On short videos
On the way walking with my kindergartner to her school, I thought about short videos for no reason, I found it’s interesting to write down and share.
Many years ago when I was working in Facebook (now Meta), everyone is talking about Ads, after all, it’s the main cash flow for the internet giant. But clearly that (almost) nobody likes Ads, it’s a “PUSH” way to sell a product or service that the majority of people don’t like. As a platform, how matter how your algorithm gets improved to be more relevant to the users, it doesn’t change the nature that users are passively receiving them, and the first reaction for that is always “Reject”.
Back then (2014~2015), I was thinking hard for quite some time: how to make Ads enjoyable? How to make people willingly and proactively PULL “Ads” into their daily life? Maybe:
A pure ads platform full of all high-quality content that people enjoy checking out. The content are great illustrations, or a 1 to 2 minutes video.
I’m not sure if you agree — today all short video platforms (including TikTok, Youtube/Facebook Shorts) match this idea and definition: every single short video is an Ad.
The difference is: they are not limited to selling products or services, they also sell for the influence/popularity of the creators. Instead of inventing a wonderful audit system to guarantee high-quality content, they use AI technology to filter and bubble good items up, sink low-quality content down.
Takeaways
Many times, our ideas are great, every one of them could be a potential big success. But without continuous refinement to find the right approach and right entry point to bring it into reality, it could be easily vapored out too.
If we believe in something, don’t give up too early, rotate it like a cube, you may or may not find a fitting position.
Cheers, thanks for reading this quick share!
