Evaluation of the eight dimensions of the link how to achieve the ultimate link

　　

"Editor's note" the author of this article @ Li Jianzhong jz. The author states that, in fact, regardless of Chinese and foreign, the number of internet history of the great companies, are all the links to achieve the ultimate company.

Google search engine core pagerank do is the link between page, Amazon is creating a link between people and product, the Facebook social network is to do the link between people, Apple created a mobile link anytime, anywhere ...

Links for products, is not a simple "with or without" problem, links there are differences in quality.

Take history as a mirror. Let's start with a brief review of China's PC software history. Understand the Chinese software industry friends should be familiar with the following software: Network ants, Winamp,realplayer, ACDsee, Super Jie Ba, rising Antivirus, winzip,qq ... except QQ, all the other software is now almost gone, or the decline can be negligible. What is the reason behind this? The user needs no longer? This does not make sense. In fact, you will find that most of them have similar software active in the present: Thunder, PPTV, Beauty Mito, Storm Audio, 360. Aside from the operation, management, founder and other factors, in the end what kind of product factors lead to these software decline?

If we compare them to their powerful successors, we will find that these fading software have one thing in common: that is, the lack of links, or low quality.

Take a few app companies that have recently made billions of dollars in the mobile internet World: Instagram, Evernote, FlipBoard, Path, drawsomthing, and so on, I'm sure a lot of friends will have questions about their software features. Not just some writing and painting, this software is also worth this price? "But if you look at it from another angle, that is, it's a link that creates a rich, fast, high-intensity link. I don't dare say links are a sufficient condition for the success of an app, but links are absolutely necessary for a successful app.

Links, which come from the word hyperlink in the Web category. Since the web has gained an overwhelming advantage over traditional software-and the overwhelming advantage of the web is the triumph of links, it has been found that traditional software, while not hyperlink this particular form, is between client software and server, client software, Each communication process between server software is actually a link process.

To understand the power of links, we need to establish some evaluation dimensions for link quality, and here is my personal summary:

　　1. Number of links

This is the evaluation of a software product, or software form the most basic standards, such as: for facebook,qq such a social product, or Google search engine, where the number of links processed is Power Index (in the theoretical extreme, n users, or n pages can create between the number of links is n!). And a lot of ordinary software products to deal with the number of links is zero, or very few (such as our common WinRAR, all kinds of Notepad, optimization master tools, etc.)-the number of rare links, regardless of how much users, the value of software products is doomed to be not high.

　2. The speed of the link

On the surface, as long as the link on the Internet, the basic is the speed of light (fiber as a media). But if you delve into it (especially considering a round trip link feedback), the speed of different product links is actually not the same. For example, the speed of the email link is not as fast as the QQ link speed (User A write email to the user b,b feedback back, such a round-trip link less days, many of the last month, seriously retarded the speed of light. And QQ a round-trip dialogue completely at the speed of light to run. The link speed of the blog is inferior to the link speed of the microblog (write a blog to get the feedback, and the micro-gain feedback, the speed is not the same). This is also "why the value of email is far less than IM, the value of blog is far inferior to Weibo" one of the important reasons-human eyes are natural speed of light, only the speed of light link to match.

　　3. Frequency of links

Frequency is the number of links per unit of time. Some software is not linked several times in one months (such as early Windows Phone 6.0 system software), and some software produces countless links a day (e.g. iphone system software: IMessage, ITunes store, App store, Podcast Store ...). High-frequency links that have absolute product advantages.

　　4. The accuracy of the link

is the link rough or accurate? The difference is great. The precise positioning of web URLs makes web links extremely accurate, which is why most Web sites are more successful than client-side software or apps--and it's hard to imagine that app shopping apps can create more than taobao.com or 360buy.com the larger turnover of these sites. You see a good product, on the web can be copied directly to the URL, paste into the micro-blog or QQ inside, to send friends. But it's hard to recommend a product in a app right now.

In fact, the current search, advertising and other PC Internet business model on mobile is not a fundamental reason is "mobile app lacks the accuracy of links", only the precise link, search, advertising and other ecological environment can be large-scale establishment.

The precise link standard is what I think the next generation of mobile internet apps is going to do in terms of technology architecture--like a rest architecture, to isolate the app's state into a precise unit page, and then add a stable address representation. This must be done by the big platform-level players like Apple, Google, and Microsoft, and it doesn't make sense to play in a small circle with the same uniform standards as Web URLs. Of course, another possibility is that these big platform-level players are so noisy that they end up not setting up the exact link standards on mobile apps like web URLs.

　　5. The strength of the link

Links are strong, some weak links, sent out without feedback. But strong links need to be higher. The links created by LinkedIn are definitely not the same as the links created by Facebook. That's why LinkedIn's value differs enormously from Facebook's value.

　6. Link to the degree

Links have one-way, two-way distinctions, one-way links (such as Yahoo's portal-led Web 1.0 ERA), and are certainly not as good as two-way links (e.g., blogs, forums, social networks, etc., the dominant Web 2.0 ERA).

　　7. Link to the degree of relevance

Some products are also trying to create a lot of links, but these links with their main function is very low, is "tying goods", so the value of chat, can not achieve great products. For example: Jinshan battery doctor carrying the so-called "installed", "download ranked" These link elements, but this in the main function (battery maintenance) tying to create links outside the practice, doomed the link quality is not high. A truly high-quality link must be highly relevant to the product's main function.

　　8. The communication force of the link

Different links, the communication force is not the same. Some links, only from A to B, but some links can create from A to B, and then to C, and then to D .... This kind of swift and powerful chain spread. For example, the chain-like propagation of microblogs, its power is far greater than the end of the Earth, Discuz and other forums of the aggregation of communication, this is because the link nature of social networks have a chain of communication capabilities-note that this is linked to the product characteristics, not the link bearer information content, although the different content points of interest spread positive effect is different.

Of course, the above 8 dimensions of the link is only personal product experience and thinking summary, not necessarily comprehensive, welcome friends to complement each other and learn from each other.

With these 8 dimensions of the evaluation link, when planning a product or positioning a product, from the point of view of the link to the product, it can help us to analyze the growth of this product space, such as: similar to the calendar, battery doctor, flashlight such applications, and sometimes a single look at products, installed a large number of people are excited. But there is almost no link in these products, or even if there is, the quality of links is very low, which is doomed to these products can not grow into a great product.

Why are links so important? In essence, every link behavior on the internet is "a person's demand, desire, expression of emotion". Its size, strength, speed is "People's needs, desires, feelings," the size, strength, speed.

Links to software, like nerves to the body, traffic to the city, rivers to the Earth. Water does not rot, never worm-eaten. No links, backwater. With rich and flourishing links, there will be endless, constantly multiply the vitality.

So, for the software products, especially mobile app products friends, my biggest advice is: to create links, improve the speed of links, frequency, intensity, direction, so soon you will find that your software products will have a magical magic. That kind of software is called Internet Software!

I have a product of my current product has a iron law: firmly do not have links to the product. There is no link to the software, there is no vitality.

Original: http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_626d4ddb01015t6i.html