According to 36Kr's report, Communication Brain Technology (Zhejiang) Co., Ltd. recently received an investment of 140 million yuan from the Zhejiang Provincial Industry Fund. The funds will be used for the upgrading of Communication Brain technology research and development products, project expansion, and daily operations.

For a long time in the past, digital media convergence has been a niche track for capital. Sporadic financings mainly focused on the angel round and A round, with amounts generally below 10 million yuan. The 140 million yuan financing for Communication Brain is undoubtedly a shot in the arm for the entire industry, and it also raises three questions:

1. For many people, 'media convergence' is a relatively unfamiliar term. What is the corresponding background and trend?

2. What role does 'Communication Brain' play in the process of media convergence, and why is it favored by the capital market?

3. What impact will the phenomenal 140 million yuan investment have on media convergence, and what are the ripple effects?

If we can clarify the answers to these questions, we may have a deeper understanding of the inevitable trend of media convergence and the potential opportunities within it.

01 Ten years of exploration, 'converged media' has entered deep waters

Jay Nelson once predicted in "The End of Traditional Media": "In the next five to ten years, most existing media formats will come to an end, and they will be replaced by integrated online media."

At that time, in 1998 when the Internet was just beginning to become popular, newspapers and television were still the mainstream media, and Nelson's view was quite bold. The 'qualitative change' occurred ten years later, with the rapid popularity of social media platforms like Weibo and WeChat, and the emergence of new formats such as information streams, live broadcasts, and short videos. Amidst behavioral changes such as 'reading newspapers replaced by scrolling through social media feeds' and 'watching TV replaced by browsing Weibo,' media convergence was put on the agenda.

On August 18, 2014, the Central Comprehensive Deepening Reform Leading Group reviewed and approved the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Convergent Development of Traditional Media and Emerging Media," elevating media convergence to the level of national strategy. With the starting gun fired, the question was no longer whether to converge but how to converge.

Over the past ten years, the exploration of 'media convergence' has been in full swing, with many beneficial model innovations and convergence cases discovered from the bottom up.

The first is the 'county autonomy' model, which involves targeted convergence innovation at the district or county level, with the most common example being the establishment of county-level converged media centers. For instance, Zhejiang Wenling's 'Village Community Communication Channel' has built four major scenarios for 'perceptual decision-making, precise communication, public opinion feedback, and governance improvement' at the village and community levels, bridging the 'last mile' of precise communication and service governance at the grassroots level.

The second is the 'city linkage' model, characterized by further aggregating resources at the city level and bridging information silos through resource allocation. A typical example is Zhengzhou's Zhengbao Converged Media, which collaborates with 16 local districts, counties, and development zones to jointly promote the construction of converged media centers, exploring a smart operation model of 'news + government affairs + services + e-commerce' and incorporating commercial operations into the scope of 'media convergence.'

The third is the 'provincial coordination' model, which simply put, involves building a 'central kitchen' at the provincial level as the nerve center and innovation platform for converged media content production, while also creating a technology foundation for regional sharing and open resources in the 'cloud,' providing comprehensive services such as technology, platforms, content, and talent. The most classic examples are Zhejiang's 'Tianmu Cloud' and 'Xinlan Cloud.'

However, new and old are constantly intertwined processes. The model innovations that worked well a decade ago have gradually shown signs of 'weakness' under the wave of a new round of technological revolution:

Driven by large models, new formats such as digital humans and virtual anchors are gaining popularity. Constrained by insufficient technical capabilities, city and county-level converged media centers can only 'show off' these technologies without normalized applications. At the same time, there are also talent gaps exposed. According to survey data from the Zhejiang Institute of Media Studies, the lack of professional talent in county-level converged media centers in terms of new media content production is as high as 77.78%. Additionally, there are a series of underlying issues such as business fragmentation, data silos, content operations, and commercial monetization.

In other words, the process of 'media convergence' has entered deep waters. Simple 'puzzle-like' convergence by addition or 'shuffle-like' convergence by reorganizing organizational structures can no longer solve existing problems. In addition to model innovations, it is also necessary to delve deeper into technology.

As stated in the Decision of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee: 'We should establish a mechanism and evaluation system suitable for all-media production and dissemination and promote systematic reforms in mainstream media.'

02 Technology-driven, Communication Brain 'weaves' a network

When media convergence requires technology to break the deadlock, it signifies a change in the rules of the game: whoever can seize the technological windfall and gain a voice in technology will take the initiative in competition.

Back in early 2023, under the guidance of the Zhejiang Provincial Propaganda Department, Communication Brain Technology Co., Ltd., jointly initiated by Zhejiang Daily Press Group, Zhejiang Radio and Television Group, Zhejiang Publishing United Group, and Zhejiang Cultural Industry Investment Group, was officially established. As the name suggests, 'Communication Brain' aims to serve as a unified technology-driven foundation for deep media convergence throughout the province.

Despite its distinct state-owned enterprise background, Communication Brain, with its clear objectives, resembles a purely technological platform, even more 'radical' than many internet companies.

Zhang Yuyi, General Manager of Communication Brain, stated that currently, 80% of the company's employees are technical personnel, and the company has invested over 120 million yuan in research and development since 2023.

Facing the deepening process of media convergence, how should a technology platform respond? Zhejiang's solution is to build a 'single network' for media convergence across provinces, cities, and counties.

Zhejiang Daily's 'Tianmu Cloud' and Zhejiang Radio and Television's 'Xinlan Cloud' have been integrated into 'Tianmu-Xinlan Cloud,' constructing a unified technology support platform that connects media resources at the provincial, city, and county levels, providing a full-link business solution covering 'planning, collection, editing, review, publishing, management, and evaluation,' and avoiding internal friction caused by resource dispersion, business overlap, and conflicts of interest.

After resolving the issue of a unified technology foundation, Communication Brain targets two core pain points constraining media convergence:

The first is content production and dissemination.

In addition to integrating promotional resources to form a media resource library, automatic content moderation, and real-time linking of articles to the dissemination matrix platform as 'efficiency-enhancing' tools, Communication Brain continuously seeks productivity from new technologies. A direct example is the 'Communication Large Model' launched in September 2023, which has successively introduced over 60 AIGC functions such as conversational question and answer, intelligent creation, multimodal retrieval, creative design, and intelligent moderation, and is already available to users of the 'single network.'

The second is commercial operation and monetization.

If media revenue is not diversified enough and lacks strong blood-making capabilities, the driving force for convergence becomes elusive. The technology-driven Communication Brain has identified two entry points: partnering with leading commercial communication platforms on content copyrights, covering functions such as fine-grained content operation monetization and copyright protection; and in digital marketing, building the nation's first provincial, city, and county-integrated digital marketing platform, 'Hongze,' to enhance commercial premium capabilities through traffic aggregation.

The logic behind this is not difficult to explain.

The original intention of the 'single network' is to bridge various resources with a unified technology foundation, enabling all media within the province to share open-source technologies and co-construct an open ecosystem, shifting from individual advancements to collective operations. When unnecessary internal friction is eliminated, content production and dissemination efficiency are enhanced, media influence is amplified, and commercialization avenues broaden, media convergence becomes a natural progression.

To date, Communication Brain's 'network' has served the daily content production, publication, and dissemination of over 90 media outlets across the province, with one-third of Zhejiang residents becoming registered users of the 'single network.' Daily, 2.5 million pieces of content are published on the 'single network,' initially forming a provincial media ecosystem characterized by co-construction, sharing, and integration.

03 Capital entry, media convergence presses the 'accelerator' button

Based on past experience, capital entry is often a hallmark of technology commercialization. Over the past decade, media convergence has largely been policy-driven. What kind of chemical reaction will occur when the driving force behind media convergence shifts from policy to capital?

Zhang Yuyi, General Manager of Communication Brain, stated in a media interview, 'Investing in cutting-edge technologies and actively applying them to the media and culture industry, continuously exploring new business and market models, are the key factors in our investment acquisition.' The 140 million yuan investment from the Zhejiang Provincial Industry Fund will primarily be used to drive innovation in three areas of the business:

Firstly, intensify exploration of cutting-edge technologies. This includes enhancing and upgrading the 'Communication Large Model,' creating a new generation of future converged media studios, and exploring technologies for cultural digitization products such as positive energy trend perception and risk control inspections.

Secondly, promote innovation and upgrading of products and services, continue to optimize Communication Brain's core product, 'Tianmu-Xinlan Cloud,' actively promote iterations of key platforms such as 'Trend News' and 'Z-Vision,' and strengthen regional cooperation within the 'Hongze' system.

Thirdly, expand markets within and outside the province. It is reported that Communication Brain will successively seek business growth points in regions such as Chongqing, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Xinjiang, Hebei, Yunnan, Beijing, and Anhui.

While public information is scarce, the signals being conveyed are clear. The next steps will focus on two directions to continue 'biting into hard bones': one is to continuously invest in technology and solidify the first-mover advantage of innovation; the other is to steadily advance in the ecosystem and continue to deepen the scope and intensity of cooperation.

Only innovators progress, only innovators grow strong, and only innovators triumph. Under the call for the in-depth development of media convergence, Communication Brain's goal is likely not merely to serve as a 'Zhejiang model.' Zhejiang has set an example for media convergence nationwide and secured a 'ticket' for Communication Brain to access a larger market.

As mentioned earlier, the media convergence process in most provinces and cities is still at the 'cloudification' stage. This is because many media outlets have yet to emerge from the 'small technology workshop' model, relying heavily on outsourcing for R&D, resulting in a notable lag in technology application.

How can media seamlessly integrate with new technologies to unleash new productive forces? Communication Brain, to some extent, plays the role of 'navigator' and 'explorer.'

Whether it's the Communication Large Model, which reshapes content productivity and creativity; the third-generation future converged media studio, which integrates cutting-edge technologies such as virtual reality, digital humans, and AIGC; or the to ground application of the 'single network' across provincial, city, and county-level converged media, these initiatives face not only technical challenges but also issues such as addressing institutional and mechanical barriers, accelerating the integration of people, matters, systems, and ideologies, and deepening the depth of technical cooperation along the path, all of which involve common issues in the process of media convergence.

Daring to venture into the 'uncharted territory,' Communication Brain provides a reference model for the transformation of other provinces and cities.

As evidence, Communication Brain has already initiated in-depth cooperation with Jiangxi Province, empowering the Jiangxi Converged Media Brain platform with technology and participating in the establishment of Jiangxi Converged Media Brain Technology Co., Ltd., marking the first 'cross-provincial journey' by transcending geographical boundaries. Over the past year, it has successively provided technical services to provincial media outlets in Guizhou, Hebei, Yunnan, Shanxi, and Tibet. Media outlets from various provinces and cities, including Guangxi, Chongqing, and Jiangxi, have already expressed intentions to cooperate with Communication Brain on the 'Communication Large Model.'

Following this logic, the capital injection from the Zhejiang Provincial Industry Fund not only 'unlocks' Communication Brain's innovation and market expansion capabilities but also inadvertently presses the 'accelerator' button for the stagnant process of media convergence, potentially activating the media convergence process in an increasing number of regions through the 'Zhejiang experience.'

04 Final Thoughts

The main theme of media is always transformation built on technological innovation.

Over a century ago, newspapers reigned supreme, then radio and television ascended to the throne, and the internet emerged as a new king of communication power in an unforeseen manner… Perhaps in another decade, the internet will also be buried in the annals of history, much like newspapers, radio, and television.

Technology is the bond of communication, and this is the natural law of media convergence. Whoever violates market laws will be eliminated by the times.