He Liu

5/5 (1)

Earlier this year, Facebook as one of the world’s most influential social-media platform, announced about its launch of a dating service. According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook aims to turn itself into a platform where people can start “meaningful and long-term relationships”, but not just “hookups”. In addition, he stressed that this service will be conducted under the premise of not compromising customer privacy or data safety. The matching services will operate under a separate section on the site, where names of the users will only be visible to those also using the services (instead of general friends), and there won’t be news feeds about this showing on users’ profile pages.

Needless to doubt, the amount of data held by Facebook is massive. It is not exaggerating to say that for users who have been using the service for years, their whole growing experience has been witnessed and recorded by Facebook. The sources from where it gathers data vary widely from personal posts, shared posts, status updates to private messages. Personally, I think when comparing to other types of platforms, social media sites as such is in fact the most suitable medium to perform the matchmaking function. Unlike most of the specialized dating apps that only let users make matches based on one or a few aspects (e.g. appearance, professions, interests, and geographical proximity), social-media platforms are capable of utilizing its multifaceted data. Such data constitutes a much more accurate portrait of individual users. The actions of swiping left and right that have so far always been performed manually by humans will then be taken care of by robots, while the results tend to be more satisfying. Overall, the efficiency and effectiveness of the matchmaking process are likely to increase.

However, is such move made by Facebook (as well as other tech firms that will soon follow) really desirable? Letting robots predict what is most suitable for us, or in other words, what we are supposed to like/do, makes it feel like one of the greatest enjoyment of living has been taken away. After all, life is all about individuals making their own choices, isn’t it? If people all followed the options that algorithms or robots chose for them, the fascination of discovery and diversity would diminish. There would be less surprises, chances for people to discover new areas of interests would also reduce. Regardless of whether it is a music streaming service like Spotify, video streaming like Netflix, book suggesting service like Amazon, or matching-making service that Facebook is about to bring out, robots might use existing information to tailor a ‘package’ for us, but I believe that humans have far more unpredictable potentials. Especially for actions as important as finding a lifetime partner, robots can help, but shall never replace humans from the driving seat.

Sources:

http://www.ftchinese.com/interactive/12707?exclusive#adchannelID=1100

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/01/facebook-dating-app-mark-zuckerberg-f8-conference

https://econsultancy.com/why-data-will-win-the-dating-game-now-facebook-is-in-the-market/

5/5 (1)

Most people have probably heard of Wechat, an instant-messaging app that is frequently brought up for its successful business story, just like Apple. With worldwide monthly active users hitting 1 billion by the first quarter of 2018 (1), the app is continuously breaking the record in market penetration set by itself (2). Majority of those who know about the app might consider it as simply the Chinese version of WhatsApp, while those who have a deeper knowledge might see Wechat as a messaging app with many additional functions. In fact, it is hard to place it into any particular category, or talk about about its influence over a independent market or industry. Wechat is literally playing the role of a game changer, whose presence is reshaping the business model and/or operation process of all businesses that are connected to the digital work, which in absolute terms, are businesses in every single industry. It is thus not exaggerating to say that an ecosystem has been created around this mobile application.

So what is Wechat actually capable of? Here’s a brief overview of all its functions. The most fundamental service provided by the app, as everyone knows, is basic communication. You can share text and voice messages with friends and family members individually, or share your thoughts and life moments in the form of text, photo, video, or webpage-links with everyone in your contact list. What makes it extraordinary is that, you are also able to book a taxi, hotel or restaurant; order food and drinks; buy bus, railway, flight, movie and museum tickets; top-up or buy cellular data for your own and anyone else’s phone; share work documents between multiple devices; make money transactions; withdraw and deposit money from your bank; play in-app games; listen to and share music; set remainder for tasks; book doctor appointments; rent apartments, cars and bikes; pay your utility bills; buy groceries and conduct online shopping… You can even get involved in charities by donating money (3)! Doesn’t this virtually covers everything people tend to do in their daily lives? It normally takes about 40 apps to have all the activities mentioned above done, but Wechat has them all included. It facilitates a new form of life style, and that is why it lives up to the title of “Super App”.

Speaking from individuals’ perspectives, enormous convenience has been brought to people’s living. Looking at players from different industrial sectors, although the extent varies, they are all somehow forced to take this new model of social interaction into account when conducting business activities. There is no doubt that those who don’t make an effort in integrating their products or services into this app will be left out by the markets and customers. So what does the great success of this All-in-One application implies? Personally, I think it is the possibility that all business activities will be surrounding a single app in the future. The type and scope of products and services will continue to expand, however, the number of platforms that people interact on will be significantly reduced. The social systems are getting increasingly complicated due to the rise of digital and information technologies, I believe that eventually some day, people will start to feel overwhelmed and lost in the face of such wide selections of applications. This tends to stimulates strong desires toward unification and simplicity among the public. Considering the social-economic structure of societies differ significantly across the world, many may argue that Super Apps like Wechat is not a feasible option for their countries. However, it is the idea and mindset behind such apps that matters, their scope can in fact be largely narrowed down. For instance, we can have one app for all activities related to healthcare (i.e. from booking an appointment to reporting the postoperative reactions), also one app for everything related to an individual’s education, etc. It is true that the extent of integration of these social functions/activities depends on a wide scope of factors, but we have to admit that this development trend for future applications non-negligible.

Sources:

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