.

Play with VR technology to show the Olympic venues in an all-round way

In reporting such a major event, the media must not only make use of existing advantages, but also keep up with the times and actively adopt the latest technology. means to attract users. At this Olympics, many foreign media used VR (virtual reality) for live broadcasts. As a company that has officially purchased VR live broadcast rights, NBC provides viewers with approximately 80 hours of VR video content for the Olympics, and the BBC Sport 360 app launched by the BBC provides viewers with 100 hours of VR live content. Among them, BBC Sport 360 will also provide selected game content every day, including key events such as track and field, boxing and beach volleyball. Viewers can watch it from four different shooting angles and watch replays.

In China, Sohu News uses VR technology in a one-hour live broadcast every day, using dozens of cameras to capture 360-degree details of the scene without blind spots. Users can even turn on the "God's perspective" or watch the video on their mobile phones. Only select the guests you are interested in.

Three: Dessert: Entertainment and leisure elements "create atmosphere"

Although relevant news during the Olympics will receive high attention, users can easily feel numb if they are constantly flooded with similar information. Therefore, in addition to browsing Olympic news, it is advisable to pair it with an appropriate "dessert", that is, combine it with users' other new media contact habits for leisure, such as watching entertainment variety shows, playing games, etc., and pair it with the Olympic theme to make it refreshing and further increase user stickiness. .

During the Rio Olympics, the most representative example of integrating variety show elements was the first live Olympic variety show "Speaking of the Olympics" produced by Sohu Client. The program was co-hosted by the well-known anchor Qiu Qiming and his partner Li Siyu , invited celebrities such as Jia Nailiang, Jiang Yiyan, Yu Haoming, Bai Jugang, Du Jiang and the most popular beauties "Internet celebrities" as guests to unveil the mystery of Olympic athletes together, allowing netizens to not only satisfy their variety show addiction, but also learn from many Understand the Olympics from a different perspective.

The entertainment experience of the Sohu News client does not end there. “Creating the atmosphere” is the most intuitive way. When you open the Sohu News client, you can see the warm and cute Olympic skin. When users scroll down to read the news, they can feel the Olympic atmosphere, bringing an "immersive" reading experience.

In addition, Sohu also generates interactive games to let users enjoy the Olympic Games. Open the Sohu News client and upload an avatar to generate an exclusive "Olympic cover" for booting up. Interactive games that highly imitate basketball, shooting, and shooting, such as Self-Throwing into a Net, Shooting Through Willows, and Quick-Step Meteor, are available for every user. It has set up a stage to show off their skills, allowing users to experience the Olympics in a different way.

The Olympic Games held every four years is the best indicator to test the comprehensive reporting capabilities of a media and a platform.

The release speed must be fast, the content requirements must be consistent while reserving differences, various exclusive resources must be available, VR, panoramic, live broadcast and various new technologies must be mastered, and the best in terms of aggregation, visualization, diversity, interactivity, etc. , Only in this way can we seize users' limited fragmented time and win a place in the increasingly fierce Olympic battle. At present, Sohu News Client is writing a relatively satisfactory answer with its "strongly interactive products, entertainment experience, and panoramic content."