sns product architecture

Recently, when the value of Tencent QQ space and mobile community platform rapid development, Diego record highs; I also want to combine their own work practices, simply to talk about some SNS understanding;

Personally think that, from a strict product meaning, foreign is FACEBOOK, the domestic school network is the first to achieve a relatively complete SNS community product architecture; and early Netease community, Tencent IM platform, early blog form QQ space, including some now Mobile community, and SNS are some deviations;

Specifically discuss the following questions:

1) SNS community's three-tier product architecture: Profile; Relation; Content & App;

2) the relationship between SNS three-tier product architecture and interdependence;

3) The relationship chain is open and the important elements of NewsFeed and SNS;

4) Market SNS product form and business model;

1. SNS community's three-tier product architecture;
Conceptually, SNS is a new online lifestyle; even FACEBOOK itself says it is not a Web site but a new way of creating a web lifestyle that is connected to Tencent's "online community industry"

As can be seen from some external articles, Tencent has formed an online community 3C industrial chain, which is divided into three layers, namely, Customer, Community and Content from bottom to top. This is Tencent's creative contribution.

In fact, specific to a SNS community product model, from bottom to top is also divided into three layers:
1) the underlying, Profile; user's attribute description and behavior portrait;
Such as the user's social attributes, name, gender, age, occupation, etc .; also include the user's hobby, service usage trends and other derived attributes;
This is equivalent to the community's "foundation" must be established very solid, there are several subdivisions:

One is the direct attribute of the user;
The performance of the user can directly fill in the information guide; such as name, age, gender, occupation, year of graduation and other basic social attributes; see all SNS are guiding users to fill in, or even use some incentives;

The second category is the community attributes of the users who survive in the community.
Such as growth level, title, virtual duties, roles, etc;
Three types of user's hidden extended attributes;
That is, the system has a statistical preference for business users formed by intelligent mining and analysis of traces left by users in long-term activities of various communities; for example, user XX is a 30-year-old pregnant mother, Supplies, cosmetics have a unique potential preference;

A community system with different levels of perfection also has different levels of information collection for one user. All commercial websites retain the most valuable core competing information through long-term competition, which is the ability to grasp the personal information of users.

2) middle, Relation; user group internal relationship chain;
In the era of WEB1.0, there may be 1 million people who visit SINA every day. However, although they visit a website and read a piece of news on the same day, they can not communicate with each other and can not communicate and communicate with each other. These 1 million people are isolated , No relationship chain;

With the development of the WEB2.0 elements, webmasters know to give each visiting user an ID that makes them visible to each other and provide them with tools and tools that are interlinked, known and well known (eg, site messages, mutual visits to the homepage);

User group's "network effect"

The user chain of the relationship chain is a "network effect", when the user base to a certain size of the critical point, without the need to promote external, low-cost word of mouth communication can snowball-like self-rolling grow; so, Initially, many websites have to desperately burn money, send chicken legs and other promotional methods, to push the user base to this critical point; This can also be called "cluster effect"

Many WEB2.0 concept of network products are beginning to realize the user group "network effect" and to be able to grow, such as QQ IM chain is the most stable one; Taobao network effect between buyers and sellers is also very powerful;

Relationship chain, including the relationship between people; relationship between people and groups; group and group relations;

Specific performance, friendships (strong relationship chain), follow-up relationship (weak relationship chain), good relationship, (with hobbies, fans circle); with the regional relations (city);

In a SNS community products, the relationship chain is very core, "gas"; in the product construction need to give priority to;

3) upper layer, content (Content) and application (Application);

Content, including two categories,
A class is the official website operators to provide information, pictures, music, and other resources to browse categories;
The second category is UGC (User Generated Content), users create self-organized content;

Can be expressed as, personal blog (Blog), photos, instant blog (such as short text Qzone mood, Twitter);

Content, form and carrier from simple to rich, from simple text, short text, pictures, audio, and even personal video, with the development of network hardware conditions, the content of the mainstream carrier will be more refined;

In essence, content fulfills a few basic types of user needs:
1. The need for information access
2. Personalized expression and the need to talk (UGC, through personal diary, mood, pictures, etc. to express their sense of presence, this in line with the psychological sense of self-presence)

Application
App is a bit partial technical terms, and relative to the platform, it has a certain degree of business logic independence, you can plug-in and platform slightly coupled;

App can show an interactive game or application software, on the Facebook platform for the performance of the web mode; Iphone platform for the independent operation of the software;

App in SNS, user attribute profile to be called to the lower layer, relation chain information in the middle, electronic payment system and the like;

App and content, is divided into mainstream and long tail;
The mainstream App users with high acceptance, such as friends trading, rob parking spaces, in the user base can get a high coverage;

Long tail APP, only for a particular segment of the user group a specific preference, but the large-scale App can cover a broad user;

On the opening up of the App The hot topic at present is the opening of the SNS platform. By opening the API and introducing more third-party App developers, the platform operators gather more industrial resources, introduce competition, give play to the creativity and wisdom of the masses, ;
However, the open platform also poses a great challenge to the platform operators' operational capabilities. For example, the platform's security policies, bearing performance, APP audit and other management mechanisms, etc. This involves the management of a downstream industry chain.

Second, Profile, the relationship between the chain, the relationship between App

1) After the user's life in the SNS community, Profile will evolve itself, gradually enrich and clear;

SNS community is a platform for living millions of Internet users, at the beginning in addition to the user to fill in some of the basic information, we know him is vague, such as one with a veil of users;

With users on this platform, UGC generates content, views its own personalized news content, joins its favorite polls or fan circles, plays its favorite games and buys your favorite products. . . Users will leave traces and footprints in all processes that use APP and Content. These fragmented information will be precipitated, and data mining may form a further clear portrait of the user. In this way, the user's precise knowledge can be achieved.

Such as FACEBOOK such user behavior mining system, like a black box, enter a user ID, the system will tell you the person's business value tendency directly corresponds to different industries in the value of commercial advertising;

2) users through the interaction between the App, to strengthen the viscosity of the relationship chain, and expand the relationship chain;
In terms of the relationship chain, among the users involved in the APP interaction, the friendship between the friends is enhanced and the viscosity of the relationship chain is enhanced. The user can expand the new relationship chain in the process of participating in "same-good" and "same-city" At the same time through six concepts "friends of friends" to continuously extend their relationship circle;

3) "Subjects" such as App and content are the core elements to gather popularity; the next two layers are infrastructure, which is the core element that sticks to popularity;

In the SNS, "theme" is the key element to attract popularity; a certain content or a certain App may be able to detonate the popular, quickly attracting a large number of users; the same time, "themes" are life-cycle and need continuous updating; If this update is done by the website operator, then the maintenance cost is very high; if the user can self-update through UGC, then this is the lowest cost way;
Such as a voting APP, looks simple, but has a very strong vitality, users can spontaneously create a vote, spread in the chain, keep the vitality; and rob parking spaces App looks very fire, but the user's life cycle is very Short, soon to be tired, need to constantly update the rules of the game, or with the new game "happy farm" alternative;

At that time happy network may have such problems, grab parking spaces have brought a lot of popularity, but not very timely to do two layers of construction work, which led to popularity also quickly dispersed; I believe if you do not attach importance to infrastructure work, rely on frequent The introduction of App to stimulate popular, is exhausted; and QQ space and QQ alumni is a good example, the first to build a good foundation of UGC these long-term value of things, as App construction, follow in innovation;

The era of the king of the platform, the next two layers is the foundation of the platform. App is a plug-in, removable; SNS's core competitiveness is not App, but Profile and the relationship between these platform infrastructure;

Third, the relationship chain open, Newsfeeds, is an important element in SNS:

In addition to the above three-tier product architecture; There are other important elements, I think it can identify whether a SNS is complete, or whether in line with the spirit of WEB2.0.

1) the openness of the relationship chain;

Simply put, SNS products to form a contract to join the platform, the default everyone will open their own relationship chain, easy to expand through the "friends of friends" to expand the chain of relationships; this more in line with the "six-degree relationship theory" Essence

Early Internet products, EMAIL, IM products, but also contains the chain, but the individual closed, unable to expand; So, I personally do not think they belong to the category of SNS, but the specific communication between users of SNS Tools only; MAIL is asynchronous communication; IM is synchronous communication; now there are IM network within the school network, these are the SNS community user communication tools;

2) News Feeds innovation

This is a very important concept. The promotion of ACEBOOK is historic. It is also crucial to the development of SNS. I think this News Feeds is not a FACEBOOK invention in itself, but it is innovatively applied to the network In information communication and delivery, has been a great success, but was followed by domestic SNS;

Speaking of News Feed, I have to mention RSS;

I personally have a way to say: the advent of RSS reveals the sprouting of WEB2.0 era; what is WEB2.0, there are many conceptual explanations, I think that is simple to say "people-oriented";

WEB1.0 era, the Internet is "information-based", website operators hire a group of editors to collect, create, organize content to allow Internet users to take the initiative to browse (information GET era); However, with the development of the Internet, the user essentially The contradiction between individualized demands and information massification has become increasingly prominent.

The way to get information is bound to be innovative; RSS is generated.

RSS has agreed on an information sharing method and data format specification; users can pre-set the filtering conditions, the information is updated, take the initiative from the News Feeds source, PUSH to the user; this is the program itself is very fantastic. However, it is not very hot, which is related to the conflict between the commercial interests of PageView and the website.

With the close development of the relationship between users, the dynamic information dissemination between the chain of relationships is very important; to use NewsFeed to solve is no better. As a result, a new type of communication in a human network has created:

In this SNS platform, we form a contract, you can default your news through dynamic news spread to the relationship chain, spread to the group relations; you can also wait for the latest developments in friends sent over;

This is an innovative way of communication, imagine such a scene: I rise every morning, open my cell phone or PC into my QQ space, I saw my colleague XXX phone photos taken in Lijiang; see classmate XX wrote a mood that work pressure Big ah, the mood is very depressed; see a friend said XXX, Shenzhen do heavy rain, accidentally caught a cold. . .

If you build an SNS community, Newsfeeds is essential, as the relationship chain open, according to the specific circumstances of the hierarchy may be; QQ space, for example, because the QQ original relationship chain is private, when the current go to SNS, Some transition strategies will inevitably be adopted

Fourth, the market in the form of SNS products and business models;

At present, the domestic followers of SNS are still quite rich. Judging from the development track of SNS community, the development strategies that cut in and expand again from a certain sub-group are typical.

1) flourishing SNS, subdivision is the trend;

Face book, originally developed from the user base of college students, the school network directly follow its successor;

Happy network as the earliest from the rush parking spaces App cut into, won a group of office white-collar user base;

The same floor network, directly from the geographical dimension into the development of a number of white-collar users;

QQ alumni, but also directly from the QQ users in the college student groups into;

As for the QQ space, this non-real-name community, I have not dared to call SNS in the strict sense; Although the current QQ relationship chain after so many years of Internet culture, chatting with strangers is not the mainstream, QQ gradually precipitated into an acquaintance Relationship chain; three-tier structure also has Newsfeeds is also very rich; the only relationship is the opening of the chain can not be resolved due to historical reasons;

ChinaRen community, we found that there are also some three-dimensional structure of the eyebrows;

In fact, the other as long as the user base sites, such as Taobao, Baidu, SINA, as long as the structure of the SNS to build product features, are easy to develop into a comprehensive or vertically subdivided SNS; there is no technical threshold, the product architecture Are the same, I think the key is the competitiveness of the team as well as market opportunities. Because SNS is different from the tool product, including the network effect, who first stick to the user base, the more successful who is;

As for the mobile terminal SNS, in fact, the principle is the same, Japan's MIXI, GREE and other mobile phone community emphasis on entertainment and virtual scene construction, through mobile games to achieve business models; domestic network, porridge, music, Similar; but some still form the typical WEB1.0 personal space;

2) real or virtual, have living space;

Starting from the authenticity of the profile and the relationship chain, there are real SNS and virtual SNS communities;

Both types of products have room for existence and their own business models. There are reasons for their existence. I think from the perspective of future trends, the SNS based on the real relationship will inevitably have a more stable relationship chain and the commercial value will be more prominent.

3) the business model of the problem:
On the SNS business model, online discussion is more; from the role of commercial interests input points to points:

First, ToB, monetize through targeted advertising.

Relative to the traditional portal advertising, there are some advantages: 1) You can get rid of the portal's limited advertising resources limit; 2) Accurate advertising users, advertisers more easily get the targeted delivery, but also to reduce the user harassment; is the theory On the user and site win-win advertising model; only the biggest challenge is that the site manager's background positioning system is accurate;

Second, ToC,

Professor Jiang Qiping said that in the Internet business model, people are the infrastructure; with a large number of users who can accurately grasp their needs, it is easier to handle. But also in the background that electronic payment has gradually become popular nowadays;
1) virtual goods value-added;

By running virtual value-added items such as Avatar on the SNS website, virtual gift is Tencent's masterpiece, Facebook's GIFT APP also made a lot of money;

2) and e-commerce, recruitment site combined

SNS and e-commerce sites through the combination of accurate positioning to the user through the real goods, is a viable way; through the combination of recruitment sites, want to target customers recommend a good way;

Moreover, SNS has the advantage of being able to market through Newsfeed, a type of information that spreads through the chain of relationships through Newsfeed that includes the emotional aspects of friends and is more acceptable;
3) Profit from App Games;
This and 1) somewhat similar, but the game App contains complete business logic, you can stimulate the purchase of game props profit; the current Internet industry, game profitability is the strongest; quickly seize the opportunity in the App short life cycle Profit is the reality of the road;

Although there are so many ways to make money, but because of the timing of the market, in addition to Tencent probably a lot of SNS sites are still burning winter; and from the cost, SNS product operating costs as the user scale will rapidly increase the development of the server End massive storage, concurrent performance and so have very high requirements; Now catch up with the economic crisis, VC this one more cautious, and some SNS site before the onset of winter has been prepared winter jacket (such as school network) may be better; But in any case, from the initial "chatting with strangers" to the online communities that now accept the real name of SNS, the online culture in China will continue to evolve. Here, it is bound to be There are many disruptive business opportunities

Source: http://sooxin.javaeye.com/blog/585880