自古以来人们一直在思考着一个哲理问题“先有鸡还是先有蛋？”。而如今社交媒介业内人士也不断纠结着“社交网站因用户的集聚产生价值，然而用户却只愿加入有一定价值的社交网站”这一矛盾问题。毫无疑问，社交网站的价值与参与其中的用户息息相关。

本周，新兴公司Hashable在经过多月的私人测试后发布了一款iPhone应用。在该款应用正式发布之前，Hashable拥有将近5000名会员用户。那么，像Hashable这样的新兴公司怎样才能安全度过初始的“鸡和蛋”阶段呢？对此，Hashable公司首席执行官Michael Yavonditte通过回顾成功社交网站的发展历史以指导设计本公司的产品。

Hashable

以下，游戏邦带领大家简单回顾部分知名社交网站如何度过其“鸡和蛋”的发展初始阶段：

Facebook：小型专属网站

当Mark Zuckerberg在2004年创办Facebook时，他对该社交网站的定位是私人专属网站。这样的定位反而刺激了大量用户争相加入。不到一个月的时间里，Facebook聚集了上千名用户，这一数字是哈佛研究生学院人数的一半。如此一来，在建立起稳定用户基础的同时，Facebook社交网站的实用性和价值也逐渐行程。随后Facebook推出的互动功能增加了网站的“回头率”。

尽管如今Facebook社交网站不再定位为小型的专属网站，然而毫无疑问Zuckerberg的这一最初定位帮助Facebook度过了“鸡和蛋”的关键时期。人们总是对专属特权情有独钟，这是很多奢侈品牌一直采用的一种心理学招数，Gilt Groupon网站也通过“仅限会员”的旗号吸引了不少用户的加入。简单来说，人们总是热衷于追逐自己没有的事物。

Tumblr：注重开发网站自身的功能

微博平台Tunblr真正实现腾飞是在其引入“评论”和“转发”功能之后，然而在此之前Tumblr本身已拥有一定的用户基础。据游戏邦了解，现在Tumblr每天平均发布上百万条微博，每月的页面浏览量也达到数十亿。在平台初期的“鸡和蛋”阶段，Tumblr为广大用户提供了便捷的操作功能：玩家只需轻点2次鼠标就能发送一篇微博。很多用户加入Tumblr正是因为他们认可Tumblr的实用性。之后Tumblr引进的社交功能加速了用户的快速增长。

此外，Linkedln和MySpace也是通过其本身的功能吸引了用户的参与。

Twitter：以网民为目标用户

在Twitter成立之初，该款社交网站并不受主流人士的好评。而如今Twitter拥有的1亿9000多万用户中不乏当年的所谓“主流人士”。在创建之初，Twitter首先将网民定位为主要的网站用户，Twitter通过邀请这一领域的风云人物加入逐渐扩大其影响力，并根据用户的需求不断拓展网站的功能和服务。

Foursquare：采用游戏元素

Foursquare是典型的“随用户聚集而逐渐显示价值”的社交网站。Foursquare创办者Naveen Selvadurai和Dennis Crowley将游戏理念融入于社交网站的运作之中：访问新地点的用户将得到会整奖励，经常使用应用也可以获得网站积分等。当然，Foursquare的这一创新做法也不乏模仿者。

重复试验：Hashable将如何发展？

在科学研究中，学者的任何假说都要通过反复试验验证最终结论。在此，Yavonditte及其团队也试图试验大型社交网站的成功是否可以复制。以下是Hashable借鉴不同社交网站发展模式的试验情况：

小型专属网站——Hashable网站申请需通过邀请，且仅限纽约科技领域的用户加入。

开发网站自身的实用性功能——Hashable变身电话簿兼数字名片，将成为面向用户和非用户的介绍工具。Yavonditte表示“非网站用户也可以使用Hashable”。

以网民为目标用户——为了在纽约科技领域产生一定的影响力，Hashable邀请了行业潜在用户参观公司并为其详细介绍公司的iPhone应用产品。Yavonditte演示了应用的操作方式，与会人士也纷纷试用了该款应用，其中不乏有人向其朋友推荐Hashable的这一应用。Hashable以联络较为频繁的知名人士为主要用户群体，希望以此实现Hashable的快速发展。

采用游戏元素——Hashable聘请老牌游戏设计师Chris Carella为该平台构建游戏元素：使用介绍和check in功能的用户可以获得积分奖励，同时还引入了最有影响力用户排行榜等。最近Hashable还在中国城的Gold Flower Restaurant为排名前100的纽约用户举办了一场盛宴，用户们可以尽情享受免费鸡尾酒和饺子等食品。

面临的挑战

现在，各种社交软件普遍都面临着内部技术条件等挑战。而通过借鉴某些成功社交网站的技术，新兴社交网站可能可以少走弯路，尽快获得用户的支持。然而为了吸引主流人群的目光，社交应用必须具备一定的吸引力。优秀的技术如诺没有运用在正确的产品也是无法体现其价值的。因此，广大新兴社交网站公司在借鉴成功典范的经验之前，仍要注重开发适合自己公司的产品。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

One of the main challenges for social networks stems from a question ancient philosophers have debated for centuries: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In social media, the dilemma often takes the form of, “We need users for our network to be useful, but users won’t join the network unless it’s useful.” A social network’s utility is derived from the people belonging to it.

The second great challenge in social networking is spreading to new users at a fast and sustainable pace, i.e. viral growth. Virality is the pot of gold every startup yearns for. It can’t be obtained without first solving the chicken-and-egg puzzle.

This month, a social startup called Hashable (no relation!) released an iPhone app after a few months in private beta. Hashable helps users make introductions and track their connections and relationships through “people checkins,” using Twitter hashtags and e-mail. Without publicity, Hashable’s private user base grew by itself to more than 5,000 members before the app officially launched.

How does a new site like Hashable get past the chicken dilemma, when others can’t? Hashable CEO Michael Yavonditte says he “looked at all the successful networks” when designing his product. “There are things to learn from all successful companies in adjacent spaces,” he says. Here’s a quick look at the science behind some of the most well-known social networks, and how they cracked the philosophical egg.

How Facebook Did It: Start Small and Exclusive

When Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in 2004, he positioned his social network as private and exclusive. Psychologically, this made users want to join, in the same way his fellow Harvard students were dying to join fraternities where all the “cool kids” were. (See the movie for a dramatization of this).

Facebook was able to gather thousands of users — half the Harvard undergraduate population — in less than a month. It was immediately useful because the user base was instantly robust, and the site had features that facilitated interaction, keeping users coming back.

Though Facebook is now a 500+ million user giant — and no longer exclusive at all — Zuckerberg got past the initial chicken-and-egg problem by going after a tiny subset of the potential users for his site and making them believe they were privileged to be part of it. Luxury brands use this psychology all the time. Websites like Gilt Groupe use “members only” tactics to get people interested in joining. As they say, people always want what they can’t have.

How Tumblr Did It: Make It Useful Even If You’re Alone

Micro-blogging platform Tumblr began as a nonthreatening way to keep an online journal. What made Tumblr really take off were social features like following and reblogging, but those features came well after Tumblr had a large following itself.

Tumblr now averages millions of posts per day and billions of page views each month. It bypassed the chicken-and-egg problem because it started off as something that anyone could do by themselves: click twice to post anything on a blog. Thousands of users joined because it was useful to them; social features tacked on later fueled explosive growth.

Other examples of social networks that used standalone utility to bypass the chicken problem to some degree include LinkedIn (a free place to host your resume online) and, for bands, Myspace (a free webpage to host your songs and announce shows).

How Twitter Did It: Cater to Geeks and Influencers First

Twitter may have been the social network most mocked by mainstreamers in the beginning, yet it now boasts more than 190 million accounts. Many of those accounts belong to the old mockers, moms and technoramuses who now talk about tweets on cable news — people who never would have adopted Twitter before the network effect took hold.

Twitter solved its chicken/egg conundrum by focusing on acquiring tech-savvy early adopters who were influential among geeks. The site catered to them, marketed toward them and basically let the nerds run wild (letting members determine the way Twitter should be used, and then developing the site around those use cases).

How Foursquare Did It: Use Game Psychology

Foursquare is a good example of a social network that is not very useful unless there are people to share it with. Founders Naveen Selvadurai and Dennis Crowley tapped into their video gamer roots and built a system that made users feel like they were playing a game rather than using a social network. Badges for visiting new places, points for using the app frequently, and the ability to stake claim to your favorite local spots and become a Foursquare “mayor” helped bridge the gap between “I have no friends on it, so why should I do it?” and “Aha, this is actually useful,” once more people were on the service.

Of course, Foursquare’s successful use of games to grow its network gave rise to scads of imitators. Whereas some people have game mechanics fatigue by now, when done correctly, games work and will continue to do so.

Repeating The Experiments: How Hashable Is Doing It

In science, hypotheses are proven (or disproven) by repeating experiments and achieving identical results. Yavonditte and crew hypothesized that the success of the biggest social networks is scientifically repeatable. Here’s how Hashable is testing that hypothesis:

* Start small and exclusive. Hashable started out as invite-only, focusing on the tech scene in New York City.

* Make it useful as a standalone app. Hashable becomes an address book and digital business card, and is a tool for making introductions to users and nonusers alike. “Hashable can be used with people that are not currently users,” says Yavonditte.

* Cater to geeks and influencers first. In an effort to reach influencers in the New York tech scene, Hashable has been inviting groups of potential users to its offices for personalized demos and exclusive, early versions of its iPhone app. Yavonditte demonstrates how to use the app, and everyone in the room uses it to “check in” with each other, making new networking contacts in the process. Then Hashable sends these new users out the door, who then convert their friends to the service. By targeting respected people with large numbers of contacts, Hashable hoped to spark growth. It’s apparently working.

“We’re focusing on outreach to certain types of users — heavy social media and Twitter folks that also happen to be interested in tech industry,” says Yavonditte. “But this is quickly spreading outside of that.”

* Use game psychology. Hashable hired Chris Carella, longtime game designer and founder of Super + Fun to architect the game aspect of the platform, which includes points for making intros and checking in with people, rewards when introducees connect, and leaderboards showing the most influential people in various segments. Hashable recently hosted a party (in real life) for the top 100 New York users at the Gold Flower Restaurant in Chinatown. Free cocktails and vegetable dumplings for power users are apparently quite motivating, as competition to be on the leaderboard was fierce.

The Challenge

The challenge of all social software is breaking out from tech insider circles and into the mainstream. Using the techniques that successful social networks have employed to break free of the chicken-egg dilemma, it’s possible to repeat science and build an early adopter following. At the end of the day, however, in order to reach the mainstream, a social app has to have mainstream appeal.

All the right techniques used with the wrong product is like a henhouse full of sick birds. If no one wants your chickens, it doesn’t matter where they came from. Get the product right, however, and a few network-growing tactics can launch you on your way to Internet fame. Or wicked good omelettes. （Source：Yahoo）