Overview
1.Why social software is always outdated ? 为什么社交软件总会过时 ?
2.Status-Seeking Monkeys 人是追求社会地位的猴子
3.Traditional Network Effects Model of Social Networks 社交网络的传统网络效应模型
4.Utility vs. Social Capital Framework 实用性 v.s. 社会资本
5.Social Networks as ICO’s 社交网络是一种 ICO 行为
6.Why Proof of Work Matters? 为什么社交网络需要工作量证明 ?
7.Social Capital ROI 关注社交资本回报率
Why social software is always outdated ? 为什么社交软件总会过时 ?
本文对社交网络进行研究, 解释以下几个问题(问题之间并不互斥, 说的是同一种观点)
1.为什么社交软件总会过时
2.为什么有些社交软件会成功, 有些社交软件会失败
3.抛开其他所有因素, 单从社会资本/社会地位这个角度分析, 如何解释问题 1 和问题 2
Status-Seeking Monkeys 人是追求社会地位的猴子
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a person in possession of little fortune, must be in want of more social capital.
一条真理: 穷人、没钱的人, 总是无形中更多地需要一点社会地位.
Let’s begin with two principles:
- People are status-seeking monkeys. 人是什么? 人是追求社会地位的猴子.
- People seek out the most efficient path to maximizing social capital. 人, 这种追求社会地位的猴子, 总是在沿着最高效的路径来追求社会地位.
In the past few years, much progress has been made analyzing Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses. Not as much has been made on social networks. Analysis of social networks still strikes me as being like economic growth theory long before Paul Romer’s paper on endogenous technological change. However, we can start to demystify social networks if we also think of them as SaaS businesses, but instead of software, they provide status. This post is a deep dive into what I refer to as Status as a Service (StaaS) businesses.
过去几年中, “软件即服务”（SaaS）这种思想盛行, 因此涉及到分析社交网络的问题, 可以通过这种框架来思考. 但是社交网络（想想 facebook/twitter/instgram/snapcat/微博/微信）最本质的地方: 提供一种人的地位. 这种提出的思路被称为”地位即服务”（StaaS）.
Traditional Network Effects Model of Social Networks 社交网络的传统网络效应模型
One of the fundamental lessons of successful social networks is that they must first appeal to people when they have few users. Typically this is done through some form of single-user utility. This is the classic cold start problem of social.
经典社交冷启动: 成功的社交网络, 有个最基本的经验, 就是当刚开始没有用户的时候, 必须吸引住人. 典型做法是: 以单个用户（利用软件）完成某个实用功能.
The second fundamental lessons is that social networks must have strong network effects so that as more and more users come aboard, the network enters a positive flywheel of growth, a compounding value from positive network effects that leads to hockey stick growth that puts dollar signs in the eyes of investors and employees alike.
Come for the tool, stay for the network
wrote Chris Dixon, in perhaps the most memorable maxim for how this works.
具备强网络效应: 让更多的用户入坑. 进来网络的人, 好比启动了一个高速转动的飞轮, 然后由于积极网络效应带来的综合价值, 导致投资人和员工眼里满满都是人民币. 有句话叫做”为工具而来, 为网络而留”, 就是说的这个意思.
Even before social networks, we had Metcalfe’s Law on telecommunications networks: The value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n^2). This ported over to social networks cleanly. It is intuitive, and it includes that tantalizing math formula that explains why growth curves for social networks bends up sharply at the ankle of the classic growth S-curve.
在互联网社交软件出现之前, 就有个叫做梅特卡夫定律, 本意说的是电信网络（就是打电话）, 很早就是说过这个本质. 电信用户的价值, 正比于用户数量的平方.
But dig deeper and many many questions remain. Why do some large social networks suddenly fade away, or lose out to new tiny networks? Why do some new social networks with great single-player tools fail to transform into networks, while others with seemingly frivolous purposes make the leap? Why do some networks sometimes lose value when they add more users? What determines why different networks stall out at different user base sizes? Why do some networks cross international borders easily while others stay locked within specific countries? Why, if Metcalfe’s Law holds, do many of Facebook’s clones of other social network features fail, while some succeed, like Instagram Stories?
但是传统网络效应模型有很多不能解释的问题.
- 为什么有些大型的社交网络突然留不住用户? 或者被一些新出现的小型社交网络替代?
- 为什么有些社交网络工具不能形成网络效应, 但是另一些看起来没用的却实现了质变?
- 为什么有些社交网络能够全世界都很流行, 然而另一些却只能在本国流行出不去?
- Facebook克隆（抄袭? ）了很多社交软件的功能, 但是一些失败了, 有一些成功了（例如Instagram Stories）?
Utility vs. Social Capital Framework 实用性 v.s. 社交资本
事实上, 社交网络应该用三跳轴线去解读. 但是”娱乐性”这个维度比较复杂, 简化起见采用两轴解释.
A social network like Facebook allows me to reach lots of people I would otherwise have a harder time tracking down, and that is useful. A messaging app like WhatsApp allows me to communicate with people all over the world without paying texting or incremental data fees, which is useful. Quora and Reddit and Discord and most every social network offer some forms of utility.
facebook: 社交网络的实用性不难理解. 例如Facebook能让我们接触到很多人, 没有它就完全接触不到. whatsapp支持即时通讯, 不用在额外花发短信钱. Quora, Reddit, Discord同理也是具备某种形式的实用性.
The other axis is, for a lack of a more precise term, the social capital axis, or the status axis. Can I use the social network to accumulate social capital? What forms? How is it measured? And how do I earn that status?
此外谈谈社会地位这根轴. 这根轴没有精确的定义. 可以叫社会资本, 也可以叫社会地位. 那么, 人可以利用社交网络积累社会资本吗? 以什么形式积累社会资本? 如何去衡量一个人积累了多少社会资本? 另外如何通过社交网络获得社会地位?
The creation of a successful status game is so mysterious that it often smacks of alchemy.
创造成功地位的这种局（这种游戏）, 实在是太迷, 和炼丹差不多.
With the rise of Instagram, with its focus on photos and filters, and Snapchat, with its ephemeral messaging, and Vine, with its 6-second video limit, for a while there was a thought that new social networks would be built on some new modality of communications. That’s a piece of it, but it’s not the complete picture, and not for the reasons many people think, which is why we have seen a whole bunch of strange failed experiments in just about every odd combinations of features and filters and artificial constraints in how we communicate with each other through our phones. Remember Facebook’s Snapchat competitor Slingshot, in which you had to unlock any messages you received by responding with a message? It felt like product design by mad libs.
社交网络的崛起, Instagram专注照片和滤镜的 , Snapchat专注阅后即焚的 . 人们一度认为新的社交网络必须建立在新的通讯形态上. 但这是管中窥豹, 而且搞错了因果. 这也就是为什么我们会在手机通讯领域, 看到一大堆失败的奇怪实验品, 几乎涵盖了所有的奇特功能、滤镜特效和人为约束. 还记得为了与 Snapchat 竞争, Facebook 推出的 Slingshot 吗? 你必须通过回复一条消息来解锁你刚收到的消息.
When modeling how successful social networks create a status game worth playing, a useful metaphor is one of the trendiest technologies: cryptocurrency.
如何认识: 社交网络创造一种社交地位（这种看起来很迷很迷的局）用什么样的视角, 用什么样的建模思路去解读呢. 作者脑洞大开: 用当前最时髦的技术之一: 加密货币. 作者认为, 这种创造社会地位的玩法, 和加密货币有很强的内在联系.
Social Networks as ICO’s 社交网络是一种 ICO 行为
ICO, Initial Coin Offering, 首次币发行, 是区块链行业术语, 是一种为加密数字货币/区块链项目筹措资金的常用方式, 早期参与者可以从中获得初始产生的加密数字货币作为回报.
How is a new social network analogous to an ICO? 社交网络和ICO有啥关系?
- Each new social network issues a new form of social capital, a token. 每个社交网络都会发行一种新形态的社会资本, 一种代币.
- You must show proof of work to earn the token. 你必须证明自己的工作量, 才能获得代币.
- Over time it becomes harder and harder to mine new tokens on each social network, creating built-in scarcity. 随着时间推移, 每个社交网络上, 挖掘新代币变得越来越难, 从而创造出一种内在的稀缺性.
- Many people, especially older folks, scoff at both social networks and cryptocurrencies. 很多人, 尤其是老人, 同时看不起社交网络和加密货币. （很有意思的论据有木有）
然后作者分享了一个案例, 又一次在朋友家, 他朋友高中的女儿在楼上叮呤咣啷, 声音吵杂, 嘻嘻哈哈, 不时地跺脚, 还放音乐. 一问咋回事. 拍了Musical.ly的视频. 排练非常卖力, 累的上气不接下气, 满脸是汗水, 拍了很多遍. 这是什么? 请把她们的行为理解成一种工作量证明. Proof of work.
status games of adults are already well covered by the existing media, from literature to film. Children’s status games, once familiar to us, begin to fade from our memory as time passes, and its modern forms have been drastically altered by social media.
然后作者就思考了成年人的证明社会地位的游戏, 现有主流媒体把这种成年人证明社会地位的游戏都已经做的烂大街了, 不管是文字还是电影. （我理解这句话. 想想刷到的抖音、想想自己的朋友圈, 里面一切成年人带有一点装逼的情节（装逼这里不贬义）、或者彰显自己才华、或者自己特殊才艺、特殊兴趣爱好的情节、秀自己身材样貌、搞笑天赋、科研实力、旅游过程中的心灵体验、宗教信仰、美食鸡汤, 仔细想想这个是不是符合每一条, 几乎每一条都是一种status）. 但是儿童地位的游戏, 我们曾经是熟知的那些, 已经渐渐消失了. （想想我小时候有四驱车、玩具枪、整箱整箱的玩具、小霸王游戏机、地沟油零食、甚至是老师发的小红花, 这些不都是小时候证明我们自己”地位”的东西吗, 我们小时候就是每天都在玩这种”地位”的游戏）. 但是现代的社会形态和科技形态, 已经使得这种形式通过不同的社交媒体发生了变化. 比如王者农药的皮肤. 这不就是现在儿童的”地位”吗?
Other examples abound. Perhaps you’ve read a long and thoughtful response by a random person on Quora or Reddit, or watched YouTube vloggers publishing night after night, or heard about popular Vine stars living in houses together, helping each other shoot and edit 6-second videos. While you can outsource Bitcoin mining to a computer, people still mine for social capital on social networks largely through their own blood, sweat, and tears.
继续拓宽思维思维, 还有各种五光十色、光怪陆离、屡见不鲜的社会资本/社会地位追求形式. 比如Quora或者Reddit上的帖子. （想想知乎上: 谢邀. 人在美国, 刚下飞机, 国内Top2高效, cs在读, 人工智能劝退, 熟人太多, 匿了匿了. c++ primer 强势审校. ）youtube上vlog博主连夜做视频. 这个时代, 你可以把挖矿的工作交给一台计算机, 但是人们会乐此不疲, 呕心沥血的追求自己的社会资本.
Perhaps, if you’ve spent time around today’s youth, you’ve watched with a mixture of horror and fascination as a teen snaps dozens of selfies before publishing the most flattering one to Instagram, only to pull it down if it doesn’t accumulate enough likes within the first hour. It’s another example of proof of work, or at least vigorous market research.
你如果和年轻人相处过一段时间, 你会发现. 年轻人是一种恐惧和着迷的集合体. 他们会拍10张自拍然后把自己最满意的发在instgram上；如果一不小心没人点赞, 他们就偷偷删掉. （捂脸. 我真干过这种事）这是”工作量证明”的另一个例子.
If you’ve ever joined one of these social networks early enough, you know that, on a relative basis, getting ahead of others in terms of social capital (followers, likes, etc.) is easier in the early days. Some people who were featured on recommended follower lists in the early days of Twitter have follower counts in the 7-figures, just as early masters of Musical.ly and Vine were accumulated massive and compounding follower counts. The more people who follow you, the more followers you gain because of leaderboards and recommended follower algorithms and other such common discovery mechanisms.
另外社交网络这玩意有个特点, 越早加入的人, 社交资本（比如说量化成粉丝量、点赞数量）就更容易领先他人. 这是由于目前的分发机制: 不管是人工排行榜、或者推荐算法, 都会基于历史统计决策. 想想电商运营选品还是机器学习工程师抽统计特征, 都是会引入历史统计特征.
It’s true that as more people join a network, more social capital is up for grabs in the aggregate. However, in general, if you come to a social network later, unless you bring incredible exogenous social capital (Taylor Swift can join any social network on the planet and collect a massive following immediately), the competition for attention is going to be more intense than it was in the beginning. Everyone has more of an understanding of how the game works so the competition is stiffer.
这就带来一个问题: 来的越晚的人, 在自然情况下入局就更难（火起来越难）. 我说下个人理解: 回顾想想字节跳动长久发展的核心策略, 是不是坚持一直对新的创造者人为的倾斜流量? 我认为是的. 这不就是一种典型通过流量调控达到的整个生态持久繁荣的目的的case吗? 脑洞再开一下, 上升到经济学的角度来看, 个人感觉这就好比早期的自由市场, 靠看不见的手调控整个生态, 但是为了长久发展, 政府的宏观调控使得整个经济形态健康发展而不会出现过于严重的垄断.
但是有一种例外, 叫做外生社会资本（exogenous social captial）, 假如现在有个新的社交平台火起来. 不管你多早加入, 你也无法改变一个事实, 泰勒多晚加入她都比你影响力大多了.
Why Proof of Work Matters? 为什么社交网络需要工作量证明 ?
As with cryptocurrency, if it were so easy, it wouldn’t be worth anything. Value is tied to scarcity, and scarcity on social networks derives from proof of work. Status isn’t worth much if there’s no skill and effort required to mine it. It’s not that a social network that makes it easy for lots of users to perform well can’t be a useful one, but competition for relative status still motivates humans. Recall our first tenet: humans are status-seeking monkeys. Status is a relative ladder. By definition, if everyone can achieve a certain type of status, it’s no status at all, it’s a participation trophy.
接下来请以一个社交网络app的设计者的出发点来思考问题, 为什么需要负担很重的工作量证明呢? 人们如果要最大化社会资本, 不应该弄简单点吗? 和加密货币原理一样, 容易实现的东西就是没有价值. 价值就是稀缺性, 社交网络的稀缺性就是工作量证明. 如果不需要用户掌握任何技能, 付出努力, 这种地位也就自然不值钱. 这里注意, 这不是说社交网络让用户用起来简单点是完全没用的. 但是人们会为相对地位而竞争: 人是追求社会地位的猴子. 社会地位是什么? 是一种相对性的等级阶梯. 皇帝还是平民, 富人还是穷人, 老师还是学生. 在这种定义情况下, 试想一下如果每个人都能达到某种地位, 那也就没有地位这么一个概念了, 因为每个人都有了, 这种地位就变成了人手一份的”参与奖”没有任何意义了.
Twitter 启动 Favstar 和 Favrd 两个功能, 写出全球最受欢迎推文的人, 获得奖牌, 瞬间让更多优质内容浮出水面.
Thirst for status is potential energy. It is the lifeblood of a Status as a Service business. To succeed at carving out unique space in the market, social networks offer their own unique form of status token, earned through some distinctive proof of work.
对地位的渴望, 是一股潜在能量. 它是”地位即服务”的业务命脉. 要想开辟一个独特的市场, 社交网络必须提供一种独特的地位的代币. 同时, 要想争取这些代币, 必须付出独特的工作量证明.
Conversely, let’s look at something like Prisma, a photo filter app which tried to pivot to become a social network. Prisma surged in popularity upon launch by making it trivial to turn one of your photos into a fine art painting with one of its many neural-network-powered filters. It worked well. Too well. Since almost any photo could, with one-click, be turned into a gorgeous painting, no single photo really stands out. The star is the filter, not the user, and so it didn’t really make sense to follow any one person over any other person. Without that element of skill, no framework for a status game or skill-based network existed. It was a utility that failed at becoming a Status as a Service business. In contrast, while Instagram filters, in its earliest days, improved upon the somewhat limited quality of smartphone photos at the time, the quality of those photos still depended for the most part on the photographer. The composition, the selection of subject matter, these still derived from the photographer’s craft, and no filter could elevate a poor photo into a masterpiece.
看一个反例, Prisma. 这个照片滤镜app曾经尝试转型为社交网络app. 刚出的时候非常受欢迎, 因为用神经网络添加滤镜效果让你的照片变成精美的艺术品. 但是它真的是太好用了, 过于好用了. 因为每一张照片只需要点击一下就变成漂亮的艺术品. 所以没有照片能脱颖而出. 这款软件的主角实质上是这个强大的滤镜功能, 而不是用户, 这就太喧宾夺主了. 大家也很少care其他人. 因为大家水平都差不多.
So, to answer an earlier question about how a new social network takes hold, let’s add this: a new Status as a Service business must devise some proof of work that depends on some actual skill to differentiate among users. If it does, then it creates, like an ICO, some new form of social capital currency of value to those users.
因此一个全新的社交网络, 该如何站稳脚跟? 对于前面提到的这个问题, 让我们再来补充一点: 全新的 “社会地位即服务” 业务, 必须设计出独特的工作量证明机制, 它将要求用户们展示出真实技能. 社交网络将以此为依据, 来划分用户. 如果社交网络能做到这一点, 它就能像 ICO 一样, 为这些用户创造一种全新的社会资本货币.
Facebook’s Original Proof of Work Facebook 的最早工作量体现
In fact, Facebook launched with one of the most famous proof of work hurdles in the world: you had to be a student at Harvard. By requiring a harvard.edu email address, Facebook drafted off of one of the most elite cultural filters in the world. It’s hard to think of many more powerful slingshots of elitism. By rolling out, first to Ivy League schools, then to colleges in general, Facebook scaled while maintaining a narrow age dispersion and exclusivity based around educational credentials. Layer that on top of the broader social status game of stalking attractive members of the other sex that animates much of college life and Facebook was a service that tapped into reserves of some of the most heated social capital competitions in the world.
Facebook的最早工作量证明: 你必须是哈佛学生. 用 harvard.edu 邮箱注册. 然后逐渐铺开到常春藤学校, 然后是全美所有大学. FB 保持用户年龄分布比较集中, 且学历排他. 然后, 更能调动大学生积极性的地位游戏是 “stalk” 其他有吸引力的异性同学. 加上前面两点, Facebook 成功利用了世界上最激烈的社会资本竞争.
Social Capital ROI 关注社交资本回报率
If a person posts something interesting to a platform, how quickly do they gain likes and comments and reactions and followers? The second tenet is that people seek out the most efficient path to maximize their social capital. To do so, they must have a sense for how different strategies vary in effectiveness. Most humans seem to excel at this.
思考一个问题. 如果一个人在社交平台发布了一条内容, 他获得点赞评论关注的速度有多快? 多快其实还不是重点, 应该思考的是, 人们有多大程度上的意愿, 要快速的追求社会资本. 引出第二个原则: 人们在追求社会地位的时候, 一定会追求最有效的途径, 使得最大化社会资本. 怎么才是最有效呢?
The gradient of your network’s social capital ROI can often govern your market share among different demographics. Young girls flocked to Musical.ly in its early days because they were uniquely good at the lip synch dance routine videos that were its bread and butter. In this age of neverending notifications, heavy social media users are hyper aware of differing status ROI among the apps they use.
社交网络中, 社会资本回报率的梯度, 往往可以主导你在不同人群中的市场份额. 比如, 年轻女孩子特别擅长对嘴舞蹈表演, 所以在 Musical.ly 的早期, 她们就蜂拥而至, 而这些表演视频, 恰恰是 Musical.ly 赖以生存的饭碗. 在这个时代, 社交媒体的通知推送, 永无休止. 重度用户都非常清楚, 这些应用中, 哪些有更高的回报率, 能更有效地获取社会地位.
TikTok is an interesting new player in social media because its default feed, For You, relies on a machine learning algorithm to determine what each user sees; the feed of content from by creators you follow, in contrast, is hidden one pane over. If you are new to TikTok and have just uploaded a great video, the selection algorithm promises to distribute your post much more quickly than if you were on sharing it on a network that relies on the size of your following, which most people have to build up over a long period of time. Conversely, if you come up with one great video but the rest of your work is mediocre, you can’t count on continued distribution on TikTok since your followers live mostly in a feed driven by the TikTok algorithm, not their follow graph.
TikTok 是一个新的有趣社交媒体, 因为它默认就是 “推荐” 页. “推荐” 页会依赖机器学习算法来确定每个用户看到的内容. 相比之下, 你关注的创作者所提供的内容, 会被藏在旁边另一个页面上. 如果你是抖音新人, 并刚上传了一个精彩的视频, 那么推荐算法可以更快地分发你的帖子. 而如果只靠自己在社交网络圈分享, 大多数人都必须花很长一段时间, 才能构建起足够大的圈子. 但反过来说, 如果你只有一个精彩的视频, 而其余的作品都很平庸, 你不能指望抖音会继续帮你分发内容. 因为, 你的关注者主要看的, 是由抖音的推荐算法驱动的信息流, 而不是由他们的关注图谱驱动的信息流.
The result is a feedback loop that is much more tightly wound that that of other social networks, both in the positive and negative direction. Theoretically, if the algorithm is accurate, the content in your feed should correlate most closely to quality of the work and its alignment with your personal interests rather than the drawing from the work of accounts you follow. At a time when Bytedance is spending tens (hundreds?) of millions of marketing dollars in a bid to acquire users in international markets, the rapid ROI on new creators’ work is a helpful quality in ensuring they stick around.
这样做的结果是: 抖音的反馈链路比其他社交网络更环环紧扣, 无论是正反馈还是负反馈. 从理论上讲, 如果推荐算法是准确的, 你的信息流里出现的内容, 会和内容的质量, 以及你的个人兴趣关系最大, 而不会和你所关注的帐户产生太大关系. 眼下, 字节跳动公司在市场营销上花费数千万 (数亿? ) 美金, 以获取国际市场上的用户. 作品见效快, 回报率高, 这是确保新创作者能持续呆下去的法宝.
This development is interesting for another reason: graph-based social capital allocation mechanisms can suffer from runaway winner-take-all effects. In essence, some networks reward those who gain a lot of followers early on with so much added exposure that they continue to gain more followers than other users, regardless of whether they’ve earned it through the quality of their posts. One hypothesis on why social networks tend to lose heat at scale is that this type of old money can’t be cleared out, and new money loses the incentive to play the game.
社交网络的这种演化过程很有意思, 还有另一个原因: 基于 “社交图谱” 的社会资本分配机制, 可能会因 “赢家通吃” 效应而失控. 一些社交网络, 从本质上看, 给那些在早期就获得大量关注者的人, 奖励了过多的曝光度；以至于之后, 无论帖子质量如何, 他们都可以比其他用户获得更多的关注者. 为什么随着社交网络规模的变大, 会出现 “蒸发冷却效应”? 一个假设是, 如果老贵族 (old money) 不走, 新贵族 (new money) 就会失去玩游戏的动力.
The same way many social networks track keystone metrics like time to X followers, they should track the ROI on posts for new users. It’s likely a leading metric that governs retention or churn. It’s useful as an investor, or even as a curious onlooker to test a social networks by posting varied content from test accounts to gauge the efficiency and fairness of the distribution algorithm.
很多社交网络都会跟踪关键指标. 比如, 获得 X 个关注者需要花多少时间. 同样, 它们也应该跟踪新用户帖子的回报率 (ROI). 这可能是控制留存率、流失率的一个主要指标. 作为一个投资者, 甚至是一个好奇的旁观者, 可以通过从测试账户发布各种内容, 来衡量社交网络分发算法的效率性和公平性, 这非常有价值.
Whatever the mechanisms, social networks must devote a lot of resources to market making between content and the right audience for that content so that users feel sufficient return on their work. Distribution is king, even when, or especially when it allocates social capital.
无论采用何种机制, 社交网络都必须投入大量的资源, 来撮合市场上的内容及其正确受众, 让用户感受到努力皆有回报. 分发为王, 哪怕 (或者说尤其) 是在分发社会资本时.
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