Digital reading is becoming a new trend.
This year, national reading has been written into the Government Work Report for the ninth time, from "advocating national reading" to "deepening national reading", and the depth and breadth of national reading have been continuously extended. One of the manifestations is that digital reading is becoming a new trend for all people to read.
At the first National Reading Conference held recently, the 2021 China Digital Reading Report released by China Audio-visual and Digital Publishing Association showed that in 2021, the number of digital reading users in China exceeded 500 million, the digital reading industry maintained a good development momentum, the market scale continued to expand, excellent works emerged constantly, and the user stickiness continued to climb.
Bring increment to reading for all.
The overall revenue scale of the digital reading industry reached 41.57 billion yuan, the number of digital reading users reached 506 million, and the per capita electronic reading volume was 11.58 … … A series of data published in "China Digital Reading Report 2021" (hereinafter referred to as "Report") point to a trend: in recent years, the leap-forward development of China’s information and communication industry and the continuous innovation and application of digital technology are changing and affecting the reading pattern of the whole people, and constantly promoting the development of reading services to digital, systematic and personalized.
The results of the 19th national reading survey released by China Press and Publication Research Institute also show that adult citizens tend to read digitally, especially young people become the main body of digital reading. In 2021, 77.4% of adult nationals read on their mobile phones, an increase of 0.7 percentage points over 76.7% in 2020; 71.6% of adult citizens have read online, an increase of 0.1 percentage point compared with 71.5% in 2020; 27.3% of adult citizens read on e-readers.
"The long reading time and wide coverage of people reflect that digital reading is becoming an important reading method." Wei Yushan, president of China Press and Publication Research Institute, said in an interview with Economic Daily that in 2021, the average daily contact time of Chinese adults was 101.12 minutes, and the average daily contact time of Internet was 68.42 minutes, which was nearly three hours, far exceeding the average reading time of paper books of 21.05 minutes.
With the continuous improvement of users’ requirements for content quality, their initiative to pay for knowledge is also improving. According to the survey, users of digital reading have developed mature payment habits. In 2021, 92.17% of users paid for digital reading, and the most paid reading form was electronic reading, accounting for 60.07%. Compared with audio reading, users are more willing to pay for online literature and electronic reading.
"Digital reading is bringing a new amount of reading for all. You may not think that The Analects of Confucius is the most popular reading material on the reading platform in 2021, with nearly 30 million readers in the station throughout the year. More than 80% of these readers who read The Analects are young readers under the age of 30. Readers discuss classics and answer questions in the comment area, so that classic culture can renew its vitality in the digital space. " Cheng Wu, CEO of Reading Group and vice president of Tencent Group, said that at present, the publications of Reading Platform cover dozens of categories, with hundreds of millions of readers last year.
Tong Zhilei, Chairman and President of Chinese Online Digital Publishing Group Co., Ltd. also believes that the Internet is an important position for all people to read. Chinese Online has built the "Scholarly China" Internet digital library, which has collected more than 100,000 books and built a "lifelong study" for the people. At present, Chinese Online has built more than 28,000 digital farmer’s bookstores for 12 provinces and cities, helping to revitalize rural culture.
Innovative immersive reading experience
With the accelerated development of digital technology, the connection between virtual and real world continues to deepen, and the reading scene is also undergoing profound changes. Scientific and technological innovation has brought more imagination space for the content production, reading form, experience and scene creation of digital reading.
"China’s scientific and technological innovation is facing the forefront of the world, the system and mechanism are further improved, the vitality of innovation and creation is constantly released, and digital technology continues to be empowered and integrated, providing an excellent development environment for the digital reading industry." Zhang Yijun, the first vice president of China Audio-visual and Digital Publishing Association, said.
Labyrinth, Ruyi Linlang Picture Book, Xinhua Dictionary APP, China Poetry Lesson, Guoyun Inheritance APP, "Double Historiography" Multimedia Publishing Project, Shadow Play China AR Picture Book, Migu 5G Yundangjian, 5G Yunyou Museum, tomato novel AI reading … … The Digital Reading Experience Hall set up at the first National Reading Conference provided the audience with a professional and immersive reading experience. Among them, China Mobile Mi Gu’s multi-modal explanation scheme based on virtual digital homo sapiens, 3D virtual scene, and interaction between reality and reality — — "5G+ Digital Wisdom Explanation" debuted. Following the footsteps of Gu Yifei, a knowledgeable person, users can punch in the Meta-Universe Future Bookstore, "cross" to the enterprise cloud bookstore, the smart party building room and the rural primary school, and feel the diversified reading service on the spot.
"Panoramic immersion interaction can innovate ‘ Paper reading+screen reading ’ Reading experience. For users of 5G Cloud Bookstore, they can choose to order a cup of coffee from Baoshan, Yunnan in their favorite bookstore, choose a favorite good book, borrow it, buy it, or collect it as a member’s right. After the bookstore is closed, the 5G+ artificial intelligence unmanned bookstore will continue to serve users to select books, buy books and receive books 24 hours a day. " Liu Xin, general manager of China Mobile Migu Company, said that up to now, more than 18 million users have gained a brand-new experience in the 5G cloud bookstore. Looking forward to the future, in the world of meta-universe, the production, consumption, morphological experience and scene space of reading will be transformed in higher dimensions, so that every user can enjoy reading anytime and anywhere.
"The scale of over 1 billion netizens and the scale of over 500 million online literature users show the vigorous situation and broad space of the digital reading industry." Zhang Lingyun, the founder of Palm Reading Technology Co., Ltd., said in an interview that in terms of reading experience, intelligence has been applied in practice: connecting massive high-quality content, intelligent voice search, instant playing, and voice interaction can be customized according to personal preferences. Taking the palm reading platform as an example, it adopts intelligent recommendation system, continuously optimizes content matching, realizes the content customization function of "thousands of people and thousands of faces", and greatly optimizes the efficiency and experience of users receiving information.
Tomato novel is a free reading product launched by Tik Tok in 2019. At the scene, the reporter clicked on the conceptual timbre of tomato novels to listen to the electronic screen, and a highly anthropomorphic voice of Liu Xinwu’s "Bell and Drum Tower" in Tianjin dialect made people experience the charm of Tianjin crosstalk. According to the on-site staff, the model of tomato novel AI reading is explored and optimized in many directions, such as synthetic sound quality, prosodic stress, tone and intonation, which provides users with a highly anthropomorphic immersive listening experience. The multi-style timbre matrix can adapt to the different characters in the novel, express various emotions such as happiness and sadness, and let the AI timbre properly express the joys and sorrows in the story.
High quality content is the core competitiveness.
Digital reading has developed rapidly, forming a multi-content theme pattern. In particular, the free reading mode and the rise of new media texts have further sunk the digital reading market. However, there is still much room for improvement on how to better reflect the real life while maintaining the network characteristics, so as to improve the quality of works. According to this industry, the accumulation of high-quality content and the core services provided based on content are the core competitiveness of the digital reading industry.
"China’s digital reading work has entered the current mature adjustment period from the promotion and development period in previous years." Sun Shoushan, chairman of China Audio-visual and Digital Publishing Association, believes that digital reading is an indispensable part of national reading. Under the background of the new era, the digital reading industry should continue to adhere to integrity and innovation, maintain high-quality development, consistently promote the content construction of digital reading platforms, persistently innovate the service model of digital reading enterprises, and unremittingly do a good job in cultivating digital reading talents.
With the increasingly fierce competition in the digital reading industry, how to obtain more high-quality copyright resources, how to efficiently produce and incubate high-quality IP, further break down the barriers between pan-entertainment industries, and lay out the whole industrial chain are also the future directions of the digital reading industry. According to Yan Xiaohong, chairman of China Copyright Association, reading is the basic right of every citizen. Under the new technological conditions, the rapid development of reading carriers and reading methods has made positive contributions to meeting the reading needs of different groups. To this end, copyright should be regarded as a strategic resource for cultural development and a basic condition for industry development, so as to escort the development of high-quality content.
"Copyright protection is one of the content barriers and core competitiveness of digital reading enterprises. In order for the online literature industry to achieve sound, healthy and long-term development, it is necessary to ensure that the works signed on the platform cannot have copyright defects, and that the legitimate rights and interests of the authors who have settled in are not infringed by others. " Zhang Lingyun said that in terms of copyright supervision, Palm Reading is also making some technical attempts. For example, the technology of "content warehousing" refers to marking an identification code on each chapter of each online literary work, and then summarizing all the identification codes to establish a digital library. When new works are put into storage, the platform can timely supervise copyright infringement according to digital information.
"No matter how the way of reading and the way of communication change, the essence and power of reading will not change. I hope everyone can participate in reading and let the technical application of digital reading help speed up reading for all." Zhang Lingyun said.
Han Bingzhi