On October 31st, Sohu Video Follower’s Halloween Cosplay Party for the American drama was held in Beijing. Sohu’s founder, chairman and CEO Zhang Chaoyang was interviewed by the media at the event, sharing the product positioning, content ecology and future development of Sohu’s video attention stream, and responding to outsiders’ claims that it was “flattering”.
Zhang Chaoyang said that he gets up at 4 a.m. every morning and works for more than ten hours. Physics and English classes are not only personal interests, but also an important practice to promote attention to live streaming and content ecology. “We are not lying down, we are working hard, and attention flow is our strategic product.”
In his opinion, Sohu is currently investing more resources into product polishing, user development and offline event operations for attention streams. “This matter has to be done in sequence. As the platform becomes bigger, making money is a more natural way.” Zhang Chaoyang said that creating high-quality products that society needs and users like is not inconsistent with creating long-term value for shareholders. The most important thing is to make the product good.
The follow stream is a semi-open circle of friends: meeting friends through video, and forwarding interaction is the main line
“Go and have a quick look and forward the interactive follow stream,” Zhang Chaoyang said. This is the latest instruction for using the follow stream. The Kankan channel has a light browsing function, where users can discover videos and creators of interest. After entering the main channel of attention streams, users can engage in more in-depth interactions through following, forwarding, and commenting.
In Zhang Chaoyang’s view, the difference between attention streams is that users not only care about the content itself, but also about who posted it. He summarized this model as “meeting friends through video” and described the follow stream as “a semi-open circle of friends” where users can get to know more people online and form ongoing social relationships around common interests.
“Reposting is the king, comments are the little king, and comments are the king when reposting.” Zhang Chaoyang said that reposting is the most important interaction method for attention streams, and it is also an important link between content dissemination and relationship accumulation. The platform emphasizes promoting the flow of content through user attention and real forwarding. Users can manage watch lists based on interests and maintain interaction through functions such as small bells and comment pools.
In terms of product logic, attention flow completely relies on user attention relationships and real people’s forwarding, and does not rely on algorithm recommendations. Zhang Chaoyang said that the algorithm platform forms a portrait based on the user’s click history, which can easily form an information cocoon. The flow of attention is filtered by the people the user follows. “You pay attention to all kinds of things, and each exciting point is divergent. There is no problem of information cocoon.”
In terms of support for creators, Zhang Chaoyang mentioned that the traffic support of attention streams is translated as “reposting by big accounts”, “people who are reposted are seen, and people who are reposted by big names are more likely to be seen.” He encouraged creators to not only be content publishers, but also to become participants and interactors. “Reposting to others will leave you with a lingering fragrance. If you repost to others, others will be very happy. Others will also look at you and repost you, which will increase your followers.”
Paying attention to the development of streaming users is like knitting a sweater: offline “face-based” continues to add threads to the circle relationship
From the Spring and Autumn Attention Streaming Conferences to this Halloween Cosplay Party, Sohu Video is incorporating more offline activities into the Attention Streaming ecosystem.
Zhang Chaoyang introduced that attention streams have formed multiple highly active circles, among which circles such as Kpop, Hanfu, Chinese style, Chinese dance, and flip dancing have developed rapidly, and circles such as two-dimensional, knowledge, health, running, and extreme sports are also on the rise. In the past two years, Sohu’s traditional activities such as Sohu News Marathon, Sohu Technology Annual Forum, Sohu Fashion Festival, etc. have turned to attention stream promotion. As attention streams have become more interactive and valuable, they continue to provide offline “face-to-face” opportunities for broadcasters.
“Offline activities are a good way to promote attention streams, and attention streams also make offline activities very interesting.” Zhang Chaoyang said that the development of attention streams is like “knitting a sweater”. Although it is slow, it is in line with Sohu’s long-termism. He also revealed that the Attention Stream Conference was renamed from the previous Podcasters Conference. “We used to think we were building a secret weapon, but now we’re going to start talking about it.”
Zhang Chaoyang revealed that the finals of the 2026 Attention Flow Dance Competition will be held in Beijing on November 28, and national style-related competitions will also usher in the national finals in early December. At present, attention flow still regards expanding the user scale as an important goal, and also pays attention to interactive indicators such as forwarding and comments, hoping to gradually bring deep social networking from a niche to a wider user group.
Pay attention to the flow as a flow: define the platform not by the length of the content, but by the method of distribution
The Halloween American drama Cosplay Party, which has lasted for more than ten years, is also a practice of Sohu Video’s focus on streamlined online and offline linkage. Zhang Chaoyang shared that Sohu Video is no longer just a content consumption platform, but has also developed a social platform with real-person interaction as the core in the traditional video business. The combination of high-quality content such as American dramas and movies with the social interaction of attention streams allows users to not only watch content, but also establish connections with creators around the content.
Focusing on industry hot spots such as American dramas, short plays and AI, Zhang Chaoyang said that Sohu Video has resumed the purchase of American drama copyrights in recent years and expanded the introduction of American movies, especially classic films. High-quality American dramas and movies are not only Sohu Video’s long-term accumulated content advantages, but also bring new user entrances to attention streams. “The attention stream is like a park with a lot of fun things in it,” he said. Good content can attract users who do not originally use social products to enter the platform and then come into contact with the attention stream.
In addition, Zhang Chaoyang believes that short plays, long plays and movies correspond to different content consumption needs. Short plays are suitable for watching in fragmented time, while long plays and movies still carry the value of complete narrative and artistic appreciation, and the two can coexist.
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