Anatomy of Weibo: Analyzing the information presentation format of Weibo

Du Yun can be micro, even if dissatisfied 耸听! The size of the portal to battle, and see the battlefield autumn soldiers. – A recite

Preface: Return to rushes's primitive society

The so-called communication is that people are busy doing two simple things: listen to what others say, what to say.

There is a communication that a speaker on the podium speaks with a loudspeaker, as listeners can only whisper in the audience, this is called the portal, there is a communication, everyone can take turns on the platform to hold a loudspeaker to speak, and invited viewers to comment, this is called the Forum; there is a kind of communication, everyone goes back to their homes to talk, posting slogans, Then you can go to other people's homes to visit and listen to, this call log, also called blog; there is a communication, we sit together, you can choose to listen to those who you are interested in, birds of a feather, rushes, this foreign call Twitter, to China called "Weibo."

It is the tyranny of information that a man speaks, and it seems to be the democracy of information, the rushes of organized undisciplined, and perhaps the primitive Society of information. Equality, is the horror of Weibo, everyone has the right to speak, but also the right to choose to listen.

The task of

Weibo

Core tasks, extension tasks, outreach tasks, these three constitute a micro-blog to achieve the purpose of communication. The reflex system consists of listening and sending two parts, and the participants usually act as listeners and speakers in two roles. In fact, the world is very strange, from a very small time, we inexplicably learn to rushes, deaf and mute usually have two causes: one is unable to listen, so do not know the so-called pronunciation, although the sound system is intact, also can not say words, very painful, two is unable to sound, although can hear, but cannot produce the feedback, very painful. The happiest of all can neither listen nor sound, for they are completely insulated from sound.

The core task, extended task and extension task of the microblogging information format

core tasks include: what people say, which are "I say," which are "other people's words", what someone else says in other people's words, who said anything to me. Extended tasks include: Who I am, who I like, who is quietly talking to me, what someone has said to him, and what topics are being discussed. Outreach tasks include: Which topics I am interested in, who like me;

To accomplish these basic tasks, Twitter pioneered one of the easiest and most ingenious methods: one timeline per person. The timeline records all the words that a user has said, you have your timeline, I follow you, and your timeline will also enter my field of vision.

It's that simple! Solve the micro-blog's core tasks, from Twitter to its model infiltration into the country, you can find a problem, this micro-blog and the interaction mode than the micro-blog is determined by the way it resolves the core tasks, the specific manifestation of the format, that is, in English format, And in solving the problem of extended tasks and outreach tasks, the family is the same.

Weibo except for the format.

In the process of parsing the rendering format, many different ideas and problems are mapped, not only in the interaction, the user experience, but also in the operational thinking and content positioning. Format is different, that is, the difference between Weibo.

a form of tweets: narration, @ user, #标签, url short address

What can 140 characters solve? It may not solve any problem, but it is a common format. Conceptually, Weibo has only two entities: users and content. The connection between the user and the content, the connection between content and content, the connection between the user and the user, the entity behavior will have n many, if want to define a format for each behavior, seemingly have the method, but deprive the user fun. Twitter uses a highly flexible approach that gives users the power to customize the format.

The information format of Twitter and its application

@ users directly point to a user's page, while easily extracted with the user's own words # tags with some keywords to sum up all the relevant content of the URL short address a hyperlink, may be outside the station

This format of Twitter is a kind of bionics application, in the human reality language, basically also uses this kind of format, the user's learning cost is very low. We are always looking for ways that are easy for users to accept, and that is experience improvement.

RT Start Forwarding Nightmare

Forwarding, one of the functions of Twitter, is to "post others ' speeches to their timeline," which is intact and cannot add new content. The Open spirit gives Twitter a high degree of flexibility, and the user spontaneously breaks through the form of "original text forwarding", which is produced by RT.

RT was originally from some client applications, and later became the standard feature of Twitter followers like rice. RT is in the 140-word range, using "I speak to someone's comments RT @ someone: His speech content" form, in his own timeline to build a branch of the content of others, while adding new content and their own comments. RT is a manual copy of other people's timeline fragments, in the form of solitaire to generate speech sequences, discussed together.

RT is a kind of amateur's self-created micro-Blog Association form

Why should Twitter stick to the original? In fact, countless enthusiasts have urged Twitter to use RT as an official standard, but Twitter insists on the "traceability principle", so RT has always been an unofficial format. RT content is the speaker can arbitrarily change, easy to confuse and tamper with, there are still countless enthusiasts in the 140-word range of the enthusiastic RT, because they do not like the "unchanged forwarding", more expected to say something. As a result, domestically developed microblogs typically contain two new features: citation and commentary.

The "citation" function of

domestic microblogging

Characters are more byte-saving than the Latin alphabet, if not, please take the Chinese version of the "Dream of Red Mansions" and the English version of the "The Dream of Red Mansion" together to put it on the table, to see that a more thick. 140 words for the nation with a long history of TB, but slightly cramped, especially in the version of the popular era, RT stretched.

Invoking functionality is a cost, and you must add a handle to each microblog record, because each remark may refer to a fragment on someone else's timeline. Through the handle to break through the 140-word RT limitations, so that a piece of speech to continue, fortunately, this reference is limited to the original text on the basis of one, otherwise, they also know will make full screen candied out.

The presentation of information in Weibo

Citing the spread of microblogs

The invocation of the emergence of 280 words to make a large chunk of the article possible, 140 words of space left to the creator, the other 140 words of space left behind the follow-up user. Sina, Tencent, NetEase, almost all the meager Chinese portal in the same way, the original speech behind the production of a number of RT branches, brown movement of the same chaos.

Invoking the topology process of Weibo

Invoking an original statement can have n-directional topologies, and it does make the timeline colorful, but it also has the following problems:

Once the original speech was deleted, then many of the following RT branches have no clue, micro-Bo and do not allow "association delete", will be some users of the timeline left a lot of "holes." Because there is "invoke", then each Weibo may have identity, either "original" or "Reprint +rt", this is the data structure of the division, not the user spontaneous. The content in RT is still available for subsequent users to modify arbitrarily, in a sense, if a user wants to say something about someone's speech, fearing that the person will delete the original speech, then the user must take "RT in an original state" and return to the Twitter enthusiast-level RT app.

It can be expected that the invocation function initially has two purposes: first, protect the original; second, give RT a legal status. But the friend who created the Invoke function ignored two questions: first, all the comments on the user's timeline are original, original is innate, do not need to protect; second, even if you give RT a separate storage space, you still can't avoid users modifying the previous text in Rt. Twitter has been completely through these issues, so there has been no and no intention to increase the "invoke" function.

There is also a possibility, the domestic gateway development of the scarf to expect longer space, 140 words to their words TB users really not enough, and then make "invoke" such things. This is also directly through Google, Buzz seems to be no character restrictions.

It is easy to add a handle to the "without citation" of the data transferred to the state of "include invocation"; but this is already an irreversible operation ... In fact, this has completely abandoned the possibility of using more flexible patterns to solve problems in the future: Because the user has generated data with a handle, you can't cut the handle like an appendix. Twitter is also likely to be thinking about how to develop new applications in the future, but it will not choose a way to do so.

"comment" is a piece of crap stick

Human equality is the equality of words, "invoke" the micro-Bo divided into two: original and RT, this is a very bad start, because once there is inequality will be more dangerous situation: "comment" so that users can insert content on other people's timeline!

The emergence of "comments" is the result of operational thinking, Sina Weibo in the form of its blog to introduce the celebrity, make v user, since is "the fan", must learn to listen to, when the powder son @ one's own idol, the V can completely not in own time axis Riga anything, but directly in a certain powder timeline to add a comment. To admit that "comment" is a creation that allows the V to block the ear to himself.

A Weibo comment feature allows others to insert content on my timeline

"Comment" is an unfair function, the result is that some users can speak from the other people do not pay attention to have thousands of fans, which is contrary to the "rushes" principle. Because you can not speak in their own time axis, users can completely play different roles and attitudes, to give different people different faces, this is the reality.

If you can't see what someone has said, then it's asymmetrical and incomplete.

A microblog may now have three identities: original, quoted +rt, not on its own timeline of comments. Thanks to friends in the domestic industry to improve the same kind of communication with Twitter, and the domestic micro Bo do like fans will be the same thing, so that a small number of users first v up, seemingly walked down the altar, but also boarded the temple.

Rich format Weibo era

Twitter look at the word, Weibo look at the picture. Twitter is not able to post multimedia directly, and it is understandable that users cannot accept the idea of including anything as a short address in a 140-word way when there is a picture that can be true. One way is very good, that is, automatically resolve the short address in the content, if the inclusion of video or pictures show them. Based on traffic considerations, direct display of pictures is not appropriate.

Weibo to China with new changes, developers and users found that the short address no matter how short it will occupy Byte, so that they can not tolerate, and then the multimedia plug-in micro-Borg produced. Users can provide multimedia resources and addresses alone, and a single tweet will be associated with them, but at the cost of adding a handle to the micro-Borg. Sina has already put up the Weibo voting function, perhaps a certain point similar to pig vegetables such units will be added, regardless of whether the user is allowed.

Rich microblogging information Presentation format

You can put the external multimedia and a variety of addresses of micro-blog address for rich micro bo, Micro Bo is carrying too much of the high expectations of the portal site, Micro bo not micro. Why does that simple, minimalist, pristine interaction change flavor as soon as it's in China?

In some websites, it is still possible to find information that was published n years ago, and in some comparison the gates have been unable to find anything published in 08. If you are eager for success, then please give more leeway to future development, and not because of the current error to thoroughly erase the user's data. Blog, web2.0, SNS Everyone has been chasing, now how? Where is the future of China's Weibo?

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Original: http://www.hozin.com/Point/201011/The-Heart-Of-Sparrow.html