Talking about the function of "the past today" of Renren

Summary: Renren Last October launched the past today's function, users through the personal home page right below the area can see friends in the past a year ago uploaded photos. Some people feel that this feature is a bright spot, and some people think it is a failure, in order to

Renren last October launched the "Past Today" function, the user through the Personal home page right below the area can see friends in the past some years ago uploaded photos. Some people feel that this feature is a bright spot, some people feel that is a failure, in order to investigate the views of this function, I launched a vote in the Bupt forum. Voting in a total of 209 people, are basically Renren's target users, from the voting results (Figure 1) can be seen in this function of the average attitude: 32% prefer, 27% neutral, 40% do not like, the number of people do not like a little more. As a member of the "opposition", I think this function is not considered very comprehensive, or there is room to improve.

Figure 1 Voting results

Functional purposes

As a function of a product, it must have the purpose of existence, that is, to meet a user's needs or to improve some indicators. "Past Today" is not to meet their needs, but play feelings card, triggering the nostalgic heat of users, will precipitate content reuse, while catering to the needs of others, and thus improve the user's stickiness and active degree. Although this feature allows you to upload photos in someone else's page, but that is at least a year after uploading things, so to show their own user motivation is not big. Instead of entering other people's pages can see others a few years ago uploaded photos, the equivalent of a direct push information, save time and effort province to visit the record, if you see interesting photos can directly into the other album to see more photos or message exchange. So I think this function for stimulating UGC effect should not be obvious, but it can increase the user's mutual access and communication, increase the current user's online time, and remind users of memories. Since this feature allows people to see more information about friends, promote communication between friends, increase user activity, then why am I the "opposition"? There are two main reasons: some of the previous things don't want all the friends to see, force the photos to be pushed to the Buddy page.

Two reasons:

1. Some old things don't want to let all the friends see

This should be the most fundamental reason. Maybe people will say that you uploaded the photos and did not set access permissions is not to let friends see it? Upload is true, but a few years later may not necessarily.

On the one hand, the main users of Renren is young people, and we are in such a growing age, every six months our ideas and behavior can change a lot, we may feel that two years ago that the words, photos of those pictures now look so naïve, for example, I now look at the University of the yellow-haired photos, I didn't feel good at all, but I really liked it at the time. On the other hand, as we continue to enter society, contact with new friends, everyone's new friends may not have been with you through that period, they do not know your status, when you see some years ago those more embarrassing photos are estimated to have laughed ~ photos In many cases are also time-sensitive, At a specific time for a specific talent has the meaning of our expression, only experienced that period of time to see the pictures will be able to understand the mood, and for others is only a picture without a story. For example, my undergraduate students see my undergraduate photos will feel very cordial, and graduate students from the photo can only see a two-gobble me. We try to maintain our new image in front of our new friends and new circles, and this function does not seem to help us, but exposes something we want to hide.

Perhaps you would say that since you do not want to let others see, how do not delete or set permissions Ah? The fact is, many people have forgotten that they have also uploaded such a photo, until one day by someone comments or QQ upload over screenshots, and then the next action is to delete photos of everyone.

2. Force photos to be pushed to the Friends page

This is another reason why I don't like this feature--it doesn't give the user the right to choose. This function is like I got a treasure, with everyone said you can come to my home to see, and then after a year, Renren made a bulletin board, which told everyone I took a treasure last year, we can look at home. In fact, I do not want to let so many people come to my home to see the antique treasures! When did I let you do the bulletin board? The key is that I can not dismantle the bulletin board, the only way is to smash the treasures smashed to the line ~ at least let me decide whether to need this bulletin board, what is written on the bulletin board, I still hope that a product can have the respect of the user, so arbitrary and overbearing function is not my favorite.

Improvement proposals

This function can indeed improve the user information flow, increase the user's activity, so that the content of the previous precipitation to revitalize, in the short term to enhance the data. But the means of implementation are still too tough, some thoughtless, for example, a user like me would think that I do not want to ask for permission on the other page to display the information I do not wish to display, which is not respect for me, experience is not good, then the result is that I do not want to upload any photos in everyone, Because today can be displayed without my consent on the friend page, then tomorrow may appear in a more public place, I will lose faith in such products. Although it seems to increase the stickiness of the user, but in fact from the source to hinder the UGC, in my opinion a little bit of the feeling of killing the goose.

In view of the above problem, I think there are three ways to improve: 1. Add the "Past Today" feature switch. If the user does not want to open, then can choose, do not force the user do not want to do, even if you do the switch to covert some. 2. Provides a simple operation to allow users to screen the photos to be displayed. Previously said, some photos users do not want to display in other people's pages, users may be too lazy to give each photo set permissions (permissions set by default to the album as a unit), to provide users with a convenient and efficient way to screen the photos to display is a way. 3. Prompts the user to display the photos themselves today. If the user will have photos on the day, then the default display of the first few is the user's own photos, so that users have a good idea, after all, often forget or ignore some situations, this method and the second method combined better. (Only from my point of view, maybe everyone's product manager has a KPI pressure or a deeper idea)

Generally speaking I think the starting point of this function is very good, but in some of the details need to be polished. Over the past two years on the issue of internet privacy has become more and more attention, as a social networking site, the user has a variety of important information, users are also the most concerned about their privacy. Although in theory the user does not have to set access rights to albums can default to the album is willing to be seen by friends, but the practice of forced to show a lot of privacy sensitive user experience is very bad. Theory, the user's feelings are also very important, is not what you want to be, but in the user's mind what you actually are. If you can not understand the user's ideas, respect for users, even in the short term increased activity to enhance the stickiness, will allow users to produce content with various concerns, the long-term development of the product is unfavorable. Do products or to respect the user, pay attention to experience, not only to see the data also depends on feedback, in the continuous iterative and perfect to win the hearts of users.