Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

One of the most fascinating things about technology is that it can reach people's emotional nerves as an absolutely rational existence.

Especially in recent years, according to the 2018 Global Innovation Index released by the World intellectual property Organization, China has been among the top 25 in the global innovation list since 2016 and has continued to rise to 17th in 2018. From the criticized "Copy to China" to now in 5G, artificial intelligence, aerospace and other new technologies to achieve independent innovation, become the protagonist on the world stage. The national pride awakened by this process is irreplaceable for achievements in other fields.

As Zhihu CTO Li Dahai said at the recent Oxford China Forum: on the issue of China's scientific and technological development, Zhihu has reached a consensus-if compared horizontally on a global scale, China is already a scientific and technological power in essence. The development of science and technology in China is in an important period from the accumulation of quantity to the leap of quality, the breakthrough of point to the improvement of system capability.

The formation of this consensus is not only because of the breakthroughs in scientific and technological achievements, but also reflected in the national concern and participation on scientific and technological topics.

Zhihu, as a question-and-answer community, is a good example. if we look at the development track of Zhihu in the past eight years, we will find that Zhihu is actually an interesting sample in the process of scientific and technological development in China. we can try to analyze this technological waltz from Zhihu's three roles in the technology industry.

A supplier of multiple kinetic energy, dancing hand in hand with science and technology

People who know Zhihu must know that from the beginning of the invitation system to today's 220 million users, Zhihu, as one of the earliest question-and-answer communities in China, has undergone great changes in its own functional settings.

We all know that Zhihu adopted the invitation registration system at the beginning, and the people who were invited were basically elite experts from various industries, especially in the field of science and technology. At the beginning, in the stage of gathering elite talents, Zhihu assumed the role of most Internet platforms as a question-and-answer community: establishing a platform, breaking through physical restrictions, and helping people in a certain circle to communicate more smoothly.

People like Kaifu Lee and keso, who are well-known to us, have collided a lot of knowledge and ideas on this platform.

Gradually to the stage of open registration and the growth of users, Zhihu has begun to assume the new function of the flow of scientific and technological knowledge.

Ordinary users can also participate in the discussion, realizing the transfer of experience and knowledge. Let ordinary people have a deeper understanding of the technology industry in this way. For example, in 2017, highly professional questions such as gravitational waves, superbugs and head-changing attracted not only relevant practitioners to answer, but also a large number of ordinary users to participate in discussions, comments and likes.

It can be said that Zhihu has built a bridge between ordinary users and science and technology Daniel, creating a pipeline for scientific and technological knowledge from high mountains to ridges, and realizing the generalized expression of professional scientific and technological content.

In recent years, after the introduction of the concept of organization number and brand number, we can see that a large number of technology enterprises, authoritative media and even research institutions have settled in Zhihu. Just like the Google developer Center chose to enter Zhihu as an organization number, through Zhihu to answer questions for Chinese developers and output first-line technical and product knowledge.

These accounts not only output more authoritative content, but also make Zhihu a collision field of scientific and technological knowledge between China and the world through interaction with users.

From the collision between technology KOL users, to the communication between technology KOL and ordinary users, and then to the content output of authoritative organization number. Nowadays, the topic of science and technology has become the category with the largest scale, the richest system and the most discussion, providing all kinds of momentum for the development of science and technology in China.

How can navigators on expedition around the world get around the reef?

In addition to providing the momentum of scientific and technological development with the help of the functionality of the platform, Zhihu's own application of cutting-edge technologies such as AI over the years is also very experimental.

There are several hidden reefs on the voyage road from a small community with strong professionalism and limited topic to a large community with numerous contents and a large number of users. In retrospect, many platforms hit the rocks in the process.

1. The content volume is growing rapidly, and the operation ability can not keep up with it.

Mass users bring more content, and naturally dilute the density of high-quality content. If the operation editor can not do the timely review and selection at this time, it will give users the impression that "the xx forum has changed" or "the content quality of the xx platform" has declined.

2. The categories of users are complicated, and the atmosphere in the community tends to be tense.

A major feature of the small community platform is that the user category is simple. For example, Tiger Pop has concentrated a large number of "straight male" users, while Xiaohongshu has concentrated female users. If users expand to more categories, it is easy to cause the departure of a certain type of users or conflicts between different types of users.

3. It is difficult to expand the new revenue model, and the new method of playing is not accepted by users.

The next step of community expansion must be to create a new game to expand the means of income, if the new game is not accepted by users, the community will not be able to bear the huge operating costs, and finally be burdened by the expansion of operation.

Several iconic technological upgrades in Zhihu this year have precisely bypassed these reefs.

On the road of growth from 2014 to 2019, Zhihu has applied a large number of technical means to deal with the problems in four areas: content production, content consumption, user connection and content governance.

For example, in 2014, Zhihu introduced a machine learning algorithm to implement a user topic weight mechanism to help a large number of users obtain information more efficiently; the "question routing" technology that was later developed and put into application can quickly distribute questions to users who are suitable to answer, invigorate the community atmosphere quickly, and reduce the situation in which no questions are answered and Daniel is not invited.

When the number of Zhihu users increased further around 2016, Zhihu launched the algorithmic robot Wall-E, which can identify and handle unfriendly comments, unasked comments, and even weird content in real time, helping to maintain the overall community atmosphere.

Including the late Zhihu Live, private classes and other new product promotion, but also the use of the home recommendation system "crystal ball" to break the idleness of user traffic. At the same time, "Crystal Ball" combined with Zhihu search can also achieve a content recommendation system with thousands of people and thousands of faces, helping users to get more content they are interested in on the home page.

From a technical point of view, many other content communities are applying algorithms with similar functions. But what is special about Zhihu is that it is not only using AI to solve problems when they arise, but constantly introducing new technologies to promote its own development.

It can be said that Zhihu itself is an ecological experimental field of AI.

The experimenter of the attack is stepping into no man's land.

We can realize that an important sign that China's science and technology is gradually moving to the top of the world is gradually stepping into an uninhabited land. The Chang'e-4 probe from China successfully landed on the far side of the moon for the first time; the completion of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, the longest mileage, the most difficult to construct, and the most technical cross-sea bridge in the world; the first discovery of Mayorana Anyon in iron-based superconductors. In addition to keeping up with and surpassing its predecessors, Chinese science and technology is beginning to show amazing imagination in virgin lands that no one has ever entered.

In addition to the continuous innovation of engineering capabilities and basic science, Chinese science and technology enterprises are also trying the same in their own fields. As an "attacking experimenter", Zhihu is also stepping into no-man's land.

In November 2017, Zhihu put forward the concept of "intelligent community" for the first time, integrating the previously used "crystal ball", "Wall-E robot" and other technologies, so that AI is no longer the finishing touch, but the most important promoter of the whole community.

Raising AI technology to such a high strategic position is something that other products have never tried before. The experimenter Zhihu took this step, which means that Zhihu's label is no longer just "the first batch of Q & A communities", but also "the first batch of AI-driven community platforms".

It is not difficult to imagine that with the precise and personalized operation capability of AI technology, Zhihu is likely to become a comprehensive community driven by knowledge / experience / opinion sharing that we have never seen before. In the past, the most familiar form of community was Reddit or Baidu Tieba-a certain group of people discussed around the same topic. Through the precise recommendation and content operation of AI, the community will no longer be limited by user attributes and topics. In the same community, there can be not only "spring snow" of gravitational waves, but also "Xiuriba people" who discuss cooking skills. Under the same topic, there can be fashion bloggers talking eloquently about the history of beauty brands and chemical Daniel's rational analysis of the composition of beauty products.

Bringing unlimited insights to users at any time is the best appearance of an intelligent community. It can even be said that this unlimited mode of communication is more conducive to our pursuit of science and technology.

Human exploration of science and technology is like looking up at the stars every time. The serenity that exists in the greatness is waiting for us to print the first footprint.

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