2025 Embrace the truth: real information and users, real creation and connection

Author: Zolo, TechFlow

It seems that everyone is looking forward to 2025, for market reasons and hot reasons. Project parties, leeks, KOLs, VCs... everyone is ready to make a big move.

I am one of them. But I began to be vigilant. When everyone wants to make a big move, how can I prevent myself from being "made" to make a big move.

Looking back on 2024, I hope that what I have come into contact with and what I have created in 2025 are real and have positive value for the industry.

Real information: Information cocoons are everywhere. What we pursue is not more information, but real information

Don't be superstitious about a single channel

The first thing that made me deeply aware of this thing this year was the US election. If you only look at Polymarket, you will always think that Trump will win, and the fluctuations in the middle will catch you off guard.

If you only look at "certain American party media", you will think Harris still has a chance of winning; and if the information channel is changed to Twitter, you will find that Twitter is full of news that Trump is going to win.

There is no right or wrong information, but it is narrow-minded.

So, when we only use Twitter to evaluate the popularity and reputation of a project, we should also look at the on-chain data, community discussions, exchanges with people, etc.

Enrich your own channels and make the signals you receive more diverse.

Escape from KOL's bias

What impressed me most this year was the discussion about ai16z. By chance, I have followed it from the beginning to now.

There are good and bad ones. For example, at the beginning, the founder's outspokenness made many people start to worry about their holdings. KOLs as big as Ansem and Him also publicly FUD ai16z.

Different KOLs hold very different opinions on the capitalization dispute of eliza/Eliza.

It is normal to have different opinions and it is normal to criticize a project, but if all opinions are out of logic and become emotional and solidified, they are biased.

During this period, if you only look at those who have been bullishing ai16z, you will feel that the problems of the project are not worth mentioning, and of course you also need to bear the selling pressure during that period.

Also during this period, if you only follow those KOLs who are still FUD no matter how good ai16z becomes, the information you receive will always be negative, which will also make you miss 10 times or even 100 times the income.

There is no right or wrong in KOLs, but every KOL is an information cocoon. Their quality is good or bad, but because they are individuals, they must have their own solidified cognition and even some prejudices. When you are researching a project, don't ignore those friends around you who have really studied a project in depth.

Beware of conspiracy groups, your gossip is all "losing news"

Many friends have shared on Twitter that more than 80% of the "gossip" they got is a loss.

I am the same. I am not sharing "gossip" with you out of malice, but because we are all part of the Play.

You don't know the authenticity of the news (whether it will pull);

You don't know the validity of the news (where it will pull);

You don't know if you are the first person to know the same news (is the buying point low enough);

......

The probability of "distortion" of these news is too high,so that these "gossip" have become "losing news" when they reach you.

Real users: reject false data prosperity, traffic is important, but don’t become addicted to it

Industry traffic has become more fake, we need real influence

Whether it is Twitter fans, website traffic, or AMA number, fake traffic is increasing, and it also feeds many surrounding "traffic selling" services.

For my own work, I have a deeper understanding.

For the influence of the media, traffic is a very important judgment factor. Many people who don’t understand the industry generally use some third-party tools to directly judge whether the media is worth cooperating from the perspective of traffic.

This also directly leads to "buying traffic" and attracting "business", which has become a common phenomenon, and this is true for any industry.

However, "bought traffic" cannot bring "real influence";

the "business" attracted cannot bring them "good results".

In this cycle:

Platforms need to buy traffic to make themselves look influential;

Project parties need good-looking traffic to prove that what they do is effective;

Different platforms compete with each other, and the cost of buying traffic gradually increases;

Traffic increases, the surface effect improves, the industry enters a false prosperity, and only wealth is truly transferred to the "traffic service providers".

I would like to call this phenomenon "TrafficSick". Once you are infected, you will get deeper and deeper.

How to judge real influence?

Try to communicate with real people, communicate with different roles in the industry, and ask them what they think of a certain issue, whether they have seen a certain content, what comments they have, etc.

This is also the reason why I participated in many activities last year. Only by really contacting and communicating with different friends offline can I know how everyone sees us, what everyone is discussing now, what the atmosphere of the community is now, what kind of content users are really interested in, etc.

Only real influence and real feedback can allow us to enter a positive cycle.

Don't be afraid of low traffic, you might as well build an emotional niche community first.

When I was doing advertising before, I was deeply influenced by a point of view:

Everyone must have some commonalities at the bottom, so that no matter what you do, as long as this thing is "you are really moved" and "you deeply recognize it", there will definitely be someone at one end of the world who will resonate with you.

Just like listening to music, "niche music" is always just a relative concept, and there will always be a market.

So from a market perspective, the problem to be solved is actually very clear:

1- Are you doing something that you are really moved and recognized by?

2- Have you spread this widely enough?

For Web3, although our market is getting bigger and bigger, the good thing is that our traffic is not very scattered. You can count which areas users are in, which social software they use, and what your competitors are.

Loyal Members must be attracted by some of your "extreme concepts, ideas, attitudes", etc. As long as you find them, they will come because of you, and start to gather, and then form a community.

You don't need a lot of people, because these dozens of people may be much better than tens of thousands of people. So, we should not worry about traffic, but whether what we do can really attract people.

Real creation: When AI becomes a creative tool for everyone, what kind of content will attract people?

In addition to the hype about concepts such as AI Agent this year, AI as a tool is also greatly improving our productivity. But now one point that everyone generally comments on is: This thing has a strong AI flavor.

Whether you have discovered it or not, you will gradually discover that:

The content you see will become more and more homogeneous; the content framework and reasoning logic will become more and more similar; the content cited in the argument will gradually converge; there will be more and more research content (because it is becoming easier and easier to produce water articles).

I know that some content platforms have actually been using AI to produce content in the background, expand their own databases, do SEO, and make money from traffic.

But users will definitely get aesthetic fatigue.

So when AI is generally called a creation tool, what kind of things will attract people? I think there are two aspects:

1-We should attach importance to Idea.

Have your own ideas about the content you produce, break the inherent framework, and approach from different angles.

2-We should create new things.

People always applaud things that they have "never seen before". Creativity is illogical, random combination, and "never seen before".

We should pay more attention to creating content rather than organizing it.

Real links: Time is precious, don’t waste it casually

A long-term and healthy relationship should be mutually beneficial, not unilateral and constant freeloading.

People who don’t recognize the value of your labor will constantly ask you to "do a favor";

People who are stingy with others/communities are unlikely to be willing to share the benefits that match your efforts.

When everyone seems to be going to do a big job in 2025, I don’t want to be the one who "only asks" but is unwilling to give.

This year, my puppy got a serious illness. When I spent a lot of time taking care of her, I realized that I had been asking for emotional value from her before.

When I was meeting my own Maslow's emotional needs, I couldn't even meet her most basic dietary needs of eating on time.

Many people's time is very precious this year. Don't be afraid to ask for help, but remember not to ask for it blindly.

Mutually beneficial links are the real and effective links.

Once the bow is shot, there is no turning back. I think this should also be the attitude of doing things this year.

Bet heavily on things you recognize, don't disperse your energy too much, and don't think that there will be another opportunity if you don't do well.

The above is my summary of 2024 and my expectations for myself in 2025.

Finally, I would like to thank the partners who chose Shenchao in 2024. I hope to work together in 2025 and do more interesting and creative things together.

For those who read this, I wish you can gain something from the things you recognize in 2025. Happy New Year?～