A little suggestion for Matt City's "new way to play" ❤️

@yingxin emailed and telegram me last week asking for my opinion on the upcoming feature of Matt City@Matty.

Finally resting at home today, some time to think and reply.

However, the new function has not yet been launched, so I will not introduce too much first. I can only say that it seems to be a bit similar to the subscription function. They all have to pay extra to support their favorite authors, but the advantage is to “close the distance between readers and authors”.

In fact, I wanted to write an article a long time ago and named it: Matt City is like a large circle of friends.

In other words, the distance between authors and readers on Matt City is much closer than other platforms. In my opinion, the problems that need to be solved are:

1. Help the author's articles to be monetized or profitable

This is also what Matt City and other platforms of the same nature have been working on, but Matt City is working harder and more seriously, through non-stop events, a strong editorial group, and new features now, etc., but the problem lies in the second point ,

Second, too social

Originally, this was the advantage of Matt City, and it was different from other platforms.

But this now seems to be a hindrance to the implementation of new features.

I have seen several authors pointing out the same problem. There are many authors who want to support, and many of them have already become friends. It is difficult to choose. Anyone who supports will be embarrassed to other friends, and I can’t afford to support everyone, so I have to give up new ideas. Function.

As for the upcoming new features, I feel that this problem will also arise, or it can only attract new readers to pay, but this is a test of the author's writing and charm. After all, this is an era of information explosion, and free information cannot be read. Come here, readers have to "love" a lot before they are willing to pay for money "support" 😂  …

Even in the screenwriting industry, everyone knows that we are a must for filming, but many people still think that we are worthless.

Many years ago, Gan Wei, the proprietress of LeTV, wanted to make an urban romantic comedy, similar to Sex and the City (it was filmed later, and I felt nauseous a few minutes after watching it), and she personally told me that she thought the lines of the show were a few of them. The sisters (both actresses) came out after chatting. We just need to follow the writing (record or copy?) She smiled noncommittally, but as soon as she left, we immediately rolled our eyes "aspiring to be together" 🙄.

In the world of screenwriting, the most common drama failure is the establishment of characters. In fact, it is lucky that a drama can write one or two characters alive, and is the lines part of "building characters" 🙄?

When I mention this past, I just want to show that the text is worthless, which is very sad, and I dream that this atmosphere can be improved one day, so I am very happy to see the launch of various functions on the platform to help authors realize money, but so far So far, the effect is not as expected.

Taking Zhihu as an example, paid consultation was launched at the beginning, that is, the author sets the price, the reader pays to ask questions, and the author replies by voice. At first, I thought it was very convenient, and it was opened. I didn’t expect that readers often paid dozens of yuan. The RMB asks questions that you need to use all your strength or your life's skills to answer, otherwise your "irresponsible" will be criticized, so I quickly turned off this function, and then this function disappeared.

Then the reward was launched again. When you see that the reward for each well-written article is zero, do you think you feel the "lowness" of the creator? It's too young too naive, and the product window function that was launched next really makes you regret it. Why do you want to create? Why don't you paint? It’s fine if you don’t move bricks, you will get a brick’s income if you move a brick, no one dares to laugh at you, but we are just putting the manufacturer’s products in the window of the homepage, and starting Jiang Taigong’s life as a fishing volunteer. After the mode, there are all kinds of humiliation...

Just post a "recent masterpiece" for everyone to see:

Closer to home.

I believe that many people, including me, hope that Matt City can do better and better. This is also a feeling I have never had on other platforms. Generally, users criticize and despise platforms, such as the one mentioned above. Zhihu 😂, I wrote for a few years and didn't have any relationship with this platform, and I came to Matt City to prepare for being banned one day.

So I spent half an hour explaining the new features with Yideng today, and then chatted about it. My discussion with Yideng is as follows:

Me: How about changing the distribution of likecoins by reading time instead of clapping hands? Does this solve the problem of social clapping? It can also reduce hydrology, increase the income of high-quality articles, etc. As for the clap function, it is still used as an indicator of popularity. The platform can add more traffic to popular articles, and then reward likecoin every month to the top ten with the most reading time. Any number or number of people will do, and encourage more and better creations.

Yideng: Isn't that the same as medium, as a result, the articles in medium become longer and longer...

Me: Long text is not a problem! Long text does not mean that the reading time will be longer. Long text is a test of writing skills, and a test of whether readers are willing to read it. Many people come in and see that it is a long text and immediately close the page!

Yideng: Even if this is the case, it's not fair to those who write poetry and paint! No matter how well written, a glance is enough.

I (thinking about it): How about using a "weighted index"?

Yideng: What if someone "writes poetry" to deceive power?

For example write:

Today, it's raining, so boring

Tomorrow, it will be sunny, so happy

Me (angry): Even if there is such a person, how many times can I deceive? Once or twice people stop looking at your stuff.

Yideng (finally no longer raising the bar): Maybe it works!

To be honest, Yideng is not optimistic about the success rate of new functions. Maybe we have suffered too much damage, but I also understand that if the platform wants to be bigger and better, it needs to help the author to realize the value, and make the text valuable, and the higher the value, the better. Okay, so the starting point can be a big one, with great creators, traffic (readers), film and television copyrights and other super monetization capabilities, this is entering a virtuous circle.

And most importantly, bring dreams to newcomers, so as to attract more creators and good articles.

This is also why the good publishing houses and literature websites in mainland China are now involved in film and television, because the film and television industry has made huge profits and given them fame. Well-known websites such as Dangdang also have film and television companies, but few people know, why? Because I can't make a project, it's not that there is no chance to talk about this next time, otherwise no one will do it well, but it's not too far away now.

In the end, it seems like I replied to Yingxin last week, but I can't give you any useful advice. Probably what we users who like Matt City can do now is to support other authors. I hope this warmth will allow them to create this way keep it up ❤️～

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