The relationships and differences between the three social networks

facbook,twitter,google++, the three giants of today's social networks, are afraid that no one has a problem with the models of the three typical social networks. Whether this model is in the original design phase of the product planning, or in the subsequent operation of the gradual formation, they eventually have become a unique thing, let us analyze their relationship and differences.

Relationships on Facebook

Facebook is the core relationship, friends. This is one of the most clearly articulated concepts in all social networks today, friends. The initial core relationship of Facebook friends is student relations. In principle, the friend is a strong relationship (realistic, high frequency of communication). Strong relationships seem more important to people than weak relationships. Strong support for stronger relationships was once one of the most bullish on Facebook's many compliments.

Later, the relationship between Facebook gradually expanded to a variety of different areas of relationships. When the relationship tends to be complicated, the concept of a friend is generalized and its meaning is no longer as clear as it was. That is to say, there are a lot of weak relationships in the friends that start joining.

In terms of the actual demand for relationships, strong and weak relationships but which is not to be discarded, from the human brain to the relationship management, it is not fully rational, that is, the brain does not give every relationship with a clear strong and weak sign, the brain does not strictly distinguish between strong and weak relationship principle, It only forms a dynamic adaptive relational system. This explains from one aspect, the relation generalization is conforms to the human brain to carry on the relation management the rule.

So what's wrong with Facebook, once a strong relationship?

Relationships on Twitter

The most central relationship on Twitter is follow. Follow in concept, its Chinese intention is to follow, and the current widely used Chinese translation is concerned, this should also be more accurate translation, but no matter how the translation, which have a certain amount of non-equivalence elements.

In concept, compared with friends, follow obviously has a weakening relationship, that is, regardless of follow or attention, obviously not a clear friend relationship. Friends is based on reciprocal relationship, there is a clear relationship return, and follow, from its literal meaning, indeed, as many people say, is slightly elevation (domestic micro-bo elevation is greater), its expectations of the relationship return is vague. Folllow clearly lowers the threshold of the relationship (the reduction in return expectations) and is suitable for developing a pan-weak relationship. But in reality, the need for strong relationships does not diminish, but it is not satisfied. Weibo, people's demand for information, to a certain extent, to make up for the need for strong relations, but in the long run, from the perspective of relations, this satisfaction is not fundamental.

Therefore, micro-blogging, but also gradually strong relationship precipitation out, this phenomenon we can now see.

The relationship on the google++

The most central relationship on Google + is circle. Circle is an intermediate concept that can be either a circle of strong relationships or a circle of weak relationships. It puts a distinction between strong and weak, and throws it to the user to solve it.

From the present point of view, this way, indeed has its extraordinary. But the problem does not seem to be fully resolved. The reason is that human beings do have a lifelong desire for social relationships, but they are also resistant to complex relationships and are tired of consuming their brain cells to deal with complex relationships. After billions of years of evolution, our brains have learned to give relationships to the subconscious mind to solve them, and to reduce mental stress and energy consumption. They rarely consider relationships in the active sense (except for important relationships), so is it really effective for Google to use their engineers ' precise logic and thinking to get people to explicitly plan and differentiate relationships through circle? Will there be a lot of "lazy" users, Are their circle still chaotic? This needs to be controlled by ourselves, and it takes a long time for the user's observation to really find the answer.

Conclusion

The need for a relational network is necessarily a comprehensive one. That is, in a good relationship network, strong and weak relations should be able to coexist. Facebook, once a strong relational network based on reality, has already had a lot of weak relationships in it, and Twitter, once a weak-relationship network based on information preferences, is gradually settling into strong relationships. These are the result of the natural evolution of social networks, not the operators ' initiative to manipulate them. And Google +, apparently, is trying to cater to this trend, but it's not clear that we can see Circle's way of trying to help people differentiate and manage relationships, ultimately satisfying people's real needs for relationships, and conforming to a relationship management model that is not entirely rational in the human brain.