Too many users are stumbling blocks to social networking

In today's internet age, the network effect is the dream of Internet start-up enterprises. On a platform with a network effect, the more users there are, the more value they bring to the user. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Skype have benefited from this dynamic development.

In 2012, we witnessed the emergence of a social platform with more than 1 billion users. However, with the expansion of social networks and the increasing number of Internet users, many people are questioning the sustainability of social networks, while others argue that social networks are too big to be used.

To explore the future of social networks, it is necessary to identify the value associated with the network effect and the factors that cause the network effect to have side effects.

Network effect and value

In the network effect, scale and value are closely related. The larger the scale, the more value the user brings, and the more users it brings, the more value continues to increase. This dynamic process of rich and wealthy makes the network effect come into being once the social network reaches a certain number of users.

Social networks produce three types of value: Link value, content value, impact value.

Contact value: On social networks, users can discover and contact other users. As more and more of a platform is used, it brings more and more value to each user. Skype, WhatsApp is two good examples, the use of this kind of communication tools, the number of contacts and friends, the use of more and more people will be more and more useful. Dating sites and LinkedIn are also good examples of the value of social networking sites.

Content value: Users discover and use content created by other users on social networking sites. The more users, the more content they produce, the more value they bring to the user. Content platforms such as YouTube, Flickr, Quora, and Airbnb, Etsy and other market platforms are also useful when users create large-scale content.

Impact value: There are a number of powerful users (influential users) in some social networks who enjoy both the honor of social networking and the influence of social networks. Twitter celebrities, Foursquare rankings, and Yahoo Answers's honor response platform distinguish powerful users from ordinary users. On Twitter, the larger the number of users, the greater the impact value of powerful users.

If social networking sites want to give users enough value, at least three conditions are met:

1, the number of objective contact person;

2, the number of useful content;

3, can give strong user to bring more attention to the possibility.

On most social networking sites, users can at least experience one of the values. For Facebook, first brings a lot of friends to the user, then gets rich content, and with the increase in users, there are many powerful users.

Why do network effects have side effects?

As a result, if a social networking site is large enough, it should give users more value.

However, after the growth of social networking sites, the value of users may fall due to the following points:

Link value: When new users join social networks, they reduce the quality of their contacts and bring a lot of junk and useless information to social networks.

Content value: The more users, the more content, the quality of content began to decline, involving private events, the more content, but users are not interested in these.

Impact Value: There is no doubt that a lot of new users, social networks will undoubtedly favor the old users. This is like Weibo referral talent, Big V.

The cycle of wealthy billionaires has brought rapid growth to social networks, but the increase in network influence has also had more negative effects, leaving the network effect in the opposite direction and forcing users out of social networks. Friendster, MySpace, Orkut experienced such a process from Sheng to decline.

Side effects associated with value

Contact-oriented social networks create value by contacting users.

When the number of new users of these social networks reaches a certain scale, it will reduce the value of the old users and begin to feel the reversal of the value of the connection. In order to prevent the reaction of the value of the connection, it is necessary to set some thresholds, such as setting the entry threshold or restricting the user's ability to contact strangers.

On dating sites, women often complain about the number of people who have grown up and have to leave. Some websites take the male admittance examination system, the effect is the same as the female compartment.

LinkedIn uses a method that prohibits users from contacting their own majors, and can ensure that users do not accept unsolicited information. If you want to send a message to a stranger, you have to use the LinkedIn billing service.

Random video Chatroulette Once very hot, because can be anonymous video chat, affected by the link value side effects, finally become the victim of internet pornography.

Social networking sites like Orkut, and dating sites, are affected in varying degrees by false account contamination and the side effects of reaching value.

In general, social networking sites that depend on the value of their connections can control the negative impact of the value of the connection well by setting access thresholds.

Side Effects of content value

Content platforms like YouTube and Flickr have more users and more content to attract more users to watch and view. Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are both linked and content-worthy.

The vast majority of content-valued social networking sites have little restriction on content generation, while encouraging the creation of content and access to more user groups on the other. To ensure that content is valuable and useful, social networks require stringent content monitoring to allow users to experience personalization.

If the content regulatory system does not play its part, it may negatively affect content value. The more content producers, the more valuable content consumers are exposed to, should not be a downward trend.

1. Content Supervision

Content value social networks establish a regulatory framework for content through modernization, algorithms, community (polling, grading, etc.). For example, content ratings on YouTube, and product ratings on Yelp.

Content-monitoring mechanisms are always ineffective when content is rapidly increasing. When the algorithm and the modern audit methods can not be effective, the platform has no value, spam information explosion. At this point, the negative effects of content value begin to work, causing the user to leave directly.

Benefited from the early geek user, Quora's content audit mechanism is very strict. With the Quora community's profile Ada, more and more small white users enter, depriving the old user of the value. But so far, it is unclear whether the audit mechanism will work for a large user of social networking sites.

2, personalized

Content value social networks need to provide users with personalized content and valuable content.

A more famous example would be to count Facebook and Quora's personalized novelty as well as YouTube's related video recommendations.

If social networking sites are not able to maintain the relevance of the content provided, the side effects of the content value will follow.

The center of Facebook is new, and if the user's new list always has a messy content, this reduces the relevance of the user's use of content. There are three reasons for this result:

1, users choose to add Friends.

2, Marketing account and application garbage sharing.

3, after Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites to implement the profit model, all kinds of promotional content will reduce the relevance of content.

As long as the number of users to expand, content-oriented social networking sites will always face such a negative impact. After Facebook gained 1 billion users, the weakest link was that the new content was much different from the previous one.

The negative effect of influence value

Impact value social networks have a system that distinguishes powerful users from ordinary users. Social networking sites such as Twitter and Quora have a system where active users can get more credit than others.

Impact value social networking will be more skewed towards older users in the late stages. Influence is generated by user-created content, and old users enter the time early, create more content, produce more influence, new users will never exceed.

This situation increases with high signal-to-noise ratio. Twitter will always recommend new users to focus on the well-known users, the old users have a lot of attention, so that the strong users and ordinary users to distinguish.

New users will find it hard to get attention, causing a lot of people to leave. Such social networking sites need to ensure that new users enjoy the same rights as their old users and have the opportunity to develop into powerful users. 500px to ensure the fairness of community users by showing new users of recent activities.

The side effects of network effects often result in bad news and scandals on big social networks. After social networking has grown, keeping the high signal-to-noise ratio is the primary factor in making social networks swim for users. If social networks can handle the side effects of network effects properly, they can maintain high growth and retain users.

Here are a few suggestions:

Establish a strong content review mechanism;

To maintain content relevance by providing personalized content;

According to the population model, users have the opportunity to enjoy becoming powerful users;