Community-Driven Growth for Consumer Apps
Session 1 : Pre-Readings
[[What makes something go viral?]]
[[Encouraging Contributions to Online Communities]]
Session 1 | Visions of Virality: Creating Bustling Spaces Rather Than Ghost Towns
Social computing systems are computational systems that mediate social interactions.
What is social computing design?
Increasingly, we are fashion social environments online.
Social computing design asks how to fashion those environments to support the participants in achieving their goals.
How do we cross the chasm between the social interactions that the group wants to support, and the computer interactions that we have at our disposal or could invent? [[Ackerman]]
Every social system is designed
If you don't design, you default. And often the default is far worse.
What happens if you don't set norms with others on your work team?
What kinds of biases or silencing of minority views arises if we don't critically design the system to prevent them?
There are right and wrong ways to design social spaces
We cannot force good behavior or exclude the possibility of bad behavior.
But our design--the way our system empowers people to establish norms and enforce them-- holds substantial responsibility for the social outcome.
Why is social computing design hard?
Ghost towns.
Never just paste social bits into anther application. It's not about whether you have points, or friend/follow models, or real names or pseudonyms. At least not directly.
It's like saying your bridge will work if you have strong ropes. The local materials matter, but if the global design stinks, even the best materials won't save you.
FOCUS ON DESIGN
How do you design a social computing systems that helps promote the behaviours that the groups wants to see in the system?
What about a design makes people..
Feel safe?
Post funny memes?
Engage in thoughtful discussion?
How do I encourage specific normas on the system?
How do I prototype my idea?
What changes as my social computing system grows?
How do I manage antisocial behavior, trolls, and ghosting?
Will or won't AI, VR/AR, and other emerging tech change the game?
Today, we will build up to this; a pyramid.
[[Eyes on the Street]], [[Jane Jacobs]]
The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
At a time when cities were considered nests of filth and trouble, Jane Jacobs unleashed a fierce defense of neighborhoods. She saw incredible value in her home, Greenwich Village in NYC.
Jacob's argument: bustling city neighborhoods keep themselves interesting and safe. (Eyes upon the Street)
"There must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street."
"Nobody enjoys sitting on a stoop or looking out a window at an empty street. Almost nobody does such a thing. Large numbers of people entertain themselves, off and on, by watching street activity."
In Contrast...
Among open source projects that have produced successful and sustainable software, the median number of code contributors is: 1.
Almost Wikipedia:
At the time that Wikipedia was launched, there were seven other collaboratively edited online encyclopedias:
Interpedia, Distributed Encyclopedia Project, h2g2, The Info Network (TheInfo) (morphed into reddit), Nupedia, Everthing2, GNE.
How can we skip being a Ghost Town:
Individual Factors
Motivation: why are you here?
Why do people contribute to..
Your product forum?
Instagram?
Work email list?
Lyft?
People have lots of pressing things to do with their time. So we need to ask critically: why are they spending time on this platform?
Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation
The distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators helps clarify who is here, why and what it implies for design.
Intrinsic motivation: derive from my own desires to complete a goal.
Examples: pleasure, hobby, developing a skill, demonstrating a skill.
Extrinsic motivation: don't derive from my relationship with the goal.
Examples: money, graduation, points, badges.
Intrinsic/Extrinsic
which motivation is each of these most likely to tap into?
Posting your music to Soundcloud as a new artist.
Answering someone's question on Stack Overflow.
Streaming a session for a successful Twitch streamer.
Motivation crowding
Mixing motivators is dangerous: taking an intrinsically motivated goal and adding extrinsic motivators to it may actually reduce the overall motivator level. [Gneezy and Rustichini 2000]
Unwise application of extrinsic motivators:
Michael's Opinion:
Language learning is, for most, a weak intrinsic motivation.
Autonomy: I signed up for this.
Transition Points: Michael's recommendation: start by letting people exercise instrinsic motivation. As they become invested, allow them to go after extrinsic motivators.
Effort: channel factors\
We are, in general, extemely reactive to small changes in the amount of effort required to contribute.
Channel factors: minor features upstream in a decision process that can produce large changes in behavior downstream [Ross and Nisbett 1991]. They are behavioral catalysts.
Students asked to get a tetanus shot were more likely to do it if they got a map to point out where the health center was and a written list of its hours of operation. They already knew both of these facts. [Howard et al 1965]
Simplify the product to a point where the user can have a very . Snapchat and Instragram photos with filters, Slack chat with channels.
Social Factors
Social Loafing
Many hands make... work.. light?
When there are others contributing, we contribute less.
Experiment: blindfold a participant and get them to play team tug-of-war.
People pulled 18% harder when they thought they were the only one in their team.
That is why no one contributes to wikipedia! because everyone thinks that someone else is contributing!
When was the last time you edited Wikipedia?
As a social computing system shows more activity, do we paradoxically get fewer eyes on the street?
Don't shame or nudge people as your solution to social loafing :(
Instead, call out the person's uniqueness, and help them set goals.
Reciprocity
You are more willing to give back when someone does favor for you. Even if you didn't ask for the favor!
A
Contributing Pyramid
Mods, Contributors, Commenters, Likers, Lurkers. Imagine a 10x dorpoff between levels, what are you really saying if you need 100 contributors?
Motivation vs. Manipulation
How do we do this responsibly? We don't want to be just engagement hacking.
Michael's answer: autonomy
Ask yourself: do they have autonomy in this design? Do they know what's happening, and have the ability to control it?
Think about the difference between agreeing to enroll in a tough self-improvement regimen, vs. being nudged and manipulated to do so without your awareness or consent.
Summary
How do I design enviroments that aren't ghost towns?
Support the intrinsic or extrinsic motivations we bring to the system.
Identify channel factors that impact behavior and manage them.
Combat social loafing and encourage positive reciprocal relationships?
Support autonomy and user/community control in whatever you design.
OK but seriously Michael, why is my system full of lurkers?
Actually that's natural. Contributions are generally unequal. Recognize it and design around that assumption.
Going Viral. What makes something go viral?
Surface features of a meme, are insufficient:
Sharable URL
Simple message
Low friction to share
#catchyhashtag
Backing up: where does cultural innovation come from?
Often, we discuss cultural innovation from the perspective of the structure of the communities that produce it, referred to as core and periphery
core: mainstream
Periphery: marginal communities
Cultural innovation is often greatest amongst those occupying an intermediate, bridging position between core and periphery.
Viral truth
Discuss: How would you make a correction, truth, or debate go viral?
When recommendation algorithms appear in 2015, with youtube as frontrunner, no one could predict how many of your subscribers would see your posts.
Recommendation and moderation systems are different!
#[[Tik Tok]] has a very elegant #[[Recommendation System]] anyone can go from unknown to celebrity instantly.
Niche communities you need to talk to them, reach them, server them.
The beauty of niche communities is that they want to become part of the community, they are authentic.
Session 2 | Overcoming the Cold Start Problem: Kickstarting a New Social App
I have an idea. Where do I start? Why build it and launch is a bad approach, and how to do better?
Today: getting started
Prototyping
The cold start problem
Social bricolage: prototyping social computing systems
HCI 101
If we've learned anything from human-computer intereaction, it's that it's a really bad idea to have your idea and the JUst build it!
Prototyping: Progressive fidelity increases as you gain confidence in your idea.
In this first Instagram Peer pressure!
A prototype answers a question
Prototypes shouldn't focus on a specific modality, e.g. paper.
Instead, prototypes should focus laserlike on what's the big risky unanswered questions about the idea.
Typicall, that question is not whether the interface is usable. It's how the social dynamics will play out.
Social computing bricolage
Don't build the entire technical stack just to answer a question. Instead, piggyback on existing social computing systems that get you similar affordances. [Grevet and Gilbert 2015]
I call this social bricolage: duct taping other systems together and layer your social computing design o top to prototype it.
It is call experience prototyping in HCI
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