June 21, 2014 at 18:35The invention of social networks
Not the first year, a favorite example of investors about the stupidity of startups: they proposed the idea of another social network. Although recently a certain Secret (where the messages are anonymous) suddenly picked up and made a noise. Or even worse - the service for sending three two letters received an investment of $ 1.2M . It seems to me that actually varying the various parameters of a social network is an interesting field for thought experiments. So I wanted to list all such parameters.
1. limit number of friends. What will happen if only 10 people can be freed? Obviously, people will start to be extremely picky about friends. And their choice will tell a lot about them. And if you restrict it from below - you can’t use it until you frend (mutually) 500 people. Will such an input filter affect the quality of the content?
2. content margin. Twitter did it and the result is known - small-format content is good for spreading news. But there remains a large field of options, both in the direction of decreasing and increasing. Suppose you can’t publish texts less than 3,000 characters. Or it is possible only in the range from 1000 to 2000. It is likely that the overall quality of the content will increase, because authors and readers have a different attitude to long texts. However, the target audience will naturally decline sharply. There are a lot of options with varying volumes, and all of them will have different consequences.
3. Variety of paragraph 2 - the maximum number of publications. What if not more than once every three days? How about once a month? This obviously will not contribute to the development of Internet addiction, but there will be sharply more friends that you have time to read. (And again, a change in the quality of the content is possible). You can bind the allowed number of publications to some things in real life. For example, to fitness meters - I ran 5 km - I earned the right to publish. Or have sex - you can post a post (not necessarily about that)). Or for shopping - buy five things through Yandex.Market and publish on Ya.ru. Well, or stupidly pay for publications above the limit (also applies to other restrictions).
I think that for points 1-3 there are “magic numbers” - a smooth change in the parameter will lead to a smooth change in the results, however, at certain values there will be a sharp (qualitative) change in the result.
4. Restriction on the subject of content. It would seem that if the social network is for fishermen (a strict restriction on the audience), then it is a thematic restriction. But nothing prevents fishermen from discussing politics, cars and so on. Suppose a general purpose social network, but there is a strictly defined set of topics for posting. And not necessarily from one area. Something similar has been implemented on Habré - for publication, the author must select a hub from the set. Or as an option: you can write on any topic except (list). In this way, for example, holivars can be limited. Or attract thematic authors.
5. Restriction on the type of content . Youtube, Instagram and others have done this a long time ago - videos or photos are published. I don’t know about sound - is there anything that only publishes audio? (The comments said that there is: soundcloud.com, voxxes.com)
6. Restriction on the user rating level . Let's say the system calculates your social weight , and the authors of the posts forbid them to comment on users with a rating below a given one. The bloggers-thousandths will sharply decrease the number of trolls in the comments.
7. User age limit. Or age corridor.
8. The gender of the user.
9. The lifetime of the content. Now formally it is infinite, but in fact, in the vast majority of cases, a post on the social network lives a short time after publication. In terms of enjoys attention. If you introduce an official restriction on the lifetime, in theory this will affect the nature of the content.
10. Entrance Barrierfor authors and / or publications. It can be of various kinds (get an invite, pay, get recommendations from several people, you can come up with something else ..). Content should also depend on the size of the barrier. For example, as indicated in the comments, if there is a fee, this will be a limitation for bots.
If I come up with more, I’ll add. Those interested can also participate. In fact, the parameters can be invented darkness and not everything makes sense to write here. For example, a network for people with income from and to (a strict restriction on the audience).
And of course, all items can be combined in various ways with each other, getting fancy options for social interactions.
Update 1Actually forgot about anonymity. As you can see from the Secret example, it significantly affects. I also remembered about the Gamer.ru experience, when you can cast spells on other people's posts / comments. Such an element of gamification. True, this is not a parameter, but a good area for experimentation.
Another area of experiment: you can’t post on your own, but only on the walls of friends :) From the assumption that they are interested.
Update 2 Vokabre with my comments recalled another parameter (even two), I will introduce them with paragraphs 9 and 10.
Update 3 Based on the poston facebook. Let's say Yandex doesn’t start showing relevant ads to the request “replace the glass in the iPhone”, but instead, it automatically frends you with people who entered the same request today or yesterday in a special social network. Thus, you find yourself in a community of people who have the same problem and they can exchange information and help each other in solving. In general, this is an idea of a social network based on temporary interests and with short-lived friend ties that are automatically deleted after some condition (the problem is solved, the event has ended, the training course has been completed, etc.).
Of course, you can add / remove yourself with your own hands. I would make a special button “add to social network” on different sites. Since people constantly solve some problems, participate in events, get sick, etc., they are constantly in this network, but the tape there is relevant to their current needs.
1. limit number of friends. What will happen if only 10 people can be freed? Obviously, people will start to be extremely picky about friends. And their choice will tell a lot about them. And if you restrict it from below - you can’t use it until you frend (mutually) 500 people. Will such an input filter affect the quality of the content?
2. content margin. Twitter did it and the result is known - small-format content is good for spreading news. But there remains a large field of options, both in the direction of decreasing and increasing. Suppose you can’t publish texts less than 3,000 characters. Or it is possible only in the range from 1000 to 2000. It is likely that the overall quality of the content will increase, because authors and readers have a different attitude to long texts. However, the target audience will naturally decline sharply. There are a lot of options with varying volumes, and all of them will have different consequences.
3. Variety of paragraph 2 - the maximum number of publications. What if not more than once every three days? How about once a month? This obviously will not contribute to the development of Internet addiction, but there will be sharply more friends that you have time to read. (And again, a change in the quality of the content is possible). You can bind the allowed number of publications to some things in real life. For example, to fitness meters - I ran 5 km - I earned the right to publish. Or have sex - you can post a post (not necessarily about that)). Or for shopping - buy five things through Yandex.Market and publish on Ya.ru. Well, or stupidly pay for publications above the limit (also applies to other restrictions).
I think that for points 1-3 there are “magic numbers” - a smooth change in the parameter will lead to a smooth change in the results, however, at certain values there will be a sharp (qualitative) change in the result.
4. Restriction on the subject of content. It would seem that if the social network is for fishermen (a strict restriction on the audience), then it is a thematic restriction. But nothing prevents fishermen from discussing politics, cars and so on. Suppose a general purpose social network, but there is a strictly defined set of topics for posting. And not necessarily from one area. Something similar has been implemented on Habré - for publication, the author must select a hub from the set. Or as an option: you can write on any topic except (list). In this way, for example, holivars can be limited. Or attract thematic authors.
5. Restriction on the type of content . Youtube, Instagram and others have done this a long time ago - videos or photos are published. I don’t know about sound - is there anything that only publishes audio? (The comments said that there is: soundcloud.com, voxxes.com)
6. Restriction on the user rating level . Let's say the system calculates your social weight , and the authors of the posts forbid them to comment on users with a rating below a given one. The bloggers-thousandths will sharply decrease the number of trolls in the comments.
7. User age limit. Or age corridor.
8. The gender of the user.
9. The lifetime of the content. Now formally it is infinite, but in fact, in the vast majority of cases, a post on the social network lives a short time after publication. In terms of enjoys attention. If you introduce an official restriction on the lifetime, in theory this will affect the nature of the content.
10. Entrance Barrierfor authors and / or publications. It can be of various kinds (get an invite, pay, get recommendations from several people, you can come up with something else ..). Content should also depend on the size of the barrier. For example, as indicated in the comments, if there is a fee, this will be a limitation for bots.
If I come up with more, I’ll add. Those interested can also participate. In fact, the parameters can be invented darkness and not everything makes sense to write here. For example, a network for people with income from and to (a strict restriction on the audience).
And of course, all items can be combined in various ways with each other, getting fancy options for social interactions.
Update 1Actually forgot about anonymity. As you can see from the Secret example, it significantly affects. I also remembered about the Gamer.ru experience, when you can cast spells on other people's posts / comments. Such an element of gamification. True, this is not a parameter, but a good area for experimentation.
Another area of experiment: you can’t post on your own, but only on the walls of friends :) From the assumption that they are interested.
Update 2 Vokabre with my comments recalled another parameter (even two), I will introduce them with paragraphs 9 and 10.
Update 3 Based on the poston facebook. Let's say Yandex doesn’t start showing relevant ads to the request “replace the glass in the iPhone”, but instead, it automatically frends you with people who entered the same request today or yesterday in a special social network. Thus, you find yourself in a community of people who have the same problem and they can exchange information and help each other in solving. In general, this is an idea of a social network based on temporary interests and with short-lived friend ties that are automatically deleted after some condition (the problem is solved, the event has ended, the training course has been completed, etc.).
Of course, you can add / remove yourself with your own hands. I would make a special button “add to social network” on different sites. Since people constantly solve some problems, participate in events, get sick, etc., they are constantly in this network, but the tape there is relevant to their current needs.