Week 2 - Data is the next ‘Intel inside’

In terms of the current trend of web 2.0 application evolution, undoubtedly data play an increasingly significant role in it. To some extent whoever owns data is much more likely to attract particular users and therefore a solid user base is half way done. If an existed social platform need to be chosen to help present the concept, please allow me to pick Douban which is one of the most typical and successful social networking website in China.

This year’s March 6^th just witnessed the decennial of the founding of Douban, again arousing the public debate of the influence that it has brought to the society. Back in 2005, the website started itself from scratch and achieved an early success by empowering users to freely participate in all kinds of shared communities such as creating comments on bestsellers or blockbusters, sharing own experience of shopping or cooking, etc. Since then a whole bunch of user-centered strategies have been adopted naturally and never changed. Today it owns a regular base of over 100 million active users daily which creates most of the real time data and remains the key to its success.

Well it’s not a secret anyway. Everyone knows what Douban is doing and how but I would say the fact that there’s no one else being able to stand out from the market like what it did perfectly reflects on its unique approaches in terms of how to deal with mass data. The key is nothing else than who creates the data as well as who owns the data. Unlike Zhihu, another great example of web 2.0 application famous for sharing questions and answers with each other on a regular basis, Douban simply gives every registered user exactly the same rights to create contents without any restriction, which effectively enhances users’ contribution to the community. It’s known to all that people want their voice heard and so it’s vital for Douban to keep that up and always be the biggest fan of their customers when they’re given a chance to make a difference. By doing so few guys will say ‘No, I don’t intend to post anything’ or something like that, which is why datasets are constantly being built and various data being widely spread. No matter who gets involved, he can be both creator and owner. The best thing is that one can really do something if he wants. Meanwhile, that’s just how users teach themselves to control their own data.

However, nothing is really flawless. Large quantity sometimes inevitably leads to low quality. A film review of an upcoming movie doesn’t make sense to readers because it’s all about the author’s fancy, for instance, but still anyone can post similar articles and more or less others may be misled. Once again data strategy is the key here. Douban is working hard to strike a balance between purifying the data and keeping the users. Obviously it doesn’t want to lose either.

References:

Pic_1: http://www.douban.com/pics/douban3.gif

Pic_2: http://ignitesma.s3.amazonaws.com/ignitewebsite/social-network-analysis-2012/Douban_top_regions_2012.png.png

Pic_3: http://image.slidesharecdn.com/douban-hackathon-111030074413-phpapp01/95/techcrunch-hackathon-douban-api-3-728.jpg?cb=1319979620