Welcome to ask me anonymous questions.
Editor’s note: This article comes from the WeChat public account “All Media School” (ID: quanmeipai) author: Tencent media.
“Ask me anything! Welcome to ask me anonymous questions.”
During this time, people saw more and more links to invite anonymous questions on social media such as QQ, WeChat and Weibo. These links come from a software called “popi”. In this social application focused on anonymous questions, users can forward question boxes (links) to their common social platforms and invite netizens to ask questions.
There are a variety of questions in the question box, and all aspects of future planning, life attitudes, and study habits can be asked. Some people took the opportunity to express their love with care, some expressed regrets that they did not dare to tell, and others focused on answering one hard core question after another, just like the big V. Through these interactions, the other side of friends is released, and this software has gradually become popular in small circles.
In the past, the Quanmedia Group (ID: quanmeipai) introduced a lot of well-known overseas social media, but this time decided to change the observation perspective and share with you the views of the popi question box, a domestic niche social application While opening its veil, it also tried to explore the attractiveness and hidden dangers of the “semi-anonymous” model.
What kind of social is Popi playing?
As an APP, the popi question box is very young and came online on January 10 this year, but it has undergone 25 updates and is estimated to have downloaded 400,000 iOS devices.
Half a month after going online, popi has often been in the top 100 social applications on iOS, and is currently stable at around 50.
Data source: Qimai Data
Before popi, many domestic social battlefield products have emerged that focus on anonymous socialization of strangers. Compared with Momo, Tantan, and Soul, popi ’s performance in influence and user volume is not outstanding, but this The function of the product still has some qualities worth studying, which may also be inspiring for people to understand the richness of anonymous social networking.
Popi was born on the WeChat public account platform and naturally relies on the social relationship foundation provided by WeChat. Less than half a year after the transformation to APP, popi itself has a very limited number of users and interactions, thus exacerbating its dependence on strong social relationships.
Most users have learned about this product through a circle of friends or Weibo. If they see an interesting question and answer in a friend ’s question box, they may go to the app store to download the software and create their own question box.
Accordingly, the first thing after creation is also forwarded to the commonly used social platforms for friends who are familiar with them to ask questions. This reliance on strong relationship socialization is on the one hand product developmentIt should take into account the shortcomings of its lack of hemopoietic capacity, and at the same time, semi-anonymous socialization in the form of questions can play its greatest role in an acquaintance environment. Pure strangers lack curiosity for each other.
Popi also seems to have discovered its own qualities. There are many social media drainage buttons placed in a very prominent place on the home page of the app to encourage users to share to other platforms. In the latest update version, we also set up the function to enable WeChat notifications, and more closely connect the application with the social of acquaintances.
Strong Viewability
Strong browsing is also a feature of popi ’s question box. From question and answer interaction to presentation form, it shows the friendliness to the browser. The “Question Box” gathers all Q & A interactions in one section. In this interface, you can either directly ask your own questions without logging in or register, or browse all previous Q & A interactions without asking questions.
The question box under strong browsing is more like a special self-introduction. The concise questions and answers give people a more complete browsing experience. During the viewing process, users can easily complete an image structure in their minds and answer The author also completed the reshaping of his personal image between the lines.
Although relying on other social media platforms, popi also has many in-app interactive features, such as the recommendation bar to see other people ’s posts in the app, as well as private chats and in-app questions.
From the public account to the client, the social road of twists and turns
In terms of various characteristics, popi is actually an atypical anonymous social software. It has a more obvious “authority”. The overall style is closer to Douban. There are some familiar shadows in the interactive mode. In UI design It’s more like an oasis.
Since May, this product has gained some Internet media attention, and many loyal users have started to post articles to introduce it. The secret garden in the hearts of many people is breaking into the vision of more passers-by.
In the beginning, the popi anonymous question box was in the form of a public account. In June 2018, popi appeared in front of users for the first time. After paying attention to the public account, you can generate a link to your own question. After binding, you can post it to other social platforms to attract everyone to ask anonymous questions.
An anonymous question box like this”It is more like a functional plug-in, depending on the traffic of other platforms, giving users a space to put down their concerns and answer questions.
In March 2019, popi updated the public beta of the public version 2.0 platform. Born in WeChat, a social platform, popi has always relied on the mainstream social media ecology. In this version, they added simple community functions and a personal homepage section on the basis of the original question-and-answer interaction form. From then on, they began to try to break away from the WeChat ecosystem and build their own social ecological prototype.
The channel of WeChat + H5 opened up a world for popi. In June 19th, on the first anniversary of the public account certification of popi, a total of 150,000 users opened the question box function and received a total of 1.2 million questions. With the increase in body mass, as a social-oriented product, the lack of an independent platform is obviously a flaw.
Interestingly, after the popi team made up their minds to start making apps, an app with the popi name entered the market, the same “anonymous question” social form, the same “popi” brand name, and the code The vulnerability sent software advertisements to all users.
The good user base accumulated by the previous authentic popi has given this app many downloads. Popi officials subsequently issued a counterfeit statement to try to protect their rights. This episode urged them to speed up the development of APP to a certain extent, and also sounded the alarm for product privacy and link address protection.
After many twists and turns, the popi client came online on January 10 this year, the public question box was officially closed, and all users and data were gradually transitioned to the client. The APP version of popi has a higher degree of freedom. In addition to still relying on other social platforms to distribute question links, they are also further exploring their own application ecology and gradually improving functions such as popi square.
In the current popi official Weibo, you can see a sticky “self introduction”. The team experienced turbulent changes, and finally formed a team of only 6 people. Starting with the public account, they have been in a relatively closed “small and beautiful” state. As the version iteration and volume increase, their ambitions gradually become clearer-hoping to build a “product serving hundreds of millions of users.”
Popi ’s charm and danger
Two people who were irrelevant or gradually lost contact are connected through popi. From the perspective of the product operator, this is the original charm of the Internet. On the other hand, peeping at the problems caused by selfish desires and anonymity is actually a stubborn illness on the Internet. Popi, who wants to have hundreds of millions of users, is no longer a secret garden for a few people under social fear. Why is it so attractive? What are the hidden dangers? It is worth discussing and paying attention to.
There are thousands of anonymous interactions, why is popi so attractive?
As the Internet technology changes with each passing day, our online and offline lives are more and more closely connected. The interpersonal relationships and social identities in real life are also migrated to this cyberspace. The once small and beautiful self-expression platform is Constantly eroded.
It is precisely aimed at the fatigue caused by this social overload. Various anonymous social software has emerged, and QQ has also introduced a function of strong anonymous color, such as “whisper” and “little secret”. Popi is the same, using an anonymous + question form to put a layer of “invisible clothing” on people.
Social identity allows us to shape a multi-faceted self on social platforms, and the same is true for questions and answers. Faced with the question “What do you like to do in your free time?”, I believe that parents, friends and bosses will all give different answers. We are forced and habitual to consider our identities and answer carefully, hoping that we will deal with each friend calmly. The concealment of the questioner’s identity brings a touch of mystery to the interaction, and more importantly, the additional “subtext” of the actual identity is missing.
The questioner may be an old classmate who has n’t seen for a long time, or a new colleague who has just joined WeChat, or may be a stranger who does n’t know each other. Everyone can get rid of the shackles of social status and be able to tell their true feelings in their hearts Usually it is not convenient to talk about the export problem. The popi question box is like an ambiguous eraser, blurring the boundaries of the two parties’ identity, and shaping a flexible relationship in the well-defined social role-from the words of the friends who guessed when, but never have to worry about this vague layer The screen paper was pierced.
On the other hand, the real name of the questioner has attributed the value of these answers.
If like the whole media school in the previous article
Semi-open identity prevents Q & A from being overwhelmed by massive Internet data. With the recognition of the identity of the respondent, we clearly see the questions and the directions of the answers. These answers, in turn, carry potential information and the characteristics of the respondent, shaping the personal image of the respondent. Oxford University scholar Bernie Hogan believes that today ’s personal presentation on the Internet is more like an “exhibition” of self [i]. The popi question box is not like a showcase. It provides a new expression platform for self-presentation in disguise. Each answer constructs a small aspect of the self-image.
