Internet trends in 2018: Short videos, quiz apps, livestreaming

Insiders from China's mobile internet sector shared their insights into the industry's development and trends this year at a mobile internet summit held by Chinese internet and mobile app publisher Cheetah Mobile Inc and Cheetah Data in Beijing on Thursday.

Quan Jing, managing director of marketing, Cheetah Mobile and executive dean of mobile research institute Cheetah Global Lab, said the offline traffic started booming in 2017, with the annual increase in bike-sharing apps' active user penetration reaching around 600 percent last year.

The rise of short videos was also mentioned by Quan. She said the institute found the number of short video users surged by 192 percent last year.

In addition, Quan said mobile finance was the biggest unexpected winner in internet industry last year with the apps of mobile payment, finance, lending and insurance, as well as banks gaining increasing active penetration.

In January, the industry has witnessed an explosive surge in livestreaming quiz applications. Apps such as Chongding Dahui, Zhishi Chaoren, Baiwan Yingjia have attracted a record number of users in a very short time by rewarding them with money.

Quan predicted there will be more hot spots related to livestreaming springing up this year, especially in the fields of pan-entertainment, e-commerce and knowledge payment.

She said another two major trends in mobile internet industry this year include competition in the fields of car-hailing and bike-sharing will become more multidimensional and the technological upgrade, including 5G and offline intelligent portal, will trigger a larger scale of competition.

The competition between the internet giants and the traditional companies will be the main battleground of 2018, she added.

Many speakers said at the event that the combination of artificial intelligence and big data will transform the industry.

Zhou Xiaohan, vice-president of Chinese audiobook and audio program provider Himalaya FM, said in the era of AI, content production will be more professional and qualified.

She predicted journalists, editors and hosts who only know basic news gathering and editing will be replaced by AI machines.

Chen Lei, chief technology officer of Pingduoduo, a social shopping platform based on group buying, said distributed AI based on social networks will be the mainstream application in the future.

Zheng qingsheng, a partner at investment company Sequoia Capital, said the boom in livestreaming, short videos and sharing economy has revealed a model that can revolutionize the development of China's internet industry.

According to the development curve both at home and abroad, Chinese market still has a vast space to breed new models, Zheng said.