There is a small difference from the beginning of product design

There is a "small difference" from the beginning of product design, and the difference between this small difference is getting bigger and larger. Twitter information is like a relay, a stick and a stick, each of which is a separate individual. Sina Weibo is the spotlight is always on the first stick. Who represents the future?

Recently, there is a hot discussion about whether Sina Weibo activity has decreased. Titanium Media published an article that "Sina Weibo, not less active, but return to Origin" link: http://www.tmtpost.com/48551.html. This reminds me of a few years ago on the blog product discussion, the year after the National blog era, a large number of zombie users appear, blog also entered a smooth period, to the social network and the rise of Weibo, the blog into the decay period.

The titanium media article listed some phenomena, such as Micro Bo gradually become large star stage, Micro Bo gradually become news, comments material important source, users from writing micro Bo to see micro-blog, and so on. Why are these phenomena occurring? Return to the quiet microblogging "How is the future going?" is the same as the original blog will be from the smooth period into the decay period? Let's go back to the beginning, this article will start with the initial product design of Sina Weibo to analyze. After this, it will be easy to understand why Sina Weibo today is not so active. People are starting to be more of a spectator than a speaker.

In the summer of 2011, there was a clash of views on Sina Weibo's product design.

The industry often treats Sina Weibo as a Chinese version of Twitter, but in reality there is a "small difference" in its product design. This is not a concern at the initial stage, but with the development, the "small difference" leads to a growing gap.

On June 16, 2011, I sent a micro-blog asking questions about the details of the product design of Sina Weibo, which led to a small range of points of view, some of whom were members of the Sina Weibo insider. The content of my microblog is this:

"I have repeatedly mentioned in Weibo that the information inequality in Sina Weibo is becoming more and more uncomfortable." Twitter is like a relay, a stick, a stick, every stick is an independent individual, a stick in his hand, a spotlight on him. And Sina Weibo logic, is who took the first stick, then after the stick people, always have to carry the first stick of people, we are not in the connection, but in Shi, Spotlight always hit the first stick. ”

For this microblogging, Sina's non-certified staff @ Come and go (Wang Gaofei, when the vice president of Sina, in charge of wireless business) @mingsheng1 (Sina Weibo product manager team leader) @Ray Zhou (Sina Weibo wireless product manager) and so on are respectively made a response and comments, @mingsheng1 And @ Come and go between think Twitter is not good, @Ray Zhou think information source is important, and point out the domestic light blog can not do it because Sina Weibo is Twitter and Tumblr intermediate product. It also predicts that Twitter will do similar product improvements on Sina Weibo in the future.

A major "small difference" between Sina Weibo and Twitter's product design

Sina Weibo was on the way to the discussion in 2011. Now, in retrospect, some of the ideas began to decline Sina Weibo. At the end of 2012, Wang Gaofei, who had been discussing with me, succeeded Peng Shaobin as general manager of Sina Weibo, @mingsheng1 in March 2012 to the consumer community.

When we talked about the difference between Sina Weibo and Twitter's product design, people who are unfamiliar with Twitter may not be aware of it. Let me introduce you.

Sina Weibo, when it first launched its products, did not completely replicate Twitter, but it was transformed. In addition to adding a similar BBS thread and news comment function, the most important thing is the forwarding function, forwarding can add a postscript.

At that time, Twitter was forwarded with a manual copy-and-paste plus RT (Retweet). In contrast, Kai-Fu Lee recently published on Sina Weibo and Twitter on the same content, the former and the latter in the dissemination process are two different forms of "forwarding."

We can see the red split line above the figure, Sina Weibo is the most typical information dissemination case, Kai-fu Lee's message to become the "first stick" information source, Sanli Weibo is attached to this content. Sanli fans see Sanli microblogging, and then PostScript forwarding, and then the transmission, Kai-fu Lee is always the most core, and Sanli additional content even more wonderful, in the process of communication will not be new. On Twitter, after a manual copy and paste plus a postscript, it's a completely new piece of content, rather than being attached to the original microblog.

In addition to the original microblogging Twitter content, the more commonly used interactive form is the response (Reply) function, as shown below, I will be the same content of Kai-Fu Lee after the release of a new content in my home page.

The difference between Twitter's forwarding function and Sina Weibo's tweets

Later, in November 2009, Twitter officially launched the Retweet function. The following figure:

The introduction of the official push function, Twitter CEO Ivan Williams, is to solve the manual push caused by the unclear source, information fragmentation and clutter, redundant information, noise, untraceable and so on.

The difference between forwarding (Retweet) and Sina Weibo is that you can forward a tweet, but you can't add a postscript. The Twitter-followers (fans) see this tweet, which is essentially the original microblog, and only the forwarding person is labeled below.

Mr. Williams explained that this was done for the sake of brevity, "What happens when you specifically want to add comments in a tweet?" Don't forget, no one is stopping you from quoting others ' tweets when you push. Also, old-style tweets are not prohibited. ”

In that article, Williams added:

A perfect Twitter should only show what you care about--something that is relevant to you, here and now, fun, whatever you are interested in--even if it comes from someone you don't care about. Of course, it should also give you the most powerful and meticulous control. We want to have more ways to make good things come to your eyes automatically.

To achieve this goal, when more than one person in a Twitter user's attention object pushes the same message, only one is seen. When users don't like the forwarding information of someone they care about, they can choose to turn off his forwarding information.

The discussion in the summer of 2011 has gone on for more than two years, and when it comes to predicting "Twitter has no postscript on the RT, the future will certainly be similar to the micro-Bo RT, candid", and not fulfilled.

The nature of the matter: Sina Weibo is the amplifier of media and opinion leaders

Why is Twitter a product that is so popular in the world because it mimics the real-world message of human communication, just as Facebook is mimicking the real-world relationship between people and people. What is the transmission of information between people in the real world?

In the discussion, a netizen @tim commented on my microblog and said, "the first three countries, the 20th person will become the margin of the people." It's not funny. ”

It's funny, but that's what the real world is all about. Those who have participated in the outreach training may have done a message game, the first words often spread to the back of the great changes have taken place. And we are often in the daily chat is this, starting from a topic, finally do not know where to go.

Information on Twitter is like a wave of sea water that pushes a wave; like the butterfly effect, it's hard to see a tornado in a place that is triggered by the flapping wings of another butterfly.

On Sina Weibo, information transmission is clearly visible and more like the dissemination of information about the media and opinion leaders in the real world. In real life, CCTV's TV anchors, podium academics and teachers, magazine columnists, and their voices are amplified by broadcast transmissions. Sina Weibo successfully reproduced that scene on the Web platform. Let the communication force of the subject produced by the dissemination of information more strongly.

Sina Weibo's initial product design and operations strategy has made it a success, through product design so that the media and opinion leaders of the dissemination of information, through the operation of the initial phase of the crazy invitation to celebrities, media people (a large number of people invited to the media is Sina Weibo early operation of the important strategy), these opinion leaders, through the PostScript forwarding this behavior , and the interactive dissemination of information, but also played a role in the information amplifier. This huge first-served advantage produced a Matthew effect, followed by a follow-up strategy to imitate Sina Weibo products of several major portals there is no chance.

The impact of micro-credit and the future of Sina Weibo

Sina Weibo played the role of the media amplifier quickly fire up, as before the era of popular blog, the beginning of the popular microblogging. But for ordinary users, on the one hand, their own release of micro-blog does not have much interaction, on the other hand, their home page is full of celebrities and media information, they are recommended by Sina operations in various topics to guide the forwarding of information, their tweets are often forwarded PostScript is not a ripple.

Ordinary netizens slowly become spectators. and the micro-letter based on the real relationship of interaction attracted these ordinary users, point-to-point communication, group chat, friends in the Circle friend's interaction, robbed them of a large number of time. This is also caused by Sina Weibo to the impression of a decline in the degree of activity.

In a news report on November 19, 2012, Chao also acknowledged that as micro-letters became more popular, it would inevitably crowd out users ' time on Sina Weibo (citing: micro-letters or the scramble for Sina Weibo).

Micro-letter first through the interaction of real relationships to rob the average Netizen's time, and then through the public account, so that the media and the audience have a closer relationship. The latter is a similar more than 10-year-old mobile phone message subscription service practice, push message to the user's mobile phone. The advantage of this approach is accurate and direct, users often pay attention to many accounts on the microblog, information easily missed.

However, because micro-letters are based on a network of real relationships, information does not easily spread faster and more widely, so Weibo has its advantages.

What will be the future of Sina Weibo?

It depends on the evolution and operational strategies of Sina's microblog products. For now, the effect of Sina Weibo as a media amplifier will continue, and it is still the best place to watch the latest news and views when it comes to hot spots. For the media and businesses, through the topic of micro-blogging to spread the brand, to attract the attention of netizens, through micro-letter to manage and service "fans" to improve the loyalty of fans, is the ideal combination of ways.