Frontiers in Business, Economics and Management ISSN: 2766-824X | Vol. 7, No. 3, 2023 178 Website Analysis for Tencent Video Xintong Bai FESCO Adecco, Shanghai, China Abstract: The streaming media platform has become the first choice for most contemporary viewers to watch audio and video online/in real time, and Tencent Video is one of the best. Tencent video mainly has two main platforms: web version and mobile APP. This paper discusses how Tencent video web version improves user engagement and its shortcomings from the theoretical basis of modality, navigability and interactivity. Keywords: Tencent Video, Modality, Navigability, Interactivity, Cognitive heuristics. 1. Introduction The rapid development of information and communication technology has changed the way people consumed media content. The online video platform is one of the examples that now fragmenting audience to different media outlets. Tencent is a joint internet company providing digital content in China. Its online entertainment product, Tencent Video, is one of the leading online entertainment platforms. Tencent Video has 137 million daily active users (PRNewswire, 2018). Digital content placed on the site including comic, TV series, documentary, and sport, etc. all together covering 790 million units of video. Users direct payment is one of the sources of gaining revenue (the other is selling advertisement) which with 62.59 million paid the subscription in 2018. All the aspect shows that the Tencent Video occupied the NO. 1 market share in China online video industry. There are many different media outlets attracting audience’s attention, user enjoyment is the key to keep people to view and come back to your website (Dou & Sundar, 2016). The Tencent Video does offer software not only for laptops but also applications for mobile devices. The programme structure looks similar and consistent on both the browser and the application version. Imagine why a user tends to pay description fee for the information that provided by media outlet A rather than media outlet B. To answer the question, it is less meaningful if only take media content and media effect into consideration. The way people access to information is different from traditional media, online video platform as a newer form of media technology which integrates many affordances into one. Therefore, it worth standing on the perspective of modality, navigability, and interactivity to better understanding the Tencent Video. All three variables enrich the way that user consumes information, the mode of consumption shifted from media-centered to audience-centered. We are now no lacking information, but lack of good approach selecting the self- interest or useful piece of information to exposure. Varies content categories of online video platform including still pictures, audio and video result in the mode of presentation enrichment. The non-linear navigation, like hyperlink, search, menus, and sitemap make information searching easier. The programmed interactivity function makes communication exchange in real-time possible. 2. Modality Tencent video has changed its icon after it proposed a new target for young people as its main audience. It uses fresh and lively colors on the white background and yellow, green and blue combinations to make the overall icon simple and clear. It is obviously different from other competitive websites, such as IQYI, which is dominated by green and black. Tencent video website has a simple and refreshing interface. It uses white space and linear icons to simplify the user interface so that users can concentrate on the content. (Tencent video's icon,2016) Tencent video website has a large number of columns. Its content almost covers all kinds of entertainment needs of users in their daily life. Its program content presentation mode also has the characteristics of diversification, including audio, video, pictures, text and other presentation forms, and has a variety of device input and output, such as mobile phone version, Windows version, MAC version, etc., to provide users with a variety of viewing options. (multiple devices input and output) Video is its main presentation form in Tencent video. The content presented in the form of audio and video includes different types, such as TV series, movies, animation, documentaries, and so on. The content covers social, entertainment, financial, scientific and technological, natural and other aspects, which is also the core part of Tencent video website attributes. The live program of Tencent video is different from the live program of IQYI. It is mainly live broadcast of sports events, games, concerts, etc. It is mainly in the form of audio and video, but it does not provide users with interactive windows. The text section of Tencent video is mainly the film review square column. This part is mainly presented in the form of pictures and text. User-generated content is the main part. Users publish the evaluation of the 179 film here and allow users to comment on each other. Tencent Video serves users and simplifies the video interface. Video partition of the whole website is very concise and clear. Large bold text indicates the video category, such as "popular today", "original selection" and so on. And in order to facilitate users to find and pay attention to current hot spots, in the scroll bar at the top of the video website, mainly use the program photos, short text introduction to recommend the hot broadcast content. Scroll presentation, graphics, and text information presentation form, as soon as the website is opened, it will invade the user's vision, catch the user's eye, and facilitate users to access the latest video information. Simple and centralized information presentation and interface design can trigger users' cognitive heuristics and enhance user experience. Multiple modalities can increase the range and speed of information transmission, and then increase the user's sensory involvement of information, thereby expanding the perceptual bandwidth for interaction. After choosing the specific video information, the video is accompanied by a brief introduction of the program and the introduction of the personnel. Clicking on the image of the relevant personnel can jump to the star list, you can vote for your favorite stars and participate in the discussion in real time through the bullet screen while watching the video, and interact online with other netizens. Tencent video website presents a variety of forms of information and provides users with a variety of interactive forms, allowing users to switch back and forth between the interfaces, increasing users' perceptual bandwidth, and thus enhancing user engagement. By triggering realism and being their heuristics, the new model can help users improve their perception of digital media (Sundar, &, Shyam,2008), Tencent video's live programs and VR version of documentary programs, as well as the online interaction of bullet curtain, can provide real-time scene experience to the audience, but the lack of dedicated VR program partition and the lack of real person online interaction in the live programs weaken this function of its website. Simply presenting all kinds of movies and TV dramas in the form of videos on its website and the content has a lower resemblance to the real world, so it is very difficult for audiences to have immersive feelings in the process of information processing. Sensory overstimulation during multimodal interaction can also trigger distraction heuristics (Sundar, & S, 2000). Tencent video put a lot of information in their home pages in a variety of presentation forms. To some extent, it may reduce the user's information sensitivity, cause information overload and distract the user's attention. 3. Navigability The navigability affordance indicates that the website would provide with tools on the interface to suggest and aid the users to operate specific behavior with the purpose of searching for useful information (Sundar, 2009). Nowadays, high efficiency plays an important role in supporting the fast- paced running society. Especially in an era of information explosion, all varieties of sources on the internet are gradually becoming as a barrier for the netizens when they are using the internet in assisting their work, study or life. Navigability is a kind of function and capability enabled a website to improve the searching efficiency of their users and enhance the user stickiness. In terms of the navigability affordance on v.qq.com, the website adopts various ways to sort the information and manage to demonstrate a clear interface with findability. What makes v.qq.com different is that Tencent, the website founding company, earned huge profits by expanding the VIP users for the video websites and the advertising fee from the advertisers. Therefore, keeping the users to stay for a long while on the website and encouraging them to contribute money in being a long-term member by offering well- organized navigation would be crucial tasks for this Internet giant. They settle a browsing box in the upper middle of the webpage, which highlights the navigational function of the website offered to the users. To trigger the interest of users to look for information they want, different words would appear in the browsing box every time the website is opened again. They would recommend the latest or the most popular drama, variety shows or even actors and actress's name in the box in order to draw people’s attention and highly invite them to stay for a longer time in the webpage. The browsing heuristic gives the users an opportunity for customization and a sense of abandonment of bias which is worthy of praise. (browsing box, 2019) Except for the browsing, elaboration has also been used in the design of the webpage. For example, the video categories with less popularity like “News”, “Sports”, “Knowledge” and etc. are displayed next to the main navigation and a button “More” direct to more different parts of the website, which save the media space for other videos information on the interface. As the cursor is moving to a specific category, the top-ranked videos’ names would appear as the, which elaborates the information in this point. Besides, when removing the cursor to a particular video image, the image will be a highlight or the color will change to let the choice stands out which gives the users feedback and generates an interaction. In some sections, much more specific information would be illustrated as well, aiming at “fostering an impression of completeness” and satisfies the users’ requirement of convenience (Sundar, 2008). (“More” button; more information, 2019) Prominence heuristic exists in the navigability affordance of the whole website. The website designers focus on promoting the videos by obtaining a maximized effect. At the 180 center of the home page for this website lies the regular converted banner ads containing publicity pictures for the shows and drama that the web owners recommend highly. To offer more clear information and save user’s time of searching for the name of the recommends a vertical navigation bar on the right increase the layering of the structure. What’s more, if the users have no idea about what they are going to watch and also don’t prefer to take a view of the only recommendation existed in the browsing box, the website provides with options of opening a top list of the hottest videos in Tencent within the browsing box. It refers to the official navigation of the website by sorting the videos according to different categories. For instance, “Drama”, “Movie”, “Variety Show”, “Animation”, “Teenager”, “Documentary” and etc. And next to this menu is the much more accurate submenus. Besides, in several sections like “Hit Coming Drama”, the users are going to see how popular the recommended coming drama is with the support of a thermometer-shaped evaluation form marked with the popularity percent of the drama. This irregular shape increases the users’ interest and the pleasure they feel when browsing the web page. Besides, it would always generate a list of the drama works that the users might prefer based on the analysis results of the browsing history by using the algorithm. (Hot search list; thermometer-shape evaluation form, 2019) The website adopts one-page scrolling navigation form for the entire webpage. All the materials are gathered within one page. The users are suggested to draw the scroll bar consistently in order to look through the information provided. The one-page scrolling navigation split the page into several sections and let the users click on different menu links which directly lead to the respective content parts. However, there are too many hyperlinks within this limited one-page. According to a study from the researchers at Wichita State University, fifty-links of paging has a faster searching time than the hundred-links condition of scrolling (Bernard, Baker, Chaparro & Fernandez, 2002). Though Tencent video’s website has been designed as two-page paging form, the over hundred-links within the home page suggests that it may not be able to furnish the most effective viewing experience for the website users. This website contains various kinds of navigation and produces the affordance of navigability from a different dimension, such as popularity, time, dramatic categories, browsing history, which gives the users multifarious choices. But as for the customization, it hasn’t been well performed in the navigation design of the website. If the owner of the website could add more initiative into the choice of the presentation form for the navigation, then it might be useful in making the navigability affordance much more persuasive and effective. All the above-analyzed heuristics related to navigability created a combined function of providing the users with convenience and persuade them to spend more time on the information on the website. 4. Interactivity Interactivity can be defined as the degree to which a communication technology can create a mediated environment in which participants can communicate (one-to- one, one-to-many, and many-to-many), both synchronously and asynchronously, and participate in reciprocal message exchanges (third- order dependency). With regard to human users, it additionally refers to their ability to perceive the experience as a simulation of interpersonal communication and increase their awareness of telepresence (Kiousis, 2002). So we analyze the interactivity of Tencent video websites from these perspectives. The speed of users browsing websites depends on their own network speed. When users enter the Tencent video homepage, there are six main columns to choose: TV series, variety arts, children, movies, animation, documentaries. Clicking on the "More" button will result in more detailed video categorization for users to choose from. Most of the activities that users take in Tencent video are asynchronous because most of the released video content is first shot and then placed on the platform for users to watch. However, the user can post a bullet screen during the viewing process, or use the Doki forum function of Tencent Video to achieve synchronous communication. Social presence is the degree to which a person is perceived as a real person’ in mediated communication (JohnR, 1976). Tencent video in order to increase the social presence of users, constantly improve the audio-visual effect of video playback. For example, the documentary Dynasties co-produced by Tencent Video and BBC: 4K HDR effect is adopted in the production stage, and the 4K HD viewing of Tencent Video Dolby, HDR color viewing and Aurora in the TV terminal is used in the broadcast stage. The quality of the original sound and picture is maintained to the greatest extent so that different audiences can get the perfect experience of being present in the viewing process. Tencent Video has worked closely with Dolby Laboratories to launch Dolby Vision HDR high dynamic range video. In addition to working with Dolby Laboratories, Tencent Video has also been developing its own video technology. Among them, video enhancement technology - TIE (Tencent Image Enhancement) is one of the important achievements. Similar to the Dolby Vision, TIE technology also enhances the layering and contrast of the image to achieve improved image quality. (4K HDR viewing of Dynasties; Dolby Vision,2018) Interactivity as “an expression of the extent that in a given series of communication exchanges, any later transmission (message) is related to the degree to which previous exchanges referred to even earlier transmissions” (Sheizaf Rafaeli, 1988).Tencent video will also appear interconnected relationship between exchanged messages. Mainly in the 181 video bullet screen and Doki forum, users will respond to some interesting bullet screen when watching the video, thus generating dialogue. In the Doki forum, users can post, comment and communicate with other users. Users will publish bullet screen that conforms to Contingency Principle and can generate interactive dialogue when watching the video. For example, when the TV series ALL IS WELL was broadcast, various funny bullet-screen comments became the focus of the topic. In Tencent video, users can like and comment on the bullet screen they are interested in. In this way, the bullet screen area also has the “plot” set by users themselves, which greatly increases the message interactiveness of the video. (The bullet screen of ALL IS WELL,2019) Telepresence is a kind of virtual reality that enables people to appear somewhere in a remote manner in real time, that is, virtual appearance. At this point, the appearance is equivalent to "presence", that is, you can perceive the scene in real time outside the scene and effectively perform some kind of operation. Tencent video webpage does not currently have a dedicated VR channel, but in some special programs, live broadcasts, live concerts, Tencent video will move VR technology into it. For example, “Faye's Moments Live 2016”, Tencent Video has made a free online live broadcast – not only live broadcast, but Tencent video also uses 4K full- process shooting and special preparation for VR version. It completely copies the entire scene into the virtual reality space. The audience is in it. You can choose the location and perspective to watch, what you want to see and what you want to see becomes the audience's own choice. (Faye's Moments Live 2016) Tencent video webpage includes three dimensions: Human-to-Computer Interactivity, Human-to-Human Interactivity and Human-to-Content Interactivity. The webpage has navigation bar, search bar and individualized personalization functions, such as "guess you're chasing" button on the home page, and "recommend you" button on the bottom of a video when the user watches, all of which belong to HCI. When the user watches the video, they can post bullet screen, post comments, other users can reply and like, the social interaction between these users belongs to Human-to- Human Interactivity. There are also many bloggers in Tencent video, uploading video and audio, including User-generated content such as travel, food, entertainment, wealth management, education, etc. These are computer-mediated communication (CMC). 5. Conclusion The World Wide Web serves as a mass communication medium offers greater capability than traditional media. New media serve timelessness opens to user 24/7, and it has the potential to reach a large number of people with more units of content and not restrict to a physical location. Tencent Video already occupied lion share in the video streaming industry in China. Tencent provides low-cost access to multi-media content, which subscription fee is 15 to 20 RMB per month. The high cost-benefit rate perceived by user attracting continues the subscription. Tencent video with over 82 million users with 79 year-on-year increment in 2018 (Xinhua, 2019). The financial report of Tencent shows the huge market success of the Tencent Video, and very likely expect to grow in the coming years. The content provided on the site is up to date and convenient to get. McLuhan (1964) claimed that “the medium is the message”, which means the medium is not less important than the content itself. So that, system variables (modality, navigability and interactivity) analyzed in this paper are also significant elements as the content. Since Tencent Video offered online PC service and mobile application, the advantage of attracting users should cover both content and platform functions. Since the Tencent Video makes a profit based on the user paid the subscription fee and business advertisement. Therefore, in order to optimize the services and maintain the leading position, constantly system improvement and understanding stakeholders’ need are required. New online technology has accessibility to complex usage data for further monitoring the platform. Examples of user data such as user opinion to the site/video content, how long a person watches a video. Further research and design improvement should focus the user enjoyment since user engagement is valuable to draw advertisement. Kalyanaraman and Sundar (2006) pointed out customization level is correlated to the attitude toward web portals. User enjoyment is the key makes people want to use the website again, following are suggestions to the Tencent Video. First, customization personal page can make one’s page unique. Specific action to conduct could be changing color or customize a personal diet. On the other hand, customization can speed up the platform loading progress. Second, build up the online community to articulate users for constant social interactivity. Third, develop the mobile user-friendly like adding modality affordance by programming sense of touch of wiping, sliding. 182 References [1] Bernard, M., Baker, R., Chaparro, B., & Fernandez, M. (2002). Paging VS. Scrolling: Examining Ways to Present Search Results. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 46(14), 1296- 1299. [2] Dou, X., & Sundar, S. (2016). 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