Product unique Thinking

Yesterday, some of our internet colleagues from the Geek Park, reprinted the "About micro-letter you may not know 10 things", there must be a lot of people from this article has been inspired, next, we will share Zhangxiaolong different product thinking.

Whether it is the Internet industry, or non-Internet product pursuit, affirmation of micro-letter, micro-letter team and Zhangxiaolong I understand is not comprehensive, because in public places, the Little dragon basically does not appear, in the past, the micro-letter team only in the Geek Park activities have been shared.

At the end of February, Zhangxiaolong, vice president of Tencent, received an interview with the business Value Magazine and the Geek Park, during which he talked about a number of enlightening topics. We sorted out the contents of the interview into several articles. This is the second of an interview series, we try to sum up Zhangxiaolong different product thinking.

In fact, the Geek Park has been tracking the development of micro-letters, after version 4.0, almost every version of US gives readers a different perspective on the product, we said that the micro-letter 4.0 is a platform for the dream, and 4.2 has included a big platform strategy, when the public platform is hot, We also see the micro-credit marketing There are some less beautiful side, even we also speculate, if the micro-letter is Sina, how Sina will operate micro-letter.

The following 10 points, is from the interview sorted out 10 of the Zhangxiaolong product thinking point, very valuable reference.

A careful trial and error

People who have participated in the Geek Park activities should know that many product managers have emphasized that Internet products should be tried and done quickly and wrongly without much perfection.

But in Zhangxiaolong view, should have enough understanding of the product, the human nature and the community enough to make the attempt, such trial and error is the most effective.

"For example, I have 10 points ahead of me, I expect 9 will not work, but I have to try." The other way is to make a point, and then the probability of success for this point is even greater. In micro-letters, we use the latter method. ”

In fact, micro-letters also have trial and error failure, but these failures are not critical.

For micro-letters, failed trial and error need to ensure that in a dispensable location, does not affect the structure of the entire system.

"The core of the structure we are not easy to try, because once the error, the problem will be very serious." If the product itself does not have a system structure, it is possible to confuse the system when it is wrong, or to make the product's structure unstable. ”

The essence of abstract cognitive products

When we ask, if you draw a structural chart and feel what the origin of the micro-letter is, Zhangxiaolong replied,

"is the message system. It includes people and information that they circulate in the system. ”

Like QQ mailbox, micro-letter is also an abstract message system, even if the micro-letter can be connected to the Internet of things, in fact, go or message channel, but the object personified, it has no effect on the message system structure of micro-letter, micro-letter does not need to define a new structure.

This is a system of abstract cognitive ability.

"Abstraction is to find the commonality of all the complex things, and then do this little bit of commonality." For example, the public platform is also an abstract product, some people say it is the media, some people say it is CRM ... But for us, the public platform is just a platform for messaging, which allows messages to be distributed to different places through the platform. As you can see, for the public platform, it's so abstract that we don't even know how to name it. You can't say this is the enterprise Information release platform, also cannot say this is the new blog system, cannot say this is the CRM. As soon as you say it, it is tantamount to limiting it to death. So we named the public platform. Someone is going to write a blog, someone to do something else. It is a very abstract message system. ”

Third, not to occupy the platform to develop

Zhangxiaolong believes that the micro-trust team at the most appropriate time to do the most appropriate thing, and seize the mobile Internet the most essential things, so that the rapid rise of micro-letters.

QQ will have online status, micro-letter is absolutely cannot have. This coincides with the technology of mobile internet anytime online. "Zhangxiaolong said.

Micro-letters do not attach importance to the ipad version, because the ipad is more in wifi conditions, if users use the ipad to register the micro-letter, then you send him a message, he may not immediately receive, the experience will be very bad, he lost the characteristics of the online.

"It's not that we don't do the ipad version, and if we do, that's definitely what we want to do, not the terminal for one more platform." ”

Four, put aside the concept to see demand

The outside world may think that the core of micro-letter is strong relationship, small relationship, through a variety of small relationships finally form a big relationship. But for everyone, he only needs to maintain his own small relationship. In contrast, Weibo is a big and weak relationship.

When we talked to Zhangxiaolong, he didn't have a cold idea about the concept of "x relationship".

"I think the industry's analysis of SNS products too to pull the concept of what is strong relationship between what is weak relationship, to tell the truth, I almost did not think about this problem." ”

In fact, if the concept of "x relationship" to see the micro-letter, you will see very contradictory things, on the one hand, micro-letter does not provide a friend bulk import function, do not recommend a large number of users to add friends. On the other hand, made a stranger's friends function.

But in Zhangxiaolong's view, these are not contradictory.

"I don't qualify products with strong relationships or weak relationships. We just see that users have this need and then do it. You can see, in fact, each of us in the communication record who have, you will not say I want to build a group is strong relationship, a group is weak relationship, even bother to group, and the relationship can be transformed. Micro-letter communication record will not be grouped, all people are flat in a clue inside. ”

Five, good products are life-force

Micro-letter did a lot of things, shake, scan two-dimensional code, public platform is in a stand, it seems that micro-letter as long as a platform, all things will happen, and then see how to do more.

"We do do one thing in the hope that it will happen naturally, not because we plan to push it." When we need to push, it's probably not done well. ”

Like shaking, micro-letters never teach users how to use it, if it is alive, users will naturally go to use, do not need products from the operation or other levels to promote also can be popular.

Watercress CEO of the north in the Geek Park Innovation Conference 2012 has a similar point of view, Douban Many operations are also through the product to achieve.

The same is true for public platforms, in fact you can see that micro-letters are barely advertised, and there are no conferences or developers meetings.

"A system that really has vitality, there will certainly be grass and trees grow up and don't need us to push." ”

Six, do not define the standard answer

The bottom image of the micro-letter 4.5 startup page is a dark world of only 0 and 1, lit by a dynamic flame. The lower part of the page has two options, one is "directly into the micro-letter", the other is "listen to an old song", Cui Jian's "nothing".

When asked Zhangxiaolong "Why to choose this song", he smiled to ask "business value" Reporter: "Why do you think?"

And when you ask Zhangxiaolong what "micro-trust" or "public platform" is, he will throw the problem to you.

"How you use micro-letters determines what the micro-letter is to you," Zhangxiaolong said.

Zhangxiaolong does not give the product standard definition, this can let the product more free development, on the other hand, also give different people have different imagination space, because the product finally is what, is the user to decide.

Vii. Understanding the nature of mobile internet

Zhangxiaolong thinks it is not the nature of mobile internet to simply move PC apps to mobile phones.

"You see why Google Talk has not become a mobile internet for everyone to use the tool, it is something on the PC, Google must also want to transform it to adapt to the mobile Internet, but the transformation is after all, the transformation is not new for mobile internet and born. ”

Take QQ as an example, QQ will have online status, micro-letter is absolutely can not have. This coincides with the mobile Internet at any time online technology, only on the PC Internet we will see if the other person online and then send him a message. ”

In fact, micro-letters are redefining "input" with the nature of mobile Internet.

In micro-letters, you can enter by "shaking" and "sweeping", which, in Zhangxiaolong's view, are consistent with the nature of mobile Internet.

In fact, we can imagine sweeping a sweep can sweep a lot of things, not just a simple two-dimensional code. For example, sweep a word, perhaps its English pronunciation will come out. Shake and Sweep. You can't look at them. It's just a kind of entertainment, actually it's the interaction on the phone, the phone's unique interaction. Because you don't need to input more things when you shake them, your location, the sound of your surroundings are automatically collected, and they become a way of typing.

"If you want to ask what the nature of the mobile Internet is, it is related to sensors, we once thought about the slogan of micro-letters, in the" micro-letter is a lifestyle "before we thought" micro-letter is your sixth Sense ".

VIII. meeting the needs of all

About the circle of friends by default does not encourage the sending of pure text information, not only afraid of flooding, also because Zhangxiaolong think, to a person to write a paragraph of the difficulty is far greater than he sent a picture, for an ordinary user, you let him write a word out one day, and this paragraph must let others see, he also write well, in fact, difficult.

"I hope our products are for everyone to use, then, the picture is the best medium, the picture everyone will send." When I was a friend circle, I think, in fact, Sina Weibo many people will not use, a large part of the need. The purpose of the circle of friends is to make everyone can use, if you want to complete this purpose, you must reduce the threshold to a minimum, to even a peasant workers will use, this challenge is very high. If there are words and pictures, it is not easy to achieve such a goal. For example, your writing is good, you will certainly write some every day, your friends look, your level is so high, I certainly do not write. Or you look at other people's words so poetic, you make a meal of the picture, you feel embarrassed. ”

"I think it is relatively easy to make a niche product and satisfy your own hobby," he said. One time a friend of mine argued that your friend Circle photo is not clear, no path of good, a lot of people will take path to do contrast, I said to him, you want to make yourself feel very perfect product or to make a popular users feel good products? Many people forget the ultimate goal, think they represent the public, but not. So all the features in the micro-mail you can see, we're not going to develop a function for a small audience, and then make this small group happy. On the contrary, it makes no difference whether the 70-year-old or the 10-year-old can use it, and use it. There are many functions in the micro-letter, such as shaking, it is true that everyone can use. We only made a switch button on the walkie-talkie. ”

Finding the common humanity

Zhangxiaolong Chat, micro-trust team actually rarely look at statistics, and almost no statistical data to see the user's preferences. They will not be able to understand the mobile phone QQ statistics to guide the work of micro-letter.

So how do they identify different users and offer them the same service?

Zhangxiaolong that all users should be viewed as a person who has no gender, age, area, or educational level, and is an object that includes all users, who are the intersection of all the needs of all users.

To a wide range of users of the service is a basic level, at this level can not be too many of their attitude, or to more to see the needs of the vast number of users. At the same time, we should deliberately pull everyone to the fair line, so that some people's ability may be suppressed, but also to the overall user to use. This should also be the reason for the rapid rise of micro-trust.

In fact, in the Geek radio, you often see some product gurus who refer to "finding the common denominator of human beings," and it's not easy to do that.

Products should maintain the core structure

The micro-letter from the beginning to the present, has maintained a core functional structure: a set of many objects and messages of the I/O system. Other functions are almost always in the form of plug-ins, even as if they do not exist at all.

Like shaking, drifting bottles of these functions, in fact, can be removed from the micro-letter. The structure of their system is not affected.

Similarly, public numbers don't complicate micro-letters, and if you don't pay attention to the public numbers, you don't feel them. The public number is already a platform, but in the micro-mail it has no place, unless you pay attention to a public number you can see it.

Such a large platform, then, does not add complexity to the micro-letters, nor does it undermine the structure of the micro-letters. Structurally, the public number is a dynamic message, not a static structure.