Zhang Xiaolong confirms the opening of WeChat The circle of friends announcedthe new year's red envelope, a new idea.

NetEase Science and Technology News reported on January 9 that WeChat founderZhang Xiaolong "meeted" the audience through a video in the 2020WeChat Open Class today. Zhang Xiaolong said in his speech that for theWeChat team, the early tests were our product capabilities, but now more testsare organizational capabilities.

Earlier, some media reported changes in the number of WeChat's largestfriends. And Zhang Xiaolong confirmed this. According to ZhangXiaolong, there are currently 1 million WeChat users and nearly 5,000 friends.

He mentioned some ideas about his impact on the interconnection of information,especially in terms of privacy transfer, passive access to information,expansion and complexity of social relationships, rapid dissemination ofinformation, difficulties in information selection and search, and so on.

It is worth noting that Zhang Xiaolong also announced a new version ofWeChat. He mentioned that the short content of WeChat has always been thedirection of WeChat's efforts. If things go well, he may see you soon.

As the Spring Festival approaches, Zhang Xiaolong mentioned that WeChat alsohas some new ideas on red envelopes, which may attract users to exert theircreativity. (Yan Yan) The

following is the content of Zhang Xiaolong's video lecture:

Hello, friends in open class.

The annual WeChat Open Class is held again. I'm sorry I didn't come to thescene this time. I want to say hello here.

Actually, I didn't come here on purpose. Remember the first public classand I mentioned that attending various meetings can be a waste of time.

I also said that speaking with products is what we should do. As you cansee, WeChat has never held a press conference. In my opinion, the releasepage of the new version is a WeChat press conference, which directly covershundreds of millions of users.

However, my colleagues convinced me that open courses are not conferences, butdeveloper conferences. In fact, the outside world may be curious or evenmisunderstood about WeChat, so the open course is indeed a good opportunity forWeChat to explain its ideas and concepts.

But last year, I think that the WeChat team is so big now, the problems we faceare from the early "how to do" to the current "how todo". In the early days, we focused on each feature and thought abouthow best to accomplish it.

It's time to think about what we should try and how to organize it. Forthe team, the early tests were our product capabilities, and now more tests areour organizational capabilities.

I hope our team has outstanding deep thinkers in all areas. So last year,I was thinking that I don't have to come to class every year. This year, Iprefer to give my colleagues some time to bring our team's ideas to everyone.

Of course, I personally have some small ideas to share with you.

The impact of information interconnection

may never have been an era when billions of people spend so much time browsingvarious kinds of information on mobile phones every day. However, WeChatis probably the most time-consuming application.

Therefore, I often think that WeChat as a basic information transmission toolor platform, our random behavior may lead to changes in the information flow.

We know that gene editing is an unnatural choice. Because humans haveforcibly changed the course of natural evolution. Similarly, technologicaladvances have changed natural selection.

People see more visual information on the screen than they see in reality. Peoplesee images from a distance and hear sounds from a distance. A long timeago, the size of a person's world was determined by his walkingradius. Now, the size of a person's world is determined by the breadth ofthe information he has obtained. The breadth and quality of informationhas always been a problem that WeChat needs to solve.

However, human beings' thinking about the impact of wide-ranging informationlags behind the development speed of the Internet. The development of thenetwork, especially the development of the mobile Internet in recent years, hasmade everyone online at any time and faced with massive amounts of information.

This is unimaginable in history, even ten years ago. Can people really usethis information to connect? Or is technology guiding or even controllingpeople's lifestyles?

This impact can be seen from several aspects, including the transfer ofprivacy, the passiveness of information acquisition, the expansion andcomplexity of social relationships, the rapid dissemination of information, thedifficulty of information selection, the diversity of information, and thedifficulty of searching.

First, the transfer of privacy.

Historically, the more advanced the technology, the less personalprivacy. While gaining convenience, people are also unconsciously reducingtheir privacy.

For example, there is a contradiction between precise advertising and userprivacy. As a platform, because we have a lot of data, what is used andwhat is not used is actually a question we have been thinking about. Wealso advocate that colleagues pay attention to this issue here.

Passive access to information

What you see or read determines who you are and what you are thinking. TheInternet makes information readily available. However, what kind ofinformation is obtained from the ocean of information is a very challengingissue.

In fact, many people are reluctant to obtain information actively, but preferto obtain information passively. I remember a few years ago, I said,"Push changes the world, because users are more lazy." IncludingWeChat, it is also based on push. Every message you receive is givenhigher priority than what you really want to get.

Then, what information is pushed determines what information the user will seeand what kind of world he is in. This is an issue that we must constantlythink about, and it is also the direction of our efforts.

Therefore, I rarely spread the word, and I think this suggestion may be morepolite.

3. Expansion and Complexity of

Social Relationships People are the sum of social relationships. Nowadays,social relationships are increasingly reflected in the interaction betweenWeChat friends, groups and circle of friends. For example, high school andcollege students are active because of the crowd.

In the past, there was an academic vocabulary called Dunbar number, which meansthat a person can have up to 150 friends. But on WeChat, it was clearlybroken. Compared to before the advent of the mobile Internet, people'sability to keep good friends has suddenly improved a lot.

In the past, we limited one person to a maximum of 5,000 friends, and now thereare nearly 1 million people close to 5,000 friends. Although it is not atrue friend, it also prompts us to expand the number of friends.

I remember when people around me went online, I was actually a little upsetbecause the line between us and the people around us would be broken, and I don