Welcome to Zhihu www.zhihu.com
With Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and major news outlets like the New York Times and Bloomberg all effectively banned in China, and Chinese state media muzzled as always, it’s getting increasingly difficult for Chinese citizens to answer — or even ask — questions like these. But Zhihu, an online platform that allows Chinese web users to pose and engage the hard questions could challenge the status quo. Meaning "do you know"in Chinese, Zhihu is an interactive, online platform similar to Quora.com where anyone can post questions, with the best responses upvoted by others. Featuring high-profile Chinese entrepreneurs and public intellectuals among its users, Zhihu is increasingly providing Chinese netizens with a space for rich discussion, one surprisingly free— at least for now — from government censorship.
about zhihu's positioning strategy
Zhihu, to my mind , is kind of a step up from Weibo, because it focuses on answering questions, rather than simply sharing information, it is more valuable for Chinese society in some aspects.
In fact when we talked about the Chinese domestic Q&A platforms four years ago, the ordinary users would choose Baidu Knows, after all, as Baidu’s online star-product, it owns a very high brand awareness since 2005 when it was first promoted. The other similar product, 360 Knows, SoSo Q&A, Sogou Q&A couldn’t shake its dominate position in the Q&A market. But the appearance of Zhihu apparently caught a gap in the monopoly situation of Baidu Knows, it stand out rapidly in the competitiveness by it’s nature of always finding a more professional and personalized answer for the user.
The pure value of answer is the bottom line Zhihu hold. It happens all the time that the operation side of a Q&A platform is struggled by how to attract the valuable users, since it not only depends on the “heat” of the information source, but also depends on the excellence extent of the answer platform. To achieve the goal, some Q&A platforms may flop into the grandstand-pit in order to attract eyeballs, but Zhihu will never do that.
On zhihu, information sharing has no boundaries, as long as you have genuine materials to serve as answer, zhihu won't set any intervention for you. But when it comes to the problems which the value of information is really matters, Zhihu never shrink back.After all, it’s always easy to talk nonsense or to indulge in exaggerations.
Zhihu built a truly effective sharing environment. In spite of trying to catch the user's reading desire, or to promote its spread, Zhihu always take content-value as their bottom line. Purely for the content, purely for the sharing, this kind of criterion finally makes Zhihu find its existence meaning under the oppression of so much surrounding Knows Q&A products.
In fact when we talked about the Chinese domestic Q&A platforms four years ago, the ordinary users would choose Baidu Knows, after all, as Baidu’s online star-product, it owns a very high brand awareness since 2005 when it was first promoted. The other similar product, 360 Knows, SoSo Q&A, Sogou Q&A couldn’t shake its dominate position in the Q&A market. But the appearance of Zhihu apparently caught a gap in the monopoly situation of Baidu Knows, it stand out rapidly in the competitiveness by it’s nature of always finding a more professional and personalized answer for the user.
The pure value of answer is the bottom line Zhihu hold. It happens all the time that the operation side of a Q&A platform is struggled by how to attract the valuable users, since it not only depends on the “heat” of the information source, but also depends on the excellence extent of the answer platform. To achieve the goal, some Q&A platforms may flop into the grandstand-pit in order to attract eyeballs, but Zhihu will never do that.
On zhihu, information sharing has no boundaries, as long as you have genuine materials to serve as answer, zhihu won't set any intervention for you. But when it comes to the problems which the value of information is really matters, Zhihu never shrink back.After all, it’s always easy to talk nonsense or to indulge in exaggerations.
Zhihu built a truly effective sharing environment. In spite of trying to catch the user's reading desire, or to promote its spread, Zhihu always take content-value as their bottom line. Purely for the content, purely for the sharing, this kind of criterion finally makes Zhihu find its existence meaning under the oppression of so much surrounding Knows Q&A products.
An introduction video of Zhihu
With a similar model to Quora, Zhihu started out as invite-only in the beginning of 2011, and only opened sign-ups in March this year. As for July, there are already 600,000 daily active users and 10 million monthly active users. A platform where people can ask serious questions and get well-educated answers from people from that area of expertise, it also features some smart and hilarious Q&As that make not only Chinese laugh, but also get a few chuckles from people across cultures. Some of the best “legendary replies” 神回复 collected are:
Why do some say “women are always right”?
To explain with Darwin’s evolution theory: one type of people think that women are always right, the other doesn’t. No women married the second type, so they became extinct.
How do you pick up a girl that you don’t know but like at first sight?
Walk over and lie on the ground: hey, you dropped your boyfriend.
Why is it that when a guy and a girl earn similar salary, the girl’s standard of living always seems better?
Because guys are earning bread money (面包钱 miànbāo qián), women are earning pocket money (零花钱 línghuā qián).
What’s the difference between loneliness (寂寞 jìmò) and solitude (孤独 gūdú)?
Loneliness is when others don’t want to talk to you, solitude is when you don’t want to talk to others.
Why don’t the single high-quality no-longer-young people you know get married?
I have asked all kinds of 高富帅 “tall rich and handsome”, green card holders, literary people, gold-collar workers who are my friends why they haven’t married. Each one’s answer is detailed, has reasons, tears and emotions, such as how being from a single-parent family has cause psychological difficulties; their career is not successful enough to provide a life for a wife; and the wrong place at the wrong time, etc., all kinds of excuses that may very well also include “for the good of the people”. Upon close inspection, I found there is only one: haven’t had enough fun yet. Please never underestimate these so-called unmarried high-quality single men’s love life.
What kind of jobs do philosophy majors end up doing?
A politics teacher in my high school studied philosophy. She said she was a bad philosophy student, the best students in their department all went mad.
Can someone with an annual salary of around ¥150,000 buy a place to live?
Yes.
A good buddy of mine went to Beijing after he quit university, his annual salary is around 100,000 yuan. Because his long-term girlfriend had to go to college and get a masters degree; he went to Beijing to accompany her. Without an apartment in Beijing, everything was inconvenient. So he decided to manage his earnings. Before, they were 月光族(moonlight group). After they decided to buy a place, they barely went clubbing at all, and cooked at home, which deepened their relationship. This saved a lot every month. Six months later his father gave him 6,080,000 yuan; he bought a place in Beijing.
How do I persuade my wife not to shoot wedding pictures?
You are just a prop. What right do you have to complain? Just go along with it.
Why do some say “women are always right”?
To explain with Darwin’s evolution theory: one type of people think that women are always right, the other doesn’t. No women married the second type, so they became extinct.
How do you pick up a girl that you don’t know but like at first sight?
Walk over and lie on the ground: hey, you dropped your boyfriend.
Why is it that when a guy and a girl earn similar salary, the girl’s standard of living always seems better?
Because guys are earning bread money (面包钱 miànbāo qián), women are earning pocket money (零花钱 línghuā qián).
What’s the difference between loneliness (寂寞 jìmò) and solitude (孤独 gūdú)?
Loneliness is when others don’t want to talk to you, solitude is when you don’t want to talk to others.
Why don’t the single high-quality no-longer-young people you know get married?
I have asked all kinds of 高富帅 “tall rich and handsome”, green card holders, literary people, gold-collar workers who are my friends why they haven’t married. Each one’s answer is detailed, has reasons, tears and emotions, such as how being from a single-parent family has cause psychological difficulties; their career is not successful enough to provide a life for a wife; and the wrong place at the wrong time, etc., all kinds of excuses that may very well also include “for the good of the people”. Upon close inspection, I found there is only one: haven’t had enough fun yet. Please never underestimate these so-called unmarried high-quality single men’s love life.
What kind of jobs do philosophy majors end up doing?
A politics teacher in my high school studied philosophy. She said she was a bad philosophy student, the best students in their department all went mad.
Can someone with an annual salary of around ¥150,000 buy a place to live?
Yes.
A good buddy of mine went to Beijing after he quit university, his annual salary is around 100,000 yuan. Because his long-term girlfriend had to go to college and get a masters degree; he went to Beijing to accompany her. Without an apartment in Beijing, everything was inconvenient. So he decided to manage his earnings. Before, they were 月光族(moonlight group). After they decided to buy a place, they barely went clubbing at all, and cooked at home, which deepened their relationship. This saved a lot every month. Six months later his father gave him 6,080,000 yuan; he bought a place in Beijing.
How do I persuade my wife not to shoot wedding pictures?
You are just a prop. What right do you have to complain? Just go along with it.
limitation Zhihu faced
One of the problems Zhihu is that it will be very limited to the Chinese community. While it may be good for those who speak Chinese natively, it will lack the diversity of having a more global perspective. Another limitation is that Zhihu probably won’t have a strong social media presence because popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are still banned in their country. The creators of Zhihu made the clone in anticipation that Quora will most likely be banned in China as well.