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What I'm Reading This Week (2025/01.12-01.18)

Trends

TikTok refugees are entering RedNote (小红书).

RedNote, by relaxing identity verification and allowing foreign phone numbers to register, has become an important and unique platform for communication between Chinese people both inside and outside China. After the arrival of TikTok refugees, RedNote was forced to implement Chinese identity verification. I don't want the original community atmosphere to be destroyed by TikTok refugees. In the end, it's the Chinese people who get hurt.

Moreover, a group of people posting nonsensical messages in foreign languages about joining the platform - these TikTok refugees enjoy the attention of the native users while also polluting RedNote's content.

I don't want so many foreigners on RedNote.

RedNote used to be like Weibo, not requiring Chinese identity verification. TikTok refugees can go to Weibo, where many foreigners used to follow entertainment celebrities. Besides, Weibo is already a cesspool, and no one would be harmed by changes to Weibo.

What I Am Reading

"Yesterday's China"(《昨天的中国》), based on Yann Layma（阎雷,french）'s large-scale photography collection "China(《中国》)", carefully selected and supplemented with some previously unpublished photos, reorganized into a volume that comprehensively presents the daily life, economic takeoff, and social transformation of China in transition during 1985-2000.

1. Registering expired domains to collect requests from abandoned network infrastructures​

  • I saw this article on Hack News
  • Communication/interaction/invocation between network infrastructures is usually done by accessing a specific URL to invoke the designated content
  • Some domains have expired, but there are still automated scripts accessing these domains, so these visits can be exploited for hacking
  • For example, using certain web shell permissions to hack into the host programs accessing these domains

2. During the more than half a year break in their WeChat public account, the author team co-authored the book 《种草》"Grassroots Marketing" with RedNote Marketing Lab​

  • "种草" can be translated as grassroots marketing.

  • The following content is a summary from ChatGPT:

  • Companies are currently facing challenges such as oversupply, declining consumption, and intensifying homogeneous competition. However, some companies have still achieved逆势增长 (countercyclical growth) in this environment. These companies are called "grassroots marketing" companies.

  • Characteristics of "grassroots marketing" companies:

    • Achieving rapid growth while maintaining healthy profits.
    • Continuously leading competitors by launching popular products, setting trends rather than following them.
    • Products that inspire users to actively share and spread the word.
    • A large number of users among employees.

  • Key success factors for "grassroots marketing" companies:

    • Leading trends rather than following: Not simply following the market, but proactively identifying potential user needs and launching scarce products.
    • Focusing on "super users": Paying attention to users who spend a lot of time in specific areas and have a deep understanding of product experiences, and maintaining close communication with them.
    • Continuously inspiring users: Providing product experiences that exceed user expectations, building trust and loyalty.
    • Higher production standards: Setting higher standards for oneself to ensure product quality and user satisfaction.
    • Standardization: Even the creation of popular products can be streamlined and organized.
    • Recruiting employees who understand users and are eager to create value for them: Hiring those who are users themselves or have entrepreneurial motivations and qualities of potential entrepreneurs.
    • Business leaders with "both literary and logical skills": Possessing both sensitivity and logical thinking ability.

  • Findings from the author team’s research and their inspiration for their consulting company:

    • Not following market-driven solutions, but instead entering new fields to provide scarce services.
    • Helping companies build new capabilities by benchmarking best practices and restoring these practices from results to key actions, forming a methodology.
    • Co-creating content with "super users" (entrepreneurs) and continuously collecting feedback and suggestions to ensure content value.
    • Delivering beyond expectations to effectively win user trust, such as continuously producing high-quality business content to solve problems for clients without boundaries.
    • Establishing standardized processes and recruiting employees with entrepreneurial qualities.