The logic contrast of Sina Weibo vstwitter product design

Sina Weibo and Twitter, the two major social networking giants at home and abroad, have been comparing and arguing about them, and there are only a few comparisons between the two products ' own design and logic.

I. Concept

1, Twitter: Not I want to open, I just can't

From the earliest days, Twitter has been positioned in the short message of 140 characters, which is the capacity limit for a text message in North America. For a long time after the launch, the Twitter official itself provided only a window to publish text. Rather than dabbling in other forms, this is largely due to the limitations of start-up resources.

To address the limitations of small companies ' lack of resources, Twitter has taken the approach of opening up a wide range of API interfaces to third parties, allowing third-party companies and developers to do the job. So we have a multi-platform experience or a good or bad client (none of these clients are developed by the Twitter official itself), with a variety of content providers up and down (short link, figure bed, audio bed, video bed), there are all kinds of services that can be exchanged with Twitter ( The Instagram, Share to Twitter button, has the myth that Twitter will never be sealed off.

It is hard to say that this fragmented situation is what Twitter meant. In order to use Twitter, users need to find their own short link services, their own map bed, to find their own audio and video site upload. There are many people who claim that they like the service, but most of them don't think so. Instead of piecing together a chain, they prefer a one-stop service.

Even Twitter officials don't think so. After a big start, Twitter slowly began to provide its own graph bed (pic.twitter.com), offer its own short link service (t.co), acquire a batch of clients, and preview specific videos and images on the new Twitter Interface (#newtwitter). Twitter even "warned" third party developers to reduce the strength of their development clients. It is clear that Twitter's early "full openness" is an energy-constrained move. When it grows, it is an inevitable trend to provide one-stop service.

2, Sina: Weibo is a basket, everything into the inside pack

It is clear that Sina, as a traditional internet giant, does not have Twitter-style energy and resource shortages when doing Weibo. It can calmly provide users with short links (the past sinaurl, now t.cn), providing graphics beds, audio beds, video beds, almost all mobile phone platform clients. This is Sina's huge advantage over Twitter, and it's a significant bit better than Twitter for Sina Weibo's user experience (Daniel, of course, has the idea of Daniel, but as an ordinary user, this is obviously more convenient).

Sina, however, has gone even further on all this. My personal feeling is that, in the view of Sina, Weibo is only a form, Sina in the micro-bo do a good job, you can add the traditional elements of communication, and gradually put the competition in the past more than 10 years by the opponent to seize the lost ground step by step back.

The first is Tencent's long-term monopoly of IM services, starting from this March 2 version of the microblogging Air client, Sina has provided mutual powder friends to chat with each other function. Sina Weibo has recently begun to introduce props and medals to the hierarchy of the rumors (in fact, Sina recently upgraded the medal system, it is likely to be prepared for this matter), and Sina Weibo's revision notice, it is clear that its new version will be more close to SNS social networking services.

Weibo is the biggest and most successful product of Sina's traffic, with almost no one. Sina is also clearly trying to do all kinds of other forms of communication to the microblog. Sina seems to have never intended to focus on the Micro Bo this form of doing a good job, but in doing a good job on the basis of micro-blogging, waiting for the insertion of a variety of traditional or non-traditional forms of Internet communication, the so-called "micro Bo is a basket, everything into the pack."

Second, the product design

Sina Weibo is much better than Twitter in terms of product design alone. Only one aspect is described below.

Whether it's Twitter or Sina Weibo, users have a total of two main requirements for releasing information: first, forwarding information, commenting or not commenting. Second, one-to-one communication with specific users. We can see that both Twitter and Sina Weibo are dealing with both types of user needs, but they use different approaches.

1, sharp Push and reference

Twitter's sharp push (RT) is divided into two types, official RT and traditional Rt.

The traditional RT is a form that the private user gradually fixed in the use, and is not officially recognized. Its function is very simple, is to forward another user's tweets, and comment.

In fact, the RT form itself is not rigorous (the comments are in the back of the comments), and the retention of the information is not high (more than 140 words are disconnected to cause the information not to be fully delivered). were abused very much. There have been countless words on the back of the use of RT way to chat, to some users caused a great deal of trouble. So much so that people who are openly claiming that they don't have a traditional RT chat.

The user's obsession means the failure of the service provider design. Sina Weibo has done better in this regard. Using a separate reference box to explicitly identify and completely save the original information, restrict users to comment only above the reference box, commenting on the number of 140 words that do not occupy the source information. In this way, the Sina Weibo citation is very clear, the original information provider, reviewer, comment content at a glance. Far better than Twitter.

In fact, Twitter has changed its traditional RT functionality to a reference (double quotes) on several official clients, and the idea of a reference box in Sina is probably the same. Yet another tragedy for Twitter is that its quotes are too small and clear enough to mix with the original RT format, adding to the already extremely complex forwarding format. How do you feel when you see a push with quotes, RT,//even RTWT symbols mixed together?

As for the official RT, this is probably the frustration Twitter has made in order to keep the source information intact. Ironically, this "source information retention" problem does not exist in the citation format of Sina Weibo. Regardless of comments or comments, Sina Weibo forwarding, will not damage the integrity of the source information.

2. Reply and Comment

On Twitter, if you need to communicate with someone one-on-one, then you'll have to respond with a direct @ ID. This kind of reply will be seen by the follow of the person who has both you and your reply. On the old website and on most third-party Web clients, if you want to see the full conversation between the two people, you need to keep clicking in the reply to come up with a single view of the conversation.

On Sina Weibo, if you need to communicate with a person one-on-one, then you directly comment on his information. Such comments will not be seen directly by anyone. If you have to check the dialogue between the two people, click on the "comment", you can see at a glance.

The conversation between the two will be seen by other people who are both fo the two, a source of the bizarre "two-word-TB-only-one" rule on Twitter. How many times has your Twitter timeline been flooded by conversations with two of people you follow at the same time, and you're not interested in reading that information at all?

Twitter's conversation leads are very inconspicuous, which is also an important reason for the prevalence of RT chat (how many people know that you can click the "in reply to" view threads without guidance). Some of Daniel's blaming the newcomer for not knowing in the reply to view the conversation clues, should also think about this is actually Twitter itself product design problems?

In addition, I do not understand how some people from the Sina Weibo "comments" this setting to see the "Hierarchical relationship" and "inequality" and a big attack? In essence, this function and Twitter's response is the same goal. It just got better, didn't it?

Third, the user

1. Official review?

Sina Weibo has an official review, and any domestic web2.0 service is officially censored. This is why and why a large number of users, including me, remain on Twitter.

In terms of values, Twitter users are a homogeneous group, "push Friends" is not only a definition of appellation and identity, but also a kind of ideological relative identity. There is also a lively discussion on Twitter, but more on specific issues and details of discussions and exchanges (such as the long time discussions between Linux users and BSD users on terminal coloring issues, and even the lihlii criticisms push). On more important issues, more often than not, the situation is consistent with the external, such as the report of the five Maoist action.

Such a situation creates a highly agreeable coterie, which obviously leads to the emergence of "political correctness" and "self-censorship". For example, this Luo incident, ignoring the cause of the facts, echoed the opposition and scolded a few. Twitter's user experience is not as good as Sina Weibo, which is a fact, as illustrated in the previous section of this article. However, a lot of push friends because of "Twitter Web page and client is not easy to use" on the direct scold, just as the old Luo said that the next "Twitter is also too stupid" view.

In short, you will push, you dare to push, you are willing to push, can only explain your views and tendencies (even many times even the point of view and orientation can not explain), does not mean that you can think independently. Do not explain.

2. Social relations determine service choice

In most cases, people choose a social networking service, not because of how powerful the service is, but how well the user experience is, but because the social relationships in their circles are in this place.

Many of my classmates are trying to get to Facebook at home, not because Facebook is much better than Renren, but because the people they know when they study abroad are on Facebook. When your social circle stops on a social networking service, the service is sticky, and it's hard to switch. Let you go over the wall and use it firmly.

After the emergence of Sina Weibo, Twitter continues to be lost on the land, Twitter as a product itself is not the most important flaw, the most important, I am afraid that their domestic students, friends, colleagues, and even appreciate the celebrities are using microblogging services. Under such circumstances, the relationship between the push friends is difficult to withstand for a long time.

Conversely, if a person's friends are using Twitter, then the conditions are difficult and they can use it either through a third party or through a direct flip wall. There are a lot of words on the back, they are in the Twitter brush screen, not in the rice or Sina Weibo reason, just because their circle here.

Similarly, the fans of Cang Jing empty, Oriental Gods and Super Junior have come to Twitter for almost the same reason. The first time I saw the "sensitive word" the specific address of the third party site, is in the eastern god of Baidu.

Iv. Conclusion

Basically, I don't feel that Sina Weibo is such a shameful copycat. In the design of the product itself, Sina Weibo on the basis of Twitter has made a lot of useful improvements, in many places the user experience is indeed better than Twitter. (Of course, many of these places have been copied by other portals, Weibo and even renren.) In addition, Sina Weibo's localization of Chinese user habits has a lot to be done, and these estimates are deeply appreciated by Weibo users.

As for me, I am still a heavy user of Twitter, only occasionally on Sina Weibo. I'm just a special case compared to most people. The two are more attractive to ordinary users, still Sina Weibo.