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Internet Ecology?#

In simple terms, there are two ecosystems that need to be built: one is the internal ecosystem of enterprises. This ecosystem mainly refers to the need for enterprises to incubate a soft environment for new business entities, shape new teams, provide resources, enhance management awareness, and offer technical platforms. This is essentially a new platform for secondary entrepreneurship within enterprises.

In the past, the internal management ecosystem of enterprises was hierarchical and operated under a closed process control model; however, under the mindset of the internet, management organizations should be flat and open, centered around people, which can stimulate the initiative of employees. The relationship between enterprises and employees will change; previously it was an employment relationship, but now it is a relationship of sharing and cooperation, creating and sharing value together, which is a form of socialized cooperation.

The second is the external ecosystem of enterprises. Traditional enterprises do not have the capability to completely reshape or construct a new business entity in areas such as data services, financial services, warehousing, and logistics. The feasible approach today is to find partners and ecosystems that align with their business model planning.

Under the internet ecology, the relationship between enterprises and users will change; previously, the focus was on producing good products to push to users, but now users need to be involved in the product creation process, making them an important strategic resource within the enterprise. The relationship between enterprises will also change; previously it was competitive, but now it is a collaborative relationship to build an ecosystem together.

Product Ecology#

In the context of the internet, product production and value creation are increasingly becoming socialized and participatory, with the relationship between enterprises and users tending towards equality, interaction, and mutual influence.

AHHHA: Socialized Product Crowdsourcing Platform

The socialized creative crowdsourcing and fundraising platform AHHHA, how can it turn a product idea into reality in a shared ecological environment, where participants are interdependent?

The founding purpose of AHHHA is to help users realize their ideas. Here, you can upload any idea in the form of video or text, interact with other users on the site, provide suggestions, help improve, and vote for ideas that have commercial value. Those ideas that receive more votes have the opportunity to receive funding support, ultimately transforming into actual products, achieving commercialization, and generating profits.

AHHHA has successfully launched multiple products and achieved commercialization. Those who provide creativity, design, production, and funding on the AHHHA platform also have the right to share profits. The platform has also revealed the specific profit-sharing ratio for successful products: the original creator can extract 10% of the profit, the platform charges a fee of 10% to 25%, and the remaining amount is shared among other participants based on their contributions.

In the era of mobile internet, the trend of product ecology is to integrate the capital, intelligence, and resources of product consumers and sellers, designers and manufacturers into a crowdsourced innovation model, or a shared ecology.

Content producers on YouTube, artisans on Etsy (a U.S. online marketplace for handmade goods), and runners on TaskRabbit are examples of participation in product production and service value creation through sharing. When the number of participants in production is sufficient, these platforms can generate powerful forces. For example, Airbnb (a service that connects travelers with homeowners who have spare rooms) matches tourists in need of accommodation with homeowners who have extra rooms to rent. In 2014, approximately 350,000 households provided accommodation for 15 million people through this website. This number is enough to put pressure on the traditional hotel industry.

Content Ecology#

It is generally believed that the successive popularity of Web 2.0 (represented by forums and blogs) and Web 3.0 (represented by social platforms and microblogs) owes much to UGC (User Generated Content). With the development of mobile internet, content creation has further subdivided into Professional Generated Content (PGC) and Organizational Generated Content (OGC), leading to debates over which is mainstream among UGC, PGC, and OGC.

User-oriented content production must establish a virtuous ecosystem involving content producers, content consumers, and content dissemination channels. By using big data mining technology and refined data operations to analyze users' real-time content needs, content producers can curate corresponding content based on this supply-demand relationship, achieving fully user-oriented content creation, rather than overproducing popular and shallow content, thus systematically producing high-quality, valuable, and in-depth content to meet users' personalized interests.

YouTube is the world's largest original UGC video site, with 1 billion users. However, YouTube is facing pressure from both sides: on one hand, copyright video sites like Netflix and Amazon are expanding original content production, diverting users; on the other hand, emerging video sites represented by Facebook are poaching well-known producers or "YouTube stars." In April 2015, YouTube announced new measures to fully fund well-known YouTube creators, encouraging them to produce new video programs and series. This indicates that even the largest UGC video site is beginning to transition from UGC to PGC and self-produced programs.

In 2015, the competition among major domestic video sites has also extended to the PGC field, even elevating it to a core business level. Compared to the UGC model, PGC is more professional, ensuring higher quality and standards of content. Additionally, due to the adoption of traffic and advertising revenue-sharing models, the operational costs of PGC are on par with UGC, but revenues will far exceed those of UGC. While UGC business cannot be abandoned, the task of increasing advertising revenue for video platforms can only be entrusted to high-quality PGC.

Previously, domestic internet video sites that encouraged UGC models have all shifted to PGC, even starting to seize upstream positions in the film and television industry ecosystem by establishing film companies, such as iQIYI's Huace iQIYI Film Company, Youku Tudou's He Yi Film, and LeTV's Flower Film and LeTV Film. They have signed contracts with many well-known directors, with Youku Tudou initially attracting Wong Kar-wai, while LeTV has signed Zhang Yimou and Lu Chuan, and iQIYI has signed Wong Jing.

The difficulty in monetizing UGC's commercial value has led online video sites to transform into PGC.

In response to the arrival of the online content era in the PGC self-media field, Sohu Video proposed a new platform strategy to create knowledge-based videos. In the new video resource era where online content is rising, large dramas and variety shows can no longer meet users' needs, and video content has even transcended entertainment. In the era of knowledge imaging, the fields covered by video programs are vast, ranging from complex higher mathematics to cooking, beauty, and astrology.

After Sohu Video integrated 56.com to strengthen its self-media video field in 2014, the number of self-media producers on Sohu Video has seen explosive growth, with Sohu 56 now hosting 1,800 self-media producers, creating nearly 10,000 programs, and producing 350,000 videos. Meanwhile, the entire platform has a monthly viewership of 600 million and 1.8 billion monthly views. In 2016, Sohu Video plans to allocate 200 million yuan to directly support producers, and in the next three years, it is expected to provide 3 billion yuan in advertising resources for producers, with all utilized resources valued at over 10 billion yuan. The collaboration among Sohu Video, brand owners, and producers aims to form a mature commercial industrial chain.

In the fragmented scenarios of the mobile internet, deep and valuable content becomes increasingly precious. Unlike UGC, PGC has certain advantages as it fundamentally filters content creators, ensuring high-quality content.

The transition from self-organized UGC to commercially operated PGC is also the growth path of new media and self-media brands in the mobile internet era, such as Logic Thinking, Wu Xiaobo, Socket Academy, and Hunter's Door.

Logic Thinking has always been regarded as a model of self-media, but in fact, the Logic Thinking team has been a highly specialized PGC production team from the very beginning. Although everyone wears multiple hats, their roles are clearly defined, comparable to an ordinary magazine or program team. Many public accounts and Weibo accounts that originally belonged to individuals are now also starting to accept submissions, with dedicated teams responsible for operations. More self-media are accelerating their transformation into professional content producers. The transition from UGC to PGC appears to be the entire self-media development history, but it also reveals the development laws of the internet content ecology.

Two Major Characteristics of Ecology

A highly evolved ecosystem should exhibit two major characteristics: one is symbiosis and co-evolution; the other is personalization and diversity.

Symbiosis and co-evolution are the foundations of commercial ecosystems. The pursuit of interests is the original driving force behind the development of human society, especially in the relationships between enterprises. Additionally, under the goal of co-evolution, is it possible for competitive relationships to exist within the same ecosystem? Generally speaking, it should be possible, meaning that any individual or organization in an ecological chain has the potential to be replaced. In fact, in natural ecosystems, symbiosis and competition are also eternal themes.

There are two forms of symbiosis in commercial systems: one is horizontal relationships (i.e., relationships within the same industry) forming industrial clusters within a geographical area. In this clustered area, related enterprises form a larger population, where individuals within the population both leverage each other and compete, thus achieving co-evolution.

The other form of symbiosis refers to vertical relationships (i.e., upstream and downstream industry relationships) forming an industrial chain. This industrial chain changes its structure and the related enterprises within it as the market changes, creating a relationship of both cooperation and competition among the enterprises in the chain. Cooperation is aimed at forming complementary advantages in core businesses to jointly respond to the final product market and jointly produce one or several similar products; competition is aimed at dividing interests along the industrial value chain.

To gain an advantage in the final product market, enterprises in the industrial chain must cooperate, while upstream and downstream enterprises in the chain will inevitably compete due to conflicting interests. This cooperation leads to the coexistence of enterprises in the industrial chain, while competition leads to the optimization of the industrial chain structure. The cooperation and competition among enterprises in the industrial chain lead to symbiosis or common development. For example, the supply chain formed by IBM and its suppliers, original equipment manufacturers, and distribution service providers is a typical co-production industrial chain commercial ecosystem.

Personalization and diversity are the abilities that maintain the continuous evolution of the ecosystem. Each enterprise and product in the ecosystem has its unique position and competitiveness; not only does the ecosystem help individuals grow, but individuals also contribute to the entire ecosystem. The lower the ecological level, the weaker the enterprise's ability to control its own destiny, thus its development increasingly relies on the evolution of the ecosystem.

Under the layout of ecological strategy, the future test is not the ability of enterprises to fight alone, but their ability to collaborate with the entire ecosystem. Future market competition will resemble competition between different commercial ecosystems.

Ecology is divided into three levels: the simplest is the ecological circle, the more complex is the ecological chain, and the ultimate ecological system is the ecological chain + ecological circle.

In traditional industries, the core of manufacturing is to build a flexible, stable, and resilient supply chain; as long as the supply chain operates smoothly, enterprises can produce products normally. The retail industry needs to focus on sales channels; the stronger the sales channels, the more guaranteed the sales. The financial industry relies on a stable capital chain to achieve snowball-like growth.

The internet industry ecosystem is also composed of ecological chains and ecological circles. For example, LeTV's ecosystem consists of a vertically integrated closed-loop ecological chain and a horizontally expanded open ecological circle. LeTV integrates the closed-loop ecological chain through "platform + content + applications + terminals," while the horizontally expanded open ecological circle refers to each link of the vertical closed-loop ecological chain that introduces external resources strongly related to the ecosystem. Currently, LeTV has formed five major ecological circles: internet ("platform + applications"), content, smart terminals, automobiles, and sports, continuously creating new product experiences and higher user value through strong ecological chemical reactions.

Ecological Circle

The ecological circle is based on the mutual value creation among enterprises during their operations, often connected through market relationships. The enterprises and other organizations within the ecological circle have relatively few or limited connections in terms of resource sharing and business activities, while the market connections formed through synergy in the market are the main structure of this type of business system.

WeChat "Consumption + Social" Ecological Circle

During the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2015, WeChat coupons collaborated with the "Golden Room Card" hotel WeChat alliance and 600 hotels from 24 large hotel groups across the country to launch the "WeChat Mooncake Consumption Month" activity. In the WeChat public accounts of hotel groups such as Country Garden and White Swan, mooncakes were turned into WeChat coupons, allowing consumers to purchase gift vouchers for personal use or to give to friends, with the entire process of receiving and sending also completed through the aforementioned public accounts. Buying mooncakes for friends also allows for personal recording of blessings to be sent along with the mooncake vouchers. Interest groups can even be established, voice messages can be sent, and mooncakes can be sent in bulk, gathering users who truly have needs and common interests.

By turning mooncakes into a social tool through WeChat coupons, many people may not eat the mooncakes themselves but may give them to others, and the convenience of transferring WeChat coupons facilitates secondary transfers, achieving a viral marketing effect. WeChat has changed the traditional "search + e-commerce" model, using hotels as operators, and creating a "consumption + social" ecological circle based on WeChat's social, payment, and coupon functions.

Uber "Travel + Social" Ecological Circle

Uber has turned travel into a social experience. Uber provides a platform that offers real-time information about private car drivers and passengers, matching them together. The benefits of the Uber model are not limited to users; it allows idle private car owners to enter the market and gain flexible working hours.

Many high-level white-collar workers and wealthy second-generation individuals are eager to lower their status and become Uber drivers, driving luxury cars without considering costs. Many female college students and white-collar workers are also willing to try riding in high-end cars on Uber to meet "rich and handsome" individuals and expand their social circles. Uber has made travel a pretext, while socializing has become the core, forming a "travel + social" ecological circle through the intersection of lifestyle and transportation.

The laws of commercial ecology have many similarities with those of natural ecological systems. For example, an apple tree absorbs water and inorganic salts from the soil through its roots, while its leaves absorb carbon dioxide from the air to perform photosynthesis, synthesizing organic matter and storing energy to meet its own needs. Through respiration, it decomposes organic matter within itself, releasing energy to meet the needs of its life activities.

The apple tree law in commercial ecosystems is: fruits—upstream of the ecology, including the production of products and content; trunk and branches—midstream of the ecology, including the aggregation and distribution of platforms; roots—downstream of the ecology, including terminal entry points, user communities, and brand building.

The development of the internet and big data is a process of shifting from people searching for information to information searching for people.#

The birth of recommendation engines is a trend from people searching for information to information searching for people. Recommendation engines can understand people's potential needs based on user behavior, attributes, object attributes, content, categories, and social relationships among users, actively recommending objects that users are interested in or need.

Recommendation engine technology has been applied in various industries, including e-commerce, news, and social media. The reason recommendation engines can make recommendations based on social relationship networks is that they analyze the social relationship networks users belong to, finding the users who can most influence them or the users they can most influence, and then make recommendations based on each user's personalized preferences.

The ecological balance in biology refers to a state of mutual adaptation, coordination, and unity between organisms and their environment, as well as among various populations of organisms, achieved through the transfer of energy flow, material flow, and information flow, maintaining a dynamic balance known as ecological balance.

Mutual dependence and mutual restriction reflect the coordinated balance relationship among organisms, which is the foundation of biological systems. This is also true in commercial ecosystems. Each member of the system has its own specific role and performs a certain function, with mutual dependence and mutual restriction among members within the same subsystem, while there are also dependencies and restrictions among members of different systems. The absence of any individual member can cause varying degrees of damage to the entire system, and the co-evolution among members can maintain a certain dynamic balance within the entire commercial ecosystem.

Like species in natural ecosystems, members of commercial ecosystems ultimately share a common fate with the entire commercial ecosystem. However, unlike ecological systems, commercial ecosystems are carefully planned artificial systems with future goals and visions.

Just like human evolution, commercial ecology is also undergoing an evolutionary process from simple to complex, from low-level to high-level, and from inefficient to efficient. Its hierarchy is illustrated below.

(1) Products: The most basic ecological elements, products in the mobile internet era emphasize high frequency, interaction, and content, such as WeChat and mobile QQ in the Tencent ecosystem.

(2) Applications: Applications derived around products make product usage more efficient. For example, WeChat's instant messaging, scanning, shaking, and Moments features, as well as Baidu's voice recognition and facial recognition technologies.

(3) Platforms: When the accumulated applications are sufficient, the demand for interaction and connection between applications arises, leading to the emergence of platforms that support application interactions, such as WeChat's public platform, open platform, enterprise platform, and gaming platform. When a product's market share reaches 30% in the industry or 50% in a segmented market, it meets the conditions to evolve into a platform. Platforms establish rules to regulate applications to better realize product functions, allowing more product-oriented companies to profit on the platform.

(4) Systems: When the functions accumulated on the platform are sufficient, the demand for communication between functions arises, leading to the need for trading products, services, and information. Platforms give rise to various complex commercial systems such as search, social, e-commerce, and finance.

(5) Ecology: The simplest ecology includes applications + content + terminals (or channels) + (cloud) platforms. For example, in the WeChat ecosystem, applications are provided by numerous developers, content is generated by UGC, and distributed to each user, supported by the platform + system. The core of the ecology is big data, dynamically tracking user data and behavior, as well as user metrics, which can predict users' consumption trends in the future, allowing for the provision of optimal products and services based on these trends.

From products to applications, to platforms, to systems, and finally to ecology, each level of upgrade serves as an accelerator for the transformation of the entire ecological value.

The speed of product evolution determines the speed of ecological evolution, while the continuous evolution of the ecology fosters the emergence of more efficient products.

From a human-centric perspective, the governance model of the past economic society was a process of objectifying human communities, which brought about the deconstruction and reconstruction of social economies, leading to modern society where everything is structured, data-driven, and manageable. Communities represent a return to human-centricity, a reconstruction and reorganization of modern industrial communities, allowing technology, data, and management to serve people. Innovative models such as the sharing economy (Airbnb, Uber, etc.), fan economy (Xiaomi, roseonly, etc.), and C2B (group buying, crowdfunding, etc.) have continuously emerged under the community ecology.

The community-oriented brand and product operation of Xiaomi has transformed its supply chain into a dynamic supply chain, and its marketing has become community word-of-mouth marketing, resulting in historic changes at both the front end and back end. Xiaomi promotes productivity transformation based on the innovation of production relationships through the community economy model, which is the ecological play of the mobile internet era.

Value Principles#

The first layer of value in a community is called the channel, which includes three types: communication channels, dissemination channels, and sales channels. In other words, treating the community as a channel to realize the monetization of traffic.

The second layer of value in a community is called the platform. By collecting product usage data and content through the community, rapid optimization and iteration of products can be achieved, leading to multi-centered fission. The next level is the ecological value of the community, which can achieve resource integration, upstream and downstream connectivity in the industrial chain, and even generate new business models through community interactions.

Communities have two core values: one is the innovative orientation based on individual social interactions, where one-way supply and demand satisfaction generates short-circuit value in individual social interactions; the other is the common orientation based on group social interactions, where converging values generate precise projection of segmented value. In simple terms, "segmentation generates markets, and cross-border achieves value."

The core of the community is people; the community is the connection of people. People form a multi-centered and rapidly iterating network structure on the internet, where individuals gathered around each center constitute the community, and individuals within the community are interconnected, forming "microclimates." In the internet era, communities only form due to converging values. The effectiveness of community operation depends on the connection and interaction among internal members. Therefore, communities should allow members to connect and gather fully, as connection generates greater value.

Interesting Principles#

Pine and Gilmore predicted in their book "The Experience Economy": "In the future, economic outcomes will consist of approximately 4% products, 16% services, and 80% experiences." Because products are easily exchangeable or replaceable, services and experiences are where true differentiation and competitiveness lie.

The community economy is a further deepening and extension of the experience economy, forming a new business ecology and operational rules centered around experiences. In the community economy, aesthetic awareness and emotional factors dominate. Human nature inherently has emotional needs for communities, and significant identity recognition and emotional satisfaction arise from community interactions.

With the development of mobile internet technology and the popularity of mobile terminals, ongoing community interactions greatly stimulate users' initiative and creativity, allowing emotions to be released significantly. Fans gather together because they identify with the brand and human brilliance of the community creator, participating in community interactions, exercising autonomy, and contributing creativity. Meeting the emotional experiences of community members becomes the core of community operation. Only by closely grasping users' psychological experiences and emotional demands can extraordinary communities be formed, which is also the significance of the "charming personality" of communities. From Apple to Xiaomi, from Steve Jobs to Lei Jun, from Logic Thinking to Smartisan, they all possess unique personal claims and rich emotional expressions.

Operational Principles#

Communities arise from connections but exist through operations, and they can never exist independently. The operational principles of communities have three core elements.

The first is to clarify the value orientation. What value does the community provide? Present simple and clear goals, achieving them step by step. For many communities, especially large ones, maintaining long-term user engagement and activity will face challenges. Is it to provide a platform for information communication for community members, offer opportunities for growth, or create scenarios that multiply value? Clarifying the value is key to the community's success.

The second is to achieve value output. Demand creates value; a community lacking value output will inevitably lose its foundation for long-term existence. If each community member cannot obtain the value they need within the community, they will inevitably leave. Therefore, emphasizing value output is central to the community.

The third is to establish game rules. The innovative orientation of individual social interactions and the common orientation of group social interactions coexist. Effectively balancing these two needs and maintaining stable community operations is the essence of the rules. Recognized and firmly executed rules are fundamental to maintaining consensus in the community while satisfying individual value needs.

From the operational management team mechanism to daily community operations, and to reward and punishment, incentive mechanisms, etc., all need to be clearly defined and reach a self-operating state, thus enabling decentralization and activating everyone's energy to maximize value.

The survival of the fittest in biological ecology is a passive result of natural selection, relatively stable; while the ecological niche of enterprises is determined by proactive choices and competitive behaviors, often undergoing changes. The position of member enterprises in the commercial ecosystem is a marker of their competitive strength within the system.

As a commercial ecosystem composed of numerous business collectives, it is not a disorganized crowd; its composition adheres to the law of aggregation. Just like in natural ecosystems, for an enterprise to survive, it must differentiate itself from others in a certain space, time, customer base, technology, and management methods, thus avoiding excessive competition.

The accurate positioning of member enterprises in the system not only reduces competition among enterprises but also provides conditions for functional coupling among member enterprises, forming self-circulation and achieving co-evolution.

In the commercial ecosystem, leading enterprises and other collaborators form a system centered around the value chain of production, supply, and sales, with network members forming dynamic strategic alliances across industries under cooperative competition.

The system integrates resources, coordinates capabilities, shares information, and continuously optimizes overall performance and functional levels across broader fields.

Whether in product internet or ecological internet, both represent interrelated, symbiotic relationships rather than competitive or evolutionary processes of upgrading. They are different stages and positions of ecology.

The essence of the mobile internet ecology is monopoly, not competition.#

Monopoly is not a singular type; Google's search engine and Android system represent a high level of technological monopoly, while Apple represents a monopoly on brand momentum in the mobile phone industry. The root of any monopoly lies in the irreplaceability of products in specific fields. Uniqueness inevitably generates value, and the enormous sales profits obtained by monopolistic enterprises are rewards for such unique innovations.

The emergence and existence of monopolies require four essential conditions:

1. A sufficiently large market share, with no challengers;
2. Low collusion costs and penalties, making it worth the risk;
3. Demand is less affected by price fluctuations;
4. Each member of the alliance can resist deception, reject temptation, and never cheat.

From the perspective of internet enterprises, monopolies no longer require alliances. From the channel perspective, the spread of software is broader, and the speed of expansion grows exponentially; the marginal cost of products is nearly zero. This makes it easier for internet products to form monopolies. Daily occurrences such as searches, chats, entertainment sources, and work management have already formed monopolies or are gradually moving towards monopolies. The normalization of monopolistic enterprises in the mobile internet ecology will become a landscape in the future internet industry.

The core of internet ecological thinking is sharing and collaboration.#

From the internet to the mobile internet economy, and then to the O2O of the Internet of Things, future giants like BAT are breaking deadlocks and building commercial connections and value realization channels between internet enterprises and traditional enterprises.

The reconstruction of value transmission from the internet to traditional business ecology#

There are three elements in the value transmission process: information flow, capital flow, and logistics. Connection is the essence of the internet; by providing information and life services, the internet has changed the relationships of mutual connection between people, between people and the world. The internet connects people with information communication technology, connects people with business through network technology, and shortens or reconstructs the commercial value chain of value transmission through the efficiency of connection.

The success of internet giants BAT is based on the reconstruction of commercial value through connection, such as Baidu's search (connecting people with information and services), Alibaba's e-commerce (connecting people with goods), and Tencent's social (connecting people with people).

Follow Media#

Follow's impact on the disruption of traditional business formats is first reflected in the information intermediary industry, such as traditional print media and industries relying on traditional media, such as traditional advertising and public relations. When information can be obtained anytime and anywhere through the internet and mobile internet, the centralized and time-delayed intermediary value of traditional media rapidly depreciates. As the information intermediary industry is also being reconstructed, the advertising and media industry will have to change its business model.

Essentially, the internet solves the problems of information asymmetry and connection and communication. In other words, the emergence and popularization of the internet have completely changed the previously isolated state of traditional industries that could not connect and communicate across regions, times, and industries. This has greatly released the efficiency of enterprises at various stages of the industrial chain, with the changes brought by the internet being a rapid enhancement of communication efficiency. This enhancement reconstructs the commercial value chain by eliminating intermediary links.

Renowned German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies pointed out in his book "Community and Society" that a community is a group built on natural foundations, constrained by human instincts or habits. Blood-related communities, regional communities, and religious communities are the basic forms of communities. However, a community is not merely the sum of its parts; it is an organically growing whole.

Society, on the other hand, is a purpose-driven united community. Modern society consists of various organizations or groups, where individuals are connected by interests and live together in a symbiotic and shared manner. However, due to geographical and technological limitations, connections among individuals are generally intermittent.

Entering the internet era, especially the mobile internet era, the connection between people anytime and anywhere through network information technology has become possible, leading to the gradual formation of online communities and groups. People gather around a common topic or interest, seeking like-minded individuals and a sense of identity and belonging.

With the rise of mobile social media, we can pay attention to social relationships between people anytime and anywhere, and the construction of these social relationships is also creating unexpected commercial value. In essence, socializing is about sharing (personal value) and sharing information (value exchange), which is also the essence of social interaction in the mobile internet era.

From the perspective of the entire human historical development process, in primitive societies, the survival mechanism relied on a social mechanism based on full sharing and barter. In the second stage of human evolution, the social mechanism emerged based on private property rights, which is a social and economic system based on exclusivity.

Now, in the current mobile internet stage, the spirit of openness and sharing will revive once again, as people are increasingly willing to share and display their emotional expressions, personal skills, and connections to others. People gradually connect through their social relationships to establish a common social obligation and code of conduct. In this sense, people express their state of existence and showcase their value through self-sharing, and the social relationships of the mobile internet era are built on this social psychological foundation.

Personal relationship chains and communities are the two most common forms in social networks. If we think of these two forms as two typical scenarios in social networks, they are friends and groups/tribes. This is reflected in social products, one type being products like WeChat and Weibo that focus on individual users engaging in various social behaviors; the other type being products like Douban and Tieba that focus on circles and topics, based on topics and circles to obtain information and find interesting people or things, thereby better expanding their social circles, also known as vertical social products.

Based on the dimensions of strong and weak relationships and virtual and real, four types of social relationships can be identified. The first type is socializing among acquaintances in virtual network spaces; the second type is socializing among strangers in virtual network spaces; the third type is socializing among strangers in reality; and the fourth type is socializing among acquaintances in reality.

In the first type, based on the acquaintance relationship chain in virtual network spaces, many mature models can already be seen. For example, through social websites and apps like Facebook, Renren, QQ, and WeChat, we constantly update our current status while sharing social information about friends, colleagues, and family. This is a typical way of interaction in the acquaintance relationship chain within internet social products.

Often, many internet products or applications help us further strengthen relationships among acquaintances, such as the once-popular QQ Space games like "抢车位" (抢车位) and "偷菜" (stealing vegetables), and WeChat's "打飞机" (shooting planes) game, which are all typical internet applications based on enhancing acquaintance networks and interest sharing.

Looking ahead, the commercial value development based on the strong relationship chain of acquaintances in virtual spaces still holds very promising prospects. For instance, acquaintances can almost instantly share their experiential content with good friends. Additionally, the development of H5 games based on acquaintance social circles will also be a very important direction. People can satisfy their entertainment needs through games, but more importantly, they can enhance their acquaintance networks through this entertainment, expressing their care for friends and family through the strength of relationships in the strong relationship chain.

From the perspective of social relationship development, the evolution of weak relationship chains in virtual spaces differs significantly from that of strong relationship chains. This is because people are less likely to pay attention to the emotional changes of strangers; what they truly need is the expansion of interpersonal scope brought by weak relationship chains and the value exchange conducted through weak relationship chains.

After segmenting needs and focusing on interests, people can often further achieve value exchanges. For example, people can recommend products to each other or engage in second-hand transactions within a weak relationship chain, and although this transaction is based on a weak relationship chain, it still has a certain relationship as its foundation, which is stronger than that between two complete strangers.

Therefore, on one hand, some weak relationship chains in virtual spaces will gradually develop transactional demands in e-commerce; on the other hand, e-commerce enterprises will further strengthen their layout in social relationships within virtual spaces.

Thus, the RSS social ecology is based on three elements: values, value, and interests. That is, what you recognize, what you need, and what you focus on. The realization method is data.#

How to present information

Information does not have to be published through advertisements or news; activities, surveys, and games can also be good ways to publish.

If it is just information pushing, that is advertising; if comments can be left, that is interaction. After interaction, a new content dissemination circle can be formed with other users, allowing users to participate in the content.

Scene selection: Does the user have the usage scenario corresponding to the pushed information?

Dissemination methods: How to integrate resources to maximize dissemination value.

Regarding comments, socializing will no longer be limited by time and space; socializing will develop in two directions: one is open socializing based on demand; the other is private socializing based on relationships.

Does socializing form communities? In simple terms, it is the mutual exchange and sharing of a common interest or hobby in a certain geographical or virtual area, transitioning from strangers to familiarity, gathering members to participate in various meaningful activities, and gradually establishing interpersonal relationships to gain a sense of belonging and mutual recognition within the area, thus forming a social group.

The main functional categories of communities include communication and learning, social networking, business promotion, investment and financing, education and training, and public welfare. In the future, communities will gradually transition from interest and relationship aggregation to user development and industry resource integration, while vertical industries will achieve value extension through community formation, and the dividends of the community economy will gradually penetrate all industries.

The community ecological circle has three basic characteristics:

1. It has common interests, benefits, values, or goals and programs. In simple terms, it is the tone and quality, where group members have effectively differentiated through programs and tones, essentially allowing people with similar attributes to come together, which is the foundation of the community.

2. It has highly efficient collaborative tools. This is also why communities were relatively difficult to establish in the PC era; in the mobile internet era, real-time interactive tools like WeChat make collaboration very easy.

3. It has consistent actions. Due to the previous two reasons, consistent actions become relatively easy, and this consistency also promotes the stability of the community. (This is why exams are conducted to obtain invitation codes.)

Interest aggregation, communication collaboration, and commercial realization are the three core functions of community ecology. Based on interest aggregation to attract users and content sedimentation to retain users, through innovative communication and collaboration models, continuously enhancing user participation, connection, and trust, activating fan economy and sharing economy, is the basic model for community value realization.

Community value realization can be divided into two major levels: platform channels and industrial ecology. The channel value is mainly reflected in dissemination, traffic guidance, public relations, interaction, etc.; from the perspective of the industrial ecology value chain, communities can achieve low-cost, high-efficiency integration of industry resources, connecting upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, realizing multi-level integration from resource suppliers, channel providers, competitive partners to user markets.

Communities will continue to achieve explosive growth, penetrating more fields and more fragmented markets; strong communities dominated by the elite class will continue to expand their influence, while decentralized grassroots communities will become the backbone; communities targeting niche users will become breakthrough points for innovative development.

Social stratification is a sociological concept that refers to the classification of people into different groups based on common socio-economic wealth status, involving a series of relational social inequalities, including ideological, political, economic, and social aspects. When differences arise among people, and such differences lead to some individuals possessing superior status, power, and privileges over others, this is referred to as social class (or social stratification). Society classifies various people into hierarchical classes or ranks (hierarchies).

Social class has four important basic principles: first, social class not only reflects individual differences among people but also characterizes the entire society. Second, social class can be transmitted through generations. Third, social class is universal but can change. Fourth, social class involves not only social inequality but also people's beliefs. In contemporary Western society, social stratification is increasingly evident.

New platforms and models of communities are continuously emerging and spreading, with community organizational structures and distributions exhibiting various new characteristics; coordination and linkage among communities will become closer, forming large community alliances in vertical fields; the flexible, personalized, and dynamic distribution characteristics of communities will become prominent, gradually penetrating into various aspects of social livelihood and industrial chains.

In the process of information dissemination, individuals are increasingly playing important roles, with each person possessing multiple attributes as information receivers, disseminators, and producers. As the basic unit of social relationships and production activities, people not only connect with information, services, and each other but also begin to become individual information dissemination centers and resource connection nodes.

The functional relationship of internet media with traditional media is one of complete replacement, not complementarity. Internet media can carry all forms of news production, including text, video, and audio, and the dissemination effect is better, more convenient, timely, and rapid.

When people with similar interests and conditions gather on social platforms to form communities, the community itself possesses strong capabilities for content generation and dissemination. Communities can be aggregated based on interests, behaviors, relationships, regions, products, etc., playing an important role in information dissemination across different dimensions.

Many internet users join communities to obtain the information they need and are interested in. As the number of internet communities gradually increases, communities with different levels and attributes have become important mediums for public information and opinions, and communities have also become the main way for individuals to participate in information production.

The internet is built on attention (traffic) and reputation (connections); only internet products possessing both can hold value and achieve commercial success.

As the advertising slogan goes, "Even the smallest individual has their own brand," self-media must establish their own media brand, build their credibility, and establish their dissemination power.

Ultimately, media serves the public. After building a personal brand through self-media, some media professionals can gain monetization opportunities, such as lecturing, becoming company consultants, endorsing products, or even forming communities to create their own business models.
Information decision-making is increasingly based on the concept of nurturing communities and value recognition to pay membership fees; the group is a community based on values.
User behavior and consumption patterns are also evolving. The original AIDMA and AISAS models can no longer adapt to the realities of marketing communication in the mobile internet era. In the mobile internet era, user behavior's consumption model is shifting towards the SICAS model. Future marketing models should fully utilize data and technology to achieve real-time perception, responsive actions, multi-point bidirectional connections, and emotional marketing.

That is, attracting attention (attention) → generating interest (interest) → actively searching (search) → prompting action (action) → sharing information (share).

The SCIAS theory is active searching (search) → comparing with similar items (compare) → generating interest (interest) → prompting action (action) → showcasing treasures (show).

The combination of the internet and emotional marketing seems to have become the successful formula in the mobile internet era. Traditional enterprises typically undergo a lengthy process to establish their brand, including building recognition, reputation, and loyalty; however, in the mobile internet era, product recognition is not the most important factor. What matters more is psychological affinity, identity recognition, product topics, and word-of-mouth dissemination. In the internet era, it is not the product's flaws that are feared, but the lack of highlights that fail to spark discussions; enterprises that cannot generate discussions online find it difficult to succeed.

Sexual marketing naturally attracts the audience's attention. However, using sexual marketing strategies must adhere to two basic premises: first, sexuality is merely a means, not an end; second, the product being promoted must have a certain relevance to sexuality, otherwise, it will only promote sexuality without promoting the brand. In terms of using sexual marketing strategies, Durex is a master. The right scale, moderate depth, timely engagement with hot topics, and sustained impact make Durex a typical representative of social media sexual marketing.

Interest marketing
The understanding of the term "interest" should encompass two levels: emotion and fun. Emotion refers to feelings and moods, while fun refers to interest and enjoyment. Emotions are multifaceted, encompassing joy, sadness, affection, and dislike. Interest refers to the more positive aspects of emotions, much like a person possessing a humorous and witty character.

Discovering Product Needs from Human Nature#

In the 13th century, Dominican priest Thomas Aquinas listed the most primitive desires of humanity, or what could be called original sins, including vanity, laziness, greed, lust, anger, envy, and jealousy. These primitive desires are deeply ingrained in every individual's heart from birth.

Today, the internet has become as essential to our lives as water and air, with a plethora of products available. However, nearly all successful products leverage weakness marketing, targeting human weaknesses and igniting desires.

Human nature possesses both innate goodness and acquired evil; here, we do not intend to delve deeply into human nature. However, from the perspective of product development, enterprises should fully recognize and utilize human weaknesses to design product functions.

The manifestation of human nature in internet products includes: (1) Lust: Combining LBS (Location-Based Services) with social behaviors based on common preferences is a primary need for users to make friends, such as adult websites, YY, Momo, Dance Party, Douban groups, etc. (2) Vanity: Helping users fulfill their desire for beauty and showiness, using user level stratification strategies, such as QQ membership and game character levels. (3) Greed: Offering users more than expected, making them feel they got a great deal, such as e-commerce and group buying websites. (4) Laziness: Laziness is reflected in products as not needing to think, lowering barriers, allowing users to experience convenient, lightweight, and simple operations, such as Weibo and online shopping. (5) Jealousy: Jealousy, like greed, arises from unfulfilled desires. Greed is usually related to material possessions, while jealousy relates to others' successes and other spiritual aspects, and social networks connect the world's jealousy.

Of course, in addition to the relatively dark sides, human nature also has many beautiful aspects, such as justice, compassion, gratitude, and love. By deeply exploring and providing corresponding functions and services of products to meet users' spiritual and material needs, is a fundamental element for the success of internet products.

A successful product must include five elements: common interests, structure, operation, output, and replication.#

Gathering Common Interests

The essence of community formation lies in the relationship connections formed by common interest tags among its members. For example, similar products, similar interests, similar tags, similar professions, similar emotional groups, similar values, etc.

Effectively Planning Structure

The second element of community composition is structure, which determines the community's survival.

Many communities quickly fall silent because they initially did not effectively plan the community's structure, which includes member composition, communication platforms, rules and regulations, and content topics. The better these four structural components are managed, the longer the community will thrive.

(1) Members: The most core element in the community's structure is its members. A community needs not only a central figure but also opinion leaders and active participants.

(2) Platform: The platform is the carrier that allows the community to exist, and all members must and can only communicate and interact through the platform. The platform can be further divided into online platforms and offline meeting and communication platforms. Offline activities aim to increase contact points and frequency of contact between fans and between fans and the company.

(3) Rules: A community consists of diverse members, and different people naturally have different opinions and ideas. Therefore, if a community wishes to operate normally and healthily, it must establish corresponding rules and regulations, set entry barriers, and filter out individuals who do not belong to the community.

(4) Content: The initial intention of establishing a community may simply be to facilitate communication and interaction among members with similar interests and hobbies. However, as the number of members in the community increases, commercial activities will inevitably arise. The success of these commercial activities is due to planning topics that can generate widespread interest among members. In this sense, the essence of community marketing is scenarization, and the only thing that can create scenarization in the group is the topic.

Good Operations#

Good community operations are the basic premise for commercial activities to intervene. In the process of community operations, the following four basic elements should be primarily grasped:

(1) Sense of Honor: This refers to granting honors to members who contribute to the community's growth or are willing to share their personal resources with the community, including symbols for experts/loyal fans, initiation ceremonies, etc.

(2) Sense of Participation: The sense of participation has two aspects: one is participation in the product, i.e., interacting with users to improve the product, with examples being product-oriented communities like Xiaomi's community. The second is participation in marketing, relying on users' word-of-mouth to enhance dissemination and marketing, allowing users to feel a sense of participation, which is almost a necessary path for users to become fans. Users also need this sense of achievement from participation. Whether it is a heated debate on Weibo or a post in a forum, these are effective forms of participation, and the premise is to design open nodes, i.e., which links to open up for user participation.

(3) Sense of Organization: The various activities conducted by the community online and offline must have clear purposes and detailed norms, especially in commercial activities where it is essential to promptly digitize the operational process of activities and provide feedback.

(4) Sense of Belonging: When the above three points are well managed, a sense of belonging will naturally arise.

Stability must provide members with stable service output, which is the value for members to join and stay in the group. For example, Luo Pang insists on delivering a voice message every day, Da Xiong regularly shares valuable content, Qiu Ye offers courses and hands-on practice, and certain industry groups can regularly take orders.

Product output and user benefit returns. Product output includes products, crowdfunding, etc., while user benefit returns include distribution, product trials, etc.

Easily Replicable

Since the core of the community is emotional belonging and value recognition, the larger the community, the greater the possibility of emotional fragmentation. If a community can successfully replicate multiple parallel communities, it will form a massive scale, inevitably achieving a balance between emotional belonging and value recognition.

The replication of products must be prepared on three levels.

(1) Creation of the Core Layer: Has a self-organization been established? Are there sufficient human, financial, and material resources? It cannot revolve too much around the center but also cannot lack organization entirely.

(2) Formation of Subculture: Is the value proposition of the product clear? Is there a consistent attitude towards the product? Are there relatively fixed community rules? Has a subculture of group communication formed, such as whether the tone and style of expression in conversations are consistent? These are all core elements of community vitality.

(3) Cultivation of Multi-Centers: Has a core group been formed? There should be a certain number of core members who can join as seed users of the community, guiding the product to develop positively.

The world of information aggregation on the internet is akin to a cocktail party. The cocktail party metaphor applies not only to internet social media but also to all enterprises and our daily lives. Indeed, it has been proven that internet social media, enterprises, and daily life are not much more complex than a cocktail party.

At a cocktail party, those who listen, tell great stories, respond actively, are sincere, passionate, and grateful will repeatedly become the stars of the gathering and gain the most value from it. Those who are direct, transparent, know how to keep things simple, and always bring surprises are the people worth engaging with. Those who can go with the flow (adapt) and know how to act within a group are the ones you want to develop into your circle. Such individuals can also succeed in the vast cocktail party known as the business world. When faced with rapid decisions, regardless of whether the decision is big or small, it might be worth asking yourself, "Would this be a winning decision at a cocktail party?" If the answer is a resounding "yes," then you might be onto something. If you are unsure, perhaps you need to rethink your decision. Yes, it really is that simple.

1. The market is a dialogue.
2. The market is composed of specific individuals, not abstract groups derived from market statistics.
3. Dialogues between people sound human, and such dialogues are conveyed in a human voice.
4. Whether conveying information, opinions, views, dissent, or humorous asides, the characteristics of a human voice are: openness, simplicity, and authenticity.
5. People establish recognition through this human voice.
6. The internet allows free communication between people, something that was impossible in the era of mass media.
7. Hyperlinks have disrupted strict hierarchies.
8. Customers on the internet, as well as employees within companies, are communicating in a powerful new way.
9. This online communication fosters the emergence of strong new social organizations and new forms of knowledge exchange.
10. As a result, customers are becoming increasingly savvy, well-informed, and organized. Participating in the online market has fundamentally transformed people.
11. Those participating in the online market have realized that the information and assistance they receive from each other far exceed what businesses provide.
12. There are no secrets. Online customers know more about a company's products than the company itself. Regardless of whether the news is good or bad, online customers will make it known to the world.
13. The changes in customers are also occurring among employees; "the company" is merely an abstract concept between customers and employees.
14. The tone of a company's voice differs from these new forms of online communication. When a company speaks to potential online audiences, it sounds hollow, superficial, and cold.
15. In a few years, the current prevalent business tone—such as corporate mission statements and marketing manuals—will sound as artificial as the language of the 18th-century French court.
16. Companies that use bombastic, circus-like language will find no audience.
17. If companies believe that online customers are no different from those accustomed to watching product TV ads, they are deceiving themselves.
18. If companies fail to realize that their customers have transformed into internet-savvy individuals, learning to engage deeply in communication, they will miss opportunities.
19. Today, companies can communicate directly with customers. If they mess up this opportunity, there won't be a second chance.
20. Companies need to understand that their customers often mock them, and they are the target of that mockery.
21. Companies need to loosen up and not always maintain a serious facade; they should have a sense of humor.
22. Having a sense of humor does not mean putting some jokes on the company website; it should focus on important values, humility, frankness, and genuine opinions.
23. Companies trying to position themselves need to choose a stance that aligns with what their customers truly value.
24. Overblown self-promotion—"Our positioning is to become an excellent supplier in a certain field"—does not indicate a clear stance.
25. Companies should step out of their ivory towers and engage with those they wish to establish business relationships with.
26. Public relations are unrelated to the public; companies feel intimidated when facing customers.
27. By using dull, self-righteous language, companies erect barriers that keep customers at bay.
28. Most marketing plans are based on a fear that customers will discover the real situation within the company.
29. The most accurate statement is: "If we harbor suspicion, we cannot coexist."
30. Customer loyalty to a company means stable performance, but the relationship is bound to break, and this outcome can happen at any time. Because customers are now connected to the internet, savvy customers can quickly renegotiate business relationships.
31. Online customers can switch suppliers overnight, and employees may fire their bosses over lunch. Your layoff measures raise the question: "Loyalty? What is that?"
32. Savvy customers will seek suppliers who speak their language.
33. Learning to speak in a human voice cannot be acquired in some high-level meetings.
34. To speak in a human voice, companies must genuinely consider their customer base.
35. But first, companies should join the customer community.
36. Companies must ask themselves: Where are the boundaries of our corporate culture?
37. If their corporate culture does not resonate with the customer community, they will have no customers.
38. The foundation for mutual recognition and group formation among people is dialogue—expressing human sentiments regarding issues of concern.
39. This communicative group is the trading counterpart.
40. Companies that do not belong to any communicative group will not survive.
41. Companies are eager to maintain secrecy, but to a large extent, this is unnecessary. Most companies are less vigilant against their competitors than they are against their own customers and employees.
42. Employees within companies also communicate directly through the internet, discussing topics beyond rules, directives, and profit margins.
43. Nowadays, such conversations only occur within a company's internal network, provided everything is normal.
44. Companies often tightly control their internal networks to disseminate human resources policies and other company information, while employees tend to ignore these as much as possible.
45. Internal company networks can become dull and tedious, which is natural. The best internal networks are spontaneously built by busy employees who want to create something more valuable: internal communication dialogues.
46. A well-functioning internal network can organize employees in various ways, with results that surpass any organizational agenda.
47. Although this makes clueless companies anxious, they also rely on internal networks to generate and share important information. They always want to "improve" or control these network dialogues, but they should abandon this urgent need.
48. When a company's internal network is not constrained by fear and regulations, the way employees communicate will resemble conversations in the online market.
49. The hierarchical structure of companies used to work within traditional economies; in steep management pyramids, plans could be fully understood, and detailed work instructions would be communicated from top to bottom.
50. Today, corporate organizational structures are organized by hyperlinks rather than vertically; respect for practical knowledge outweighs respect for abstract authority.
51. The management style of domination and control stems from and reinforces bureaucratic tendencies, power desires, and paranoid cultures.
52. Paranoia stifles communication dialogues. Without open communication, companies will not survive.
53. Two types of dialogues are taking place: one internal to the company and one among customers.
54. In most cases, both dialogues do not proceed smoothly, and the reasons for failure can almost always be traced back to outdated notions of domination and control.
55. As policies, these notions are quite harmful; as means, they have lost their effectiveness. Domination and control will be met with hostility among knowledge workers in corporate internal networks and will arouse suspicion among customers on the internet.
56. These two dialogues are willing to communicate with each other; they speak the same language and recognize each other's tones.
57. Savvy companies will proactively yield and help facilitate inevitable occurrences.
58. If a company's willingness to yield is used as a measure of intelligence, very few companies possess such wisdom.
59. Although companies have not yet realized it, internet users see companies as peculiar virtual entities that actively prevent these two dialogues from intersecting.
60. This is tantamount to suicide, as customers want to communicate with companies.
61. Sadly, the role that companies play in the communication that customers desire often hides behind aggressive marketing and falsehoods.
62. Customers are unwilling to communicate with salespeople; they want to engage in dialogues behind the company's firewall.
63. Stop hiding; step out like a normal person: We are customers, and we want to talk to you.
64. We want to know your company's information, your plans and strategies, your best ideas, and your real information. We will not be satisfied with four-color printed brochures or superficial websites lacking substantive content.
65. We are also employees who ensure your company operates well, and we want to speak directly with consumers, not recite clichés.
66. Whether as customers or employees, we are fed up with obtaining information through remote means. Why should we introduce each other through anonymous annual reports and third-party market surveys?
67. As customers and employees, we want to know why you are unwilling to listen; what you say sounds like another language.
68. What you boast about in the media and at conferences has nothing to do with us.
69. Perhaps you impress investors and Wall Street, but you do not impress us.
70. If you cannot impress us, your investors will lose their investments; do they not understand this? If they did, they would not allow you to speak that way.
71. Your stale marketing concepts fail to capture our attention. In your plans, we see no place for ourselves—perhaps because we have found better places elsewhere.
72. We prefer this new market; in fact, we are creating it.
73. Welcome to join, but this is our territory; please take off your shoes before entering. If you want to do business, put away your lofty attitude!
74. We are not swayed by advertising; stop thinking about advertising.
75. If you want us to communicate with you, then start by telling us something. To facilitate communication, share something interesting.
76. We have some thoughts for you too. We need new tools, better services—essentially, things we are willing to pay for. Can we talk sometime?
77. You are busy doing business and have no time to reply to our emails? That's unfortunate; we'll come back later. Hopefully, we will return.
78. You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention.
79. We want you to shed illusions, escape neurotic narcissism, and join our party.
80. Don't worry; you can still make money. That is, provided you do not only think about making money.
81. Have you noticed that money, in itself, is somewhat dull? Can we talk about something else?
82. Your product broke; why? We want to ask the person who made it. Your company's business strategy is unreasonable. We want to talk to your president; what do you mean he is not available?
83. We hope you value us, your 50 million customers, as much as you value a reporter from The Wall Street Journal.
84. We know some people in your company who perform excellently online. How many talents like this do you have hidden? Can they come out to play with us?
85. Whenever we encounter problems, we seek help from each other. If you do not manage your people too tightly, perhaps they will fall within our range of assistance.
86. When we are no longer busy being your target customers, many of us are your employees. We prefer to chat online with friends rather than stare at the clock waiting for work to end. This will spread your reputation more widely than spending millions of dollars on a website. But you tell us that talking to customers is the marketing department's job.
87. If you can recognize this situation, we will be pleased; that would be really nice. But if you think we are holding our breath waiting, you are making a big mistake.
88. We have better things to do. Whether you can timely shift your mindset to do business is not our concern. Business is just a part of our lives. It seems that business is everything to you. Think carefully: who is indispensable?
89. We hold the real power, and we know it. If you cannot see this, others who are more attentive and pleasant to work with will emerge.
90. Even if it is not the case, our newly established communication will be more interesting than most business performances and more entertaining than any TV series, certainly more realistic than any corporate website we have seen.
91. We are loyal to ourselves, our new allies, acquaintances, and even our adversaries. Companies that cannot play such roles have no future.
92. Many companies have spent billions of dollars on the millennium crisis; why did they not hear the ticking time bomb of "customers"? This time, the danger is even greater.
93. We exist both inside and outside of companies. The boundaries that isolate our dialogues look like the Berlin Wall; these boundaries are annoying and useless, and we know they will collapse. We will push from both sides to facilitate their collapse.
94. For traditional enterprises, online communication may seem confusing and frustrating, but we establish order faster than traditional enterprises. We have better tools and more new ideas, with no outdated practices holding us back.
95. We are awakening and establishing connections with each other. We are observing, but we will not wait.

Decentralization#

1. Provide individuals with means to manage their relationships with various organizations. These means are personal, meaning they belong to individuals and are under their control. They can also be socialized, meaning individuals can use these means to connect with others and support collective organization and activities, but they must first be personalized.

2. Make individuals the collection center of their own data, so that transaction histories, health records, membership details, labor contracts, and other types of personal data do not become scattered across numerous basements.

3. Empower individuals with the ability to selectively share data without disclosing information they do not wish to reveal.

4. Empower individuals to control how their data is used by others and for how long. This control includes reaching agreements with users: once the relationship ends, the user should delete that individual's data.

5. Empower individuals to set their own service terms, reducing or eliminating the need for unreadable, oppressive service terms set by various organizations.

6. Provide individuals with means to express their personal needs in the market without disclosing personal information.

7. Use open standards, open APIs (application programming interfaces), and open source code as the foundation for relationship management. Countless new enterprises and commodified social tools will emerge as a result.

The so-called privacy, confidentiality, and security measures are mostly artificially created scarcities destined to fail. There is only one way to keep secrets: tell no one. The internet is completely contrary to this; it is like a giant copying machine, as Kevin Kelly reminds us. What happens when you connect something to the internet? It becomes easier for people to copy it. People have recognized this problem and have tried to intervene to make copying increasingly difficult. Where there are artificially created scarcities, there will always be those who create abundance in response, so artificially creating scarcity is destined to fail.#

This is precisely the work that social media is doing, breaking down artificially created scarcities. The artificially scarce situation has harmed many organizations. Exclusive reporting was once the core concept of traditional journalism, and this is a typical example of artificially creating scarcity. Soon, this will become a thing of the past.

The operational costs of social software are often very low. Costs and value exist in how people use the software and in the content they contribute and share. We once introduced communication software within the company, and not long after, I received a representative email: "Start a blog."

The first force is consumers' demand for simplicity and convenience, as people increasingly value their time. This has led to a demand for self-service, which in turn gives consumers control. Self-service examples are crucial to "internetism." Over the years, through conversations with several authors, I have increasingly realized this. For consumers, DIY (do it yourself) is undoubtedly a good thing. DIY contains no artificially created scarcity.

The second force is the development of open multi-sided platforms in business, based on a profound understanding of what Doc Searls calls the "Because Effect." If something is scarce, you can make money from it; scarcity has market value. If something is abundant, you can profit from it, but not by exploiting it. Google and Amazon have made money from the Linux operating system, but they do not profit from using the Linux system.

In summary: barriers are collapsing. As goods become increasingly commonplace, and as the "Because Effect" gains more influence in the industry, consumers are reclaiming their voices. The new generation of youth is participating in work under these circumstances, and they have tools that are more conducive to collaboration, making it all set for "internetism" to enter people's offices soon.