Big data in China

Chapter 24 Big Data and Social Change (1)
Subversive social concept
In the social field, the first concept we can think of is "relationship".Relationships are not limited to people we know, such as friends, relatives, colleagues, and clients.These "relationships" of direct relationships are also our network resources, which can start a chain reaction and finally connect to us, just like distant waves slowly coming towards us under the action of force, and then gradually reach us. The same around us.

The traditional social concept is fragmented, that is, we only have contact with direct relationships, and then use them to get to know their network resources, just like a piece of leaf, connecting each other through branches to establish an indirect connection .For example, the theory of six degrees says: "Through six intermediaries, you can contact anyone in the world." There are six separations between us and the final goal, which is fragmented.

The theory of six degrees is ideal on paper, but in reality, the dream of being able to connect with anyone may be difficult to realize smoothly.

Where is the reason?The reason is that the influence of each individual is insufficient. Although it is theoretically a six-degree connection, the personal radiation power is only three degrees, or even two degrees.If it exceeds two or three degrees, our influence will lose its effectiveness, and it will be difficult to establish intimate and direct connections with people above the fourth degree.

So, as a result, we are much more likely to know people within three degrees than those outside, and the help we ask for is often limited to within three degrees.

The era of big data has changed this traditional social concept, turning fragmented social connections into a network-style relationship library.What is a network relational library?It is a "point-to-point" direct connection. We don't need to go through these six people, but with the help of big data tools, we can directly establish contact with the target relationship person.

In the past 10 years, various new information dissemination tools have emerged rapidly in China with the development of technology.Not to mention smart phones and 3G networks, they not only gave birth to a large number of new communication media, but also set off a revolution in the social field, and thus subverted the old social concepts.

For example, Weibo and WeChat are such big data tools.

☆ "Double WeChat" manipulates social media--Weibo and WeChat

Weibo is not only a social tool, but also a media platform, which makes it rich in multi-faceted characteristics.Of course, Weibo is also an information platform, there is no doubt about it, and people use it more as an information publishing platform, at least that is the first impression people have when they start using Weibo.

But in my opinion, the nature of media and social networks is actually hidden behind the information platform of Weibo, especially the latter, which is very powerful.

There are two kinds of information that we can receive on a daily basis.The first type of information is general, that is, we only pay attention to the information itself, and we don’t need to care about the source of the information. For example, when we see a piece of news, we only care about the content of the news, and don’t pay much attention to which media. The second type of information is specific. We pay attention to both the information itself and the source of the information, that is, who sent it. For example, for a comment on an event, we not only understand the comment, but also pay attention to who posted the comment. .

When people receive certain information, they always pay great attention to the source of the information.Different sources often have different meanings.

For example, if an ordinary person says that there may be an earthquake tomorrow, you will not believe it, but if it is said by an earthquake expert, you may be convinced.

The same sentence, spoken by different people, has completely different meanings.And for different people, it also has different meanings, just like you say a word, some people may regard it as spam, but some people may find it a treasure.I think a fair amount of information doesn't make much sense to us if the source of the information isn't known.

Those who publish general information can be called "media", and Weibo has the function of media; and those who publish specific information that we are very concerned about can be called "social network" or social objects.For the latter’s Weibo account, we use it as a social resource.Although the distinction is not strict, the two different properties have generally been shown to people.

This also means that Weibo is more of a popular social tool, because everyone wants to be authenticated to make their Weibo account more famous and gain more attention.Mobile social networking with this purpose is subverting people's lives, and in the past two years, it has gradually reached a peak.

What about WeChat?Compared with Weibo, WeChat also has a media function, but its social function is more obvious, so it has a rapid development momentum and outshines others.From the day it was released, it has shown signs of a social monopoly. For example, according to the data released by Tencent, WeChat took 0 months to go from 1 to 14 million users; It took 1 months; from 2 million to 6 million users, it only took 2 months.Then, the number of WeChat users steadily increased by 3 million every 4 months.

By October 2013, the number of WeChat users had exceeded an astonishing 10 million.Just looking at the numbers, this means that half of the Chinese are using WeChat (which of course includes many foreign users, and even in the Syrian civil war, many people are on the battlefield, whether it is government soldiers or rebel militants It’s an amazing phenomenon to use WeChat to communicate).

In addition, Tencent's big social strategy has also been sharply expanded to commercial applications. WeChat is its unyielding vanguard and the main force in market development.For example, version 5.0 of WeChat, in addition to the improvement of common functions such as official account folding and scanning, has also added new business-related applications such as the heavy game center and payment function.

In this way, the original model of WeChat has been completely changed, and on the basis of social functions, it has transformed into a brand-new business, life, and entertainment complex.It covers almost everything from shopping, government announcements, life services to insurance claims, financial management and other fields. It has become a comprehensive extension of people's real life on the mobile Internet, allowing people to enjoy Use WeChat to solve all life needs.

Moreover, among all the services provided by WeChat, it is the only entrance and exclusive.Using this method, WeChat has formed a monopoly on the market it is involved in, creating a closed-loop effect.It has demonstrated its greatest dominance on the mobile terminal, integrating offline retailers, online e-commerce, home appliances, video and other enterprises through WeChat's "voice recognition", "geographic location", "uploading pictures and videos" and other nine functions. The connection of large interface applications makes people see a real and tangible "O2O" business empire.Its goal is to connect online and offline, form a mobile ecosystem, create and meet the needs of users at any time.

Most importantly, users will always notice that WeChat is the only entrance.This is something that Weibo, which is more of a media and social platform, cannot do.

☆"Lailian"--Alibaba's big social tool
Driven by the social concept of big data, Ma Yun also took action. In September 2013, Alibaba launched "Lailian", hoping to break the monopoly of WeChat.In order to achieve a high growth rate in a short period of time, Alibaba and Ma Yun have invested considerable energy, and they have taken the initiative to play the role of a challenger.

Ma Yun said: "We want to challenge WeChat and make the impossible possible." The entire Ali Group has begun to focus on the layout of its mobile strategy, because they have long felt the tremendous pressure of WeChat.

Therefore, two months after the launch of "Lailiang", the number of registered users exceeded 1000 million, and the number of daily active users increased by 500%. The number of gatherings created by "Lianglian" users has also exceeded the 10 mark, of which more than 1500 are gatherings with more than [-] people.This is the inevitable choice Jack Ma can make in the context of the development of social big data.Alibaba must join this competition, otherwise it will lose the opportunity to catch up in the future without losing the opportunity.Of course, this will also make our future more exciting, because Weibo, WeChat and "Lailian" are undoubtedly a microcosm of the concept of social networking that has gradually taken shape in recent years. The more intense the competition among them, the more convenience people can enjoy. The more you have, the more social benefits you will have.

☆Graph analysis--from being neglected to big data hotspot
A collection of social tools has a feature that must be paid attention to, that is, the analysis of the relationship graph.

In the past, this was a neglected field, but with the rise of big data, it has become a hot field of big data analysis, which is mainly used to analyze the relationship and similarity between data nodes.Embodied in the social field, it is the graph analysis of interpersonal network relationships in social networks, although the scope of application of graph analysis in a broad sense is broader.

One of its most widespread applications is the marketing value connected and displayed through social technology.As for whether it is really possible to achieve precise marketing, and how to seize the opportunity to successfully upgrade the social market to a marketing market and reflect the marketing value of social tools, it depends on the specific means of operation.

power of relevance
"Real-time search" is currently a hot spot, which displays a series of activity information that people engage in in social networks in real time. It is usually called "activity stream", and it is the data that Internet companies focus on collecting.Real-time search was once called social search, but now it is gradually developing and being used in almost all fields where the web is the application platform.

As a result, social relevance sorting came into being. At this time, when you start searching for "activity stream", the results you get are displayed on the page, and they will no longer be arranged in chronological order, but according to new needs, or Patterns—the relevance of each piece of information to the user's social graph—were arranged.

In other words, those who are closer to you will be in the front, and the things that are more important to you will be in the front, always let you see first, and then prioritize.

☆Based on our friends
We put the people we care about at the top of the search results, which is both customary and obvious that people generally want to do.Most domestic social platforms have launched such applications, but foreign Twitter has not yet adopted them.So, when you do a search on Twitter, the results you get will still be sorted chronologically.

Twitter is so "stubborn" that it deviates from the relevance principles of big data.Because most of the information in the search results comes from strangers rather than acquaintances.We all know that search results are more useful when the listed information comes from people we follow.At the same time, we are also willing to know the latest ideas of our friends and see their latest works or opinions at the first time.

Another social platform, FriendFeed, has adopted this model. It respects relevance and is willing to make people's social tools more closely connected with their friends.For example, FriendFeed will filter the search results according to the user's social graph (contacts and intimacy), and arrange them according to the user's wishes.This is not difficult technically, but also in line with the user's psychology.

People experience the benefits of relevance.On the one hand, we have learned about the people we follow; on the other hand, the relevant data search makes the communication channels of information more convenient, and it is also conducive to the integration of our social graph.Because knowing the information of friends at the first time can help us analyze their status, thoughts and plans for the future.

A more practical benefit is that we can use this to judge: "How is my relationship with him now? Is he cooling me?"

This approach sounds great, and the benefits are desirable, but there is a problem.For example, it may work well when you search for someone because your friend recently published a new book and mentioned your friendship with him in the book.You easily found this through relevance, but many other keywords returned no results.The reason is simple. It is impossible for your friends on this platform and everyone you follow to comment on every topic you are interested in. It is difficult for you to find more reliable or supplementary evidence based on this. the opinion of.

☆Looking for more information sources?
Obviously, our purpose is not to appreciate the magic of correlation, but to obtain more information.This solution is also very easy, which is to integrate other reliable resources, such as broadening our social graph.To put it bluntly, we need to constantly expand our contacts, so that we can have more sources of information and make our network resource pool more diverse.In this way, you can get in touch with different viewpoints, collide with many fields that you lack understanding, and absorb new ideas.

For example, the results you find may not list content from people you follow directly, but it will include other people that those people you follow follow.Relevance is more directly reflected at this time, that is to say, your "friends of friends" will provide more information, which contains the part you need.

Although you don't know these people yourself and don't trust them, the value they provide is the same, and it doesn't lose its positive meaning because of your doubts.The point of relevance is that we can see the point of view of these people, and then open a window to continue to understand them.The next choice is up to you. You can continue to approach, but of course you can also keep a distance.

Another way is to build a circle and integrate people with similar interests on the platform.All social tools have this function, such as Moments of WeChat and Weibo, QQ groups of Tencent, etc., all satisfy this function in different forms.This method has become very common and can help you continuously understand who is similar to you besides your own friends.

Of course, the cost of doing so is relatively high, and it takes a long time.However, with the passage of time and the advancement of technology, this problem will inevitably be better and more fundamentally solved.

communication data
In the future, will our communication be digitized?Yes, when the era of big data is quietly coming to our lives, everyone is closely connected with it.Many people prefer to communicate with others through social networking tools to express their emotions, an expression you often use or a sentence you mention most frequently in a period of time, your online shopping preferences, are you like to buy books, electronic products Or cosmetics, clothes... These seemingly insignificant bits of information are all recorded in digital form, and gradually a huge database will be formed.

(End of this chapter)