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August 20,zebraBaike announced a strategic upgrade, announced its strategic layout for the next five years for the first time, and will invest 1 billion yuan.Building on encyclopedic knowledge andliterature"Children's Encyclopedia Digital Content Platform" with knowledge as its core content.

In 2022, Zebra will combine AI technology with professional digital content to launch the country's first 3D interactive encyclopedia for children, "Zebra Encyclopedia", which mainly focuses on the three major areas of nature, humanities, and technology. Through immersive movie-level 3D animation and professional, systematic and scientific knowledge structure, it will help children establish a systematic children's encyclopedia cognition system.

With this strategic upgrade, Zebra will officially launch the "Literature" line based on the "Encyclopedia" line, and will take the Chinese classic "Records of the Grand Historian" as the first online theme. Through animation interpretation, knowledge explanation, fun interaction, knowledge illustrations, original text excerpts and translations, it will help children to absorb cultural knowledge and build a scientific literary literacy advancement system.

In childrenbooksMarket, encyclopedia and literature have always been the largest segments.

"Encyclopedias can help children build a global understanding, while literature enriches their emotions and spiritual world. Both are vital to children." Vice President of Zebra Children's Science and Education Group and General Manager of Zebra Encyclopedia DivisionGuo SiqiIn an interview with NetEase Technology, he said,"After launching the first encyclopedia theme in June 2022, we started developing the literature product line at the end of the year, and formed a professional team of more than 200 people to repeatedly explore the best teaching model for literature. We expect to officially launch the literature product line in December this year."

As of now, the total number of Zebra Encyclopedia users has exceeded 3.02 million, covering 472 cities around the world. Among them, more than 22% of paying users have more than 10 topics, and the average number of views for each topic is more than 10 times. The highest number of repeated views for the topics of "Human Body" and "Dinosaur" can reach 24 times.

1. Why upgrade to “Children’s Encyclopedia Digital Content Platform”?

Zebra Encyclopedia is more than just an encyclopedia.

"Given that the encyclopedia product has been in service for two years, the age of users has grown to 9-12 years old, and the demand for literature has gradually increased. To meet user needs, we have launched literary products in a timely manner to ensure that the platform content continues to attract users." Guo Siqi revealed that the product upgrade this time was first planned for the end of 2022, and the internal product planning is already very clear.

He introduced to NetEase Technology,In the future, Zebra Encyclopedia will advance along two tracks: "encyclopedia and literature" and continue to launch a systematic content system. All content will follow scientificity, rigor, and adaptability to help children build a scientific and complete cognitive framework.

Among them, the encyclopedia direction continues to expand content around the fields of nature, humanities, science and technology. So far, 18 encyclopedia themes and 4 encyclopedia mini themes have been launched; the "Literature" line will continue to add new classic literary works and continue to build a literary classic knowledge base covering the three major systems of ancient Chinese literature, modern and contemporary Chinese literature, and foreign literature.

Guo Siqi said, "What will not change after the upgrade is that we will still insist on high-quality content positioning and be committed to creating the top encyclopedia and literary products in the market."

So far, each theme launched by Zebra Encyclopedia has gone through a 57+ week R&D cycle, 100+ R&D processes and tens of thousands of details polishing. In the production of the entire encyclopedia content, more than 600,000 hours of R&D and more than 20,000 hours of 3D rendering have been invested and spent, and 3,300+ 3D models have been output and constructed, and finally 3 million+ frames of exquisite animations and 550+ 3D illustrations have been output.

At the same time, Zebra Encyclopedia has built three production lines to simultaneously develop encyclopedia content. It has also formed a professional visual effects team of more than 200 people. More than 100 experts at the doctoral level and above participate in the whole process and co-create. Every link of each topic will undergo more than 300 rounds of rigorous review to ensure the scientificity, rigor and accuracy of all content.

"The production cost of each theme is about 5 million yuan, and the total investment has exceeded 100 million yuan. Compared with other similar video products on the market, the investment may be 10-20 times."Guo Siqi once revealed this to NetEase Technology.

In the next five years, Zebra Encyclopedia will expand to more than 100 topics.

Behind this is the improvement of both production and research efficiency and quality. "First, we have made detailed specifications for the entire process, with hundreds of processes in order. Only after ensuring the quality standards and cost control of each link can we move on to the next stage; second, in terms of quality, there are strict standards for each process, and at the same time, we will collect a lot of user feedback on the product, and iterate and correct it in the subsequent products."

Guo Siqi said,So far, Zebra Encyclopedia has two relatively complete production lines running at the same time, which can guarantee that a new encyclopedia theme and a mini theme will be launched every month. The company has also set up a literature line production line and is graduallylandDuring the construction and improvement process, we can now guarantee that a major literary theme will be launched every three months.

2. Layout of "Literature" products: Children's encyclopedia education should not be too utilitarian

With this strategic upgrade, Zebra Encyclopedia will focus on the two main lines of "encyclopedia and literature" and add 2-3 new topics every month to provide users with professional and systematic popular science content.

According to Guo Siqi, the first online theme of the "Literature" line of Zebra Encyclopedia is the traditional cultural classic "Records of the Grand Historian".The "Literature" line will be based on literary classics, select chapters with high literary value and strong readability, combine children's cognitive experience, reorganize and connect the content, and build a scientific literary literacy advancement system for children.

Taking "Records of the Grand Historian", the first book to be launched online, as an example, after repeated exploration of the best literary teaching model by a professional team, the 10,000-word "Records of Xiang Yu" will be presented in high-quality 3D movie-level image quality, guiding children to enter the original text and communicate with the author, stimulating their interest in reading the original work, and laying a solid foundation for reading literary works.

Guo Siqi revealed that in order to ensure the quality and quantity of the literature products, the company has set up a separate teaching and research line and content production line, with more than 200 team members. It took several months to carefully polish the scene of the Hongmen Banquet alone, striving for perfection from the depth of emotion to the tension of details. The styles of Liu Bang's crown, armor, belt hooks, accessories, and clothing in "Records of the Grand Historian" all refer to a large number of historical documents and original cultural relics collected by museums, ensuring that the final presentation of all knowledge points is scientific.

"Popular science content must ensure the rigor, professionalism and accuracy of knowledge, so we attach the most importance to this part." He also mentioned that in order to further restore history, two experts participated in the review of the entire product development process. "One expert is more inclined to the field of literature, and the other is mainly responsible for the study of historical costumes and props. They worked with us on the development of everything from the entire outline setting to the teaching knowledge points of each episode."

He admitted that compared with encyclopedia products, the investment in literary product lines is also huge. The production cost of an encyclopedia is about 5 million, while the production cost of a literary product is about 10 million."This is mainly due to the huge amount of assets and animation required. For example, the "Records of the Grand Historian" project involves more than 200 characters and numerous props and scenes. The story we chose spans multiple dynasties and involves many historical figures, which further increases the difficulty and cost of production."

"We do not view children's growth with a utilitarian mentality, but focus on improving their comprehensive literacy. Future education reforms will focus more on quality literacy rather than simply competing on scores." Guo Siqi said,If encyclopedias are used to cultivate children's curiosity and desire to explore the world, then literature guides children to have a deeper understanding of human emotions. The two aspects complement each other. A person cannot only have an understanding of the objective world, but also learn to feel some of the encounters, ups and downs, gains and losses, and uncertainties in future life. "

In his view, the primary purpose of education is to promote the all-round development of the individual. It is not just to cope with exams or acquire certain skills, but to cultivate a responsible, creative, imaginative and compassionate person.

3. Invest 1 billion yuan in product research and development and construction

In two years, Zebra Encyclopedia has successfully occupied a place in the children's digital content market and quickly won market share with its high-quality 3D movie-level animation, rigorous professional knowledge system, innovative interactive experience and constantly updated thematic content.

So far,The total number of Zebra Encyclopedia users has exceeded 3.02 million, covering 472 cities around the world; more than 22% of paying users have more than 10 topics, with high overall repurchase rates; "Human Body" and "Dinosaur" topics are the most popular, with the highest number of repeated views reaching 24 times, and the average number of views for each topic is more than 10 times.

Guo Siqi further shared the user portrait of Zebra Encyclopedia. "Users in first-tier and new first-tier cities account for about 40%. Judging from the Douyin live broadcast room, the purchasing power and purchasing desire of users in second-, third- and fourth-tier cities are not worse than those in first- and second-tier cities. The supply of high-quality content is more scarce in low-tier cities, and it is easier for them to make purchasing decisions." He is confident that Zebra Encyclopedia will be able to cover more cities and a wider range of users in the future.

Talking about the high repurchase rate, he said that Zebra did two things right:

First, market-oriented product development requires fully listening to users' voices in topic selection, accepting their feedback on topic selection and content, knowing clearly what users like and want, and then combining one's own teaching system and planning to create products that users are truly interested in.

Second, maintain a relatively stable pace of new product launches and product quality, and launch a new high-quality encyclopedia topic approximately every month. This is also the most critical thing for the product to continue to achieve a good repurchase rate and stable development.

In 2024, Zebra Encyclopedia launched a membership system and also launched a new toy category - Zebra Encyclopedia Knowledge Toys to further enhance the learning effect. "We will continue to upgrade member benefits, such as providing more Mini themes and other content that members can watch for free, and even launching some higher-resolution, higher-definition, and higher-quality content." Guo Siqi said.

In the future, Zebra Encyclopedia will invest another 1 billion yuan to focus on product research and development, including cooperation with experts in teaching and research development and topic planning, as well as fine-tuning of content production. After the product system is relatively mature, it will start to further build AI capabilities.

At the same time, Zebra Encyclopedia will officially launch the "China Children's Science Popularization Plan" and initiate three "1000" plans. Specifically, in the next 10 years, Zebra Encyclopedia will cooperate with 1,000 museums, science popularization institutions, bookstores, parks and other professional institutions and children's places, organize 1,000 experts at or above the doctoral level in various fields to conduct 1,000 science popularization live broadcasts for the whole society for free, initiate a public welfare and universal benefit plan to benefit 1,000 primary schools across the country, build and open up the integrated research link of "production-research-application" for China's children's science popularization, and establish a complete children's science popularization system.

According to Guo Siqi, Zebra Encyclopedia will cooperate with Dunhuang Museum, BeijingOlympic GamesThe first batch of partners, including the Museum, Beijing Wenyu River Park, and Encyclopedia of China Publishing House, have leveraged their respective advantages and resources to jointly build a diversified, multi-format, and multi-media children's encyclopedia learning model, and jointly promote the innovation and high-quality development of China's children's science industry. At the same time, through a series of free science activities, children can not only understand the basic scientific principles and methods, improve their scientific literacy and logical thinking ability, but more importantly, provide children from different economic backgrounds with equal opportunities to receive science education.It is reported that Zebra Encyclopedia will also be deeply involved in long-term education assistance work for the elderly, children, border areas, poverty-stricken areas and other special hardship areas, benefiting 1,000 primary schools across the country and covering 250,000 children.(One orange)

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