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[Architecture Ecosystem] The characteristics of web services drive people
Roughly speaking
- Does architecture control the society that humans build?
- What is ecosystem construction? Organize evolution theory.
- Nico Nico Douga's innovation. A re-experience of the festival.
Architecture and Social Structure
Last time, we introduced the mechanism that induces human behavior from a microscopic perspective called geography.
Graduation A gimmick that makes you want to join in
This time, I would like to further expand my perspective to macros and consider the impact that the architecture (structure) of the services themselves has on society.
So, writing this far may seem like a bit difficult, but we are affected by the characteristics of our services every day on society.
It's a blaze on Twitter. Before Twitter, problematic comments were limited to television and water cooler talks, and there were only a few areas where the incident was causing a stir.
However, the appearance and penetration of Twitter created a situation where casual words were perceived by various interpretations, creating a situation where someone was pissing a stir every day.
Gradually, people have been using it casually as just a "diary" on Twitter, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to move around.
The tendency to say that silence is money has had a profound effect on the cowardly nature of modern people.
In other words, the structure of web services has an impact on the social structure.
Although this book is an old book from 2008, it is a unique review that in-depth research and explains web services at the time, and is the one and only review I will introduce today.
This book covers 2chanel (now 5 Channel), Winnie (a distributed file sharing software that is very similar to blockchain technology), and Nico Nico Douga, as its unique services, and analyzes them from a unique perspective.
Let's start with an overview of how ecosystems are produced.
Ecosystems and evolution
The author explains the concept of web services' ecosystems by quoting business scholar Fujimoto Takahiro's "The Evolution of Production Systems".
"Evolution" is not progressing, but rather "differentiation into more complex things" through the products of chance.
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By selecting or continuing the differentiated species, what happens to survive is passed down to the next generation as optimized.
It should be noted here that the species of the previous generation were not pre-anticipated for the development of the next generation, but were merely coincidence.
Tim Berners-Lee, who developed the web, never expected Google, blogs, Twitter, etc. that would appear later.
The author also applies the concept of ecosystems to web services, pointing out that in Japan, particularly distinctive ecosystems are being created.
NicoNico Douga's Innovation
Niconico Douga is one of the services that has a unique architecture in Japan.
A distinctive feature is that comments left by others flow on top of the video along with the timeline.
Unlike content that is completely ignorant of having people watch video content on YouTube and other sites, it has an architecture that allows you to enjoy videos with comments from other people.
The author describes this feature in one word, "You can always relive the festival."
Traditionally, the Internet has been based on asynchronous communication where text and videos are viewed later.
However, Nico Nico Douga achieves pseudo sync communication by posting comments on the video.
This means you can relive the festival any time.
Furthermore, the author points out that the objective indicator of excitement, which can be seen by the number of comments on NicoNico Douga, fits the characteristics of Japanese people who can guess whether their reactions are correct.
The architecture teaches the number of comments how to laugh about the video, and teaches shy Japanese people that the reaction is correct.
The above comment from the author is keen. I wrote earlier that architecture defines society, but this is a reversal logic that in fact, it is just an architecture that fits society.
When building web services, especially social media, it is necessary to be aware of social and differentiated norms. Furthermore, it teaches us that we have social responsibility.