The English version is at the bottom
校长 @Pxstar_：我发现你真是把搞 X 流量当做第一性原理，每天在生活
确实，X 流量真的几乎成了我近期优化整个生活的方向：我花大量时间思考 X 平台的逻辑，也帮很多朋友找到了做账号的方法 —— 本文是我钻研 X 的所有思考总结，以及基于 X 的个人使用说明书
一、重新理解 X
X 月活 6 亿，周活 3 亿，这个数不算大（Facebook、Instagram、Youtube 和 WhatsAPP 月活均有近 30 亿）
但 X 用户都是能读文字、有思考能力的人，60% 用户年龄在 18–34 岁之间，正是社会中流砥柱 —— 用户价值显著高于其他平台
未来注定是视频的时代，而且是那种 AI 实时给你生产的视频 —— 彼时将是内容行业诸神的黄昏，因为谁也造不出比这更让人上瘾的内容毒品
有独立思考和主体性的人在 AI 助力下将成为神，沉迷于内容毒品的大多数人会领着全民基本工资过上缸中之脑的快乐生活，大家都有光明的未来
彼时文字仍会是最强大的思想武器，因为文字的「信噪比」永恒领先于影音
现在和未来，对于读者、写作者和思考者而言，X 是当之无愧世界第一平台
看完 @nikhilkamathcio 对马斯克的采访，我更喜欢 X 了：这是一个有所不为的平台，焕发着自由的光辉
马斯克说 X 的运营原则是「遵守所在国家的法律，但不会在法律要求之外主动、规模化地去做更多限制」
全球 16 岁以上的人平均每天用社交媒体两个半小时，X 其实完全可以往让人沉迷在降智小视频的方向优化，但是马斯克明确说他不会往这个方向做 —— 他不想要另一个内容毒品制作基地，而想要一个全球人类集体意识上传的地方
前两天我在香港街头迷路，恍惚间觉得自己身处的原子世界和赛博世界之间的界限变得模糊 —— 因为我发现原子世界简直渲染得太好了，人们在原子世界中建造的一切是那么精致，衬托之下赛博世界显得非常荒芜
一个人没法造出一栋楼，和水泥的、炼钢筋的、做设计的、找商户的，分工合作，术业有专攻
类似，赛博世界中庞然巨物的建造也需要一群人，你没法单枪匹马从零开始制造出精致、复杂而伟大的事物 —— 人们需要分工合作，X 会是这种集体智慧的载体
人体由 30 万亿个细胞组成，通过共同计算协作出个体智慧。更大尺度里，每个人类也像一个细胞，算力非常有限，大家在 X 上传意识，帮助彼此理解现实世界在发生什么，一起探索个体智慧不足以计算的终极问题
这和《银河系漫游指南》这本书中的宇宙观一致：整个地球被制造的目的就是去计算一个问题「生命的意义是什么？」（答案是 42）
这个世界观下，我觉得做 X 账号很像治国理政，核心在于理解某个数量级以上的人类群体都在想什么就能知道一个操作的后果会是什么
比如流量就是一个指标，类似于治国理政中 GDP、出生率、死亡率之类的数据
你再想一层就能理解为什么 X 上的乌合之众这么多，因为这就是社会：如果有人被处刑，那就一定有一堆人来伸着脖子围观
为实现人类集体意识上传，重要的一环是跨语言跨文化交流：目前，你的中文推文如果一旦突破了某个流量数值就很有可能被推送到其他语言区，这是杀破狼 @wolfyxbt 老师最近的发现 —— 过去我们觉得 X 不同语言彼此割裂，也许未来会走向融合
我常感叹也只有 @jack @elonmusk 这种史诗级偏执狂才能搞出 X 这样的东西
多年之后，面对严格的 KYC（KYA），我们会怀念那个人人都可以匿名注册 X 艾特 @grok 和世界人民一起搞网黄的时代
二、Curator
安迪·沃霍尔在 1968 年左右说了一句非常有名的话：「在未来，每个人都能被全世界看到 15 分钟」
在大众媒体高度发达的社会里，注意力被极度切碎、传播成本极低，普通人也可能在某个瞬间被推到聚光灯下
X 是很好的例子：人人都可能零帧起手写出百万流量的帖子
这个过程随机性很大，但通过相当长时间的摸索，我发现有很多规律可循。恰好我的兴趣也在于此：帮助别人走向舞台中央 —— 相比于自己获得注意力，我更擅长也更喜欢帮别人获得注意力
所以我给自己的定位叫 Curator，策展人 —— 这是一个很有意思的职业
第一，策展一种创造：每一个 Curation 都是 Curator 的主观创造，代表着 Curator 看待世界的视角
第二，策展是在成就他人：艺术家精于制作内容，不一定通晓传播渠道，这是策展人的领域
第三，策展人生活在文本与非文本的交界地带：既要能感受艺术本身，又要能理解史论
精力有限，我不可能每天在时间线上搞策展，所以我把我想做的事情封装成两个产品（@Depend_Research & @attentionvc），供大家调用
我认为 X 正处从社交网络到媒体平台的转型期，@Depend_Research 将凝结 X 作为媒体平台的属性，@attentionvc 将凝结 X 作为社交网络的属性，两者加起来才是完整的 X
三、Depend Research & Attention VC
Depend Research
@Depend_Research 是一个 Founder Led Growth Studio，专注于帮助 Founder 打造 IP：这是一件锦上添花的事，让 Founder 舞台中央的 15 分钟更加闪耀
背后的理念是我认为有理想有抱负的 Founder 都应该成为 KOL —— 在媒体杠杆 flip 代码杠杆的时代，如果你不是 KOL，你不是一个合格的 Founder
目前我的能力圈主要在加密领域，未来将会扩展到 AI 领域 —— 希望能够桥接东西方，传递有价值的思想
为什么叫「Depend」呢？因为客户经常问「Yes or No」时我都会回答「It Depends」，次数多到近乎口头禅
「Depend」这个词是咨询的核心：法无定法，乃名为法；若知非法法，即是知法 —— 案例库和方法论固然重要，「It Depends」后面的话更加重要
@Depend_Research 业务的主要呈现形式是「谈话」，我在这个过程中扮演的角色是面向 Founder 的提示词工程师，用媒体的思维启发 Founder 输出洞见、优化传播
AI 会对内容行业形成长期的、深刻的冲击，终局是 AI 生成内容（尤其是实时生成视频）彻底占据人们的心智，完全杀死内容行业
但一眼看到底是没有意义的，凯恩斯说：长期来看，我们都死了——真到那时，全人类集体成为缸中之脑，每天直接刺激神经分泌递质快乐着就可以
制造内容电子流水生产线是当下的风口，但不是我的业务范围，如 @mablemeibao 所言：保持专注，不怕赛道细，就怕不够精
我只帮客户古法手作 3 Sigma 以外的优质内容，在统计学上对抗 AI —— 你作为 Founder 只有一发子弹，你是选择相信人，还是相信 AI？
Attention VC
@attentionvc 是我和好朋友 @justinweb33 做的一款产品，核心脑洞是我发现搞流量和做投资很像，想要提升搞流量的能力就得量化投入产出并刻意练习，具体介绍可见发刊词
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产品路线图上还有各种各样的功能，观众老爷们敬请期待，也欢迎提出宝贵建议指导我们做产品
四、拓展阅读
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@Pxstar_ once told me: "I’ve realized you truly treat X traffic as your First Principle; it’s how you live every day."
It’s true. For the past month, X traffic has guided my life. I spend hours studying X’s logic and helping friends grow their accounts. This article is my research on X.
I. Re-understanding X
X has 600 million monthly active users and 300 million weekly active users. These numbers aren’t huge (Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and WhatsApp all have nearly 3 billion monthly actives).
But X users are people who can read text and have the ability to think. 60% of users are between 18–34 years old, the very backbone of society — the user value is significantly higher than other platforms.
The future is destined to be the era of video, and specifically the kind of video AI generates for you in real-time — that will be the "Twilight of the Idols" for the content industry, because no one can create a digital drug more addictive than that.
People with independent thinking and agency will become "gods" with the help of AI; the majority, addicted to content drugs, will lead a happy "brain-in-a-vat" life on Universal Basic Income. Everyone has a bright future.
At that time, text will still be the most powerful intellectual weapon, because the "signal-to-noise ratio" of text eternally leads over audio and video.
Now and in the future, for readers, writers, and thinkers, X is the undisputed number one platform in the world.
After watching @nikhilkamathcio’s interview with Elon Musk, I like X even more: it is a platform that knows what not to do, glowing with the light of freedom.
Musk said X’s operating principle is to "comply with the laws of the country it is in, but it will not proactively and at scale create more restrictions beyond what the law requires."
People over 16 globally spend an average of two and a half hours on social media every day. X could easily optimize toward addictive, low-IQ short videos, but Musk explicitly said he would not go in that direction — he doesn’t want another digital drug factory; he wants a place where the global human collective consciousness is uploaded.
A few days ago, I was lost on the streets of Hong Kong. For a moment, I felt the boundary between the atomic world and the cyber world becoming blurred — because I realized the atomic world is just rendered so well. Everything people build in the atomic world is so exquisite that, by comparison, the cyber world feels very desolate.
One person cannot build a skyscraper; those who mix cement, those who forge steel, those who design, and those who find tenants must divide the work, each with their own expertise.
Similarly, the construction of "megastructures" in the cyber world requires a group of people. You cannot build something exquisite, complex, and great starting from zero single-handedly — people need to divide the work and cooperate. X will be the carrier of this collective intelligence.
The human body is made of 30 trillion cells, creating individual intelligence through collective computation. On a larger scale, every human is also like a cell with very limited computing power. People upload their consciousness to X to help each other understand what is happening in the real world and to explore ultimate questions that individual intelligence is not enough to calculate.
This is consistent with the worldview in the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: the entire Earth was built for the purpose of calculating one question: "What is the meaning of life?" (The answer is 42).
Under this worldview, I feel that building an X account is very much like governing a country. The core lies in understanding what a group of humans above a certain order of magnitude is thinking, then you will know what the consequences of an action will be.
For example, traffic is an indicator, similar to data like GDP, birth rate, or death rate in governance.
If you think one layer deeper, you can understand why there are so many "mobs" on X, because that is society: if someone is being executed, there will definitely be a crowd of people stretching their necks to watch.
To achieve the uploading of human collective consciousness, an important link is cross-language and cross-cultural communication: currently, if your Chinese tweet breaks through a certain traffic threshold, it is very likely to be pushed to other language zones. This is a recent discovery by Teacher @wolfyxbt — in the past, we felt different languages on X were isolated; perhaps in the future, they will move toward integration.
I often marvel that only epic paranoiacs like @jack and @elonmusk could create something like X.
Many years from now, facing strict KYC (KYA), we will miss the era when anyone could register anonymously on X, @grok, and get involved in "NSFW content" with people all over the world.
II. Curator
Around 1968, Andy Warhol said a very famous line: "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."
In a society with highly developed mass media, attention is extremely fragmented and the cost of transmission is extremely low. Ordinary people can be pushed into the spotlight in an instant.
X is a great example: anyone can write a post with a million hits starting from zero.
This process involves a lot of randomness, but through a long period of exploration, I’ve found there are many patterns to follow. Conveniently, my interest lies here: helping others move toward the center of the stage — compared to gaining attention for myself, I am better at and prefer helping others gain attention.
So I position myself as a Curator — this is a very interesting profession.
First, curation is a form of creation: every Curation is the curator's subjective creation, representing the curator's perspective on the world.
Second, curation is about helping others succeed: artists are good at making content but don't necessarily know the distribution channels; that is the curator's field.
Third, curators live in the borderland between text and non-text, needing to both feel the art itself and understand history and theory.
My energy is limited; I can't do curation on the timeline every day, so I’ve packaged what I want to do into two products (Depend Research & Attention VC) for everyone to call upon.
I believe X is in a transition period from a social network to a media platform. @Depend_Research will condense X's attributes as a media platform, and @attentionvc will condense X's attributes as a social network. The two together make the complete X.
III. Depend Research & Attention VC
Depend Research
@Depend_Research is a Founder-Led Growth Studio focused on helping Founders build their IP: this is the "icing on the cake," making the Founder's 15 minutes in the center of the stage shine brighter.
The philosophy behind it is my belief that any ambitious Founder should become a KOL — in an era where media leverage flips code leverage, if you are not a KOL, you are not a qualified Founder.
Currently, my circle of competence is mainly in the crypto field, and in the future, it will expand to the AI field — I hope to bridge East and West and transmit valuable thoughts.
Why call it "Depend"? Because when clients ask "Yes or No," I often answer "It Depends," so many times it’s almost a catchphrase.
The word "Depend" is the core of consulting: "No fixed law is the law." While case libraries and methodologies are important, what comes after "It Depends" is even more important.
The main form of Depend Research's business is "conversation." The role I play in this process is a Prompt Engineer for Founders, using media thinking to inspire Founders to output insights and optimize transmission.
AI will have a long-term, profound impact on the content industry. The endgame is AI-generated content (especially real-time video) completely occupying people's minds, totally killing the content industry.
But there’s no point in looking all the way to the end. Keynes said: "In the long run, we are all dead" — when that time truly comes, all of humanity will collectively become brains-in-vats, just being happy by directly stimulating nerves to secrete neurotransmitters.
Manufacturing electronic content assembly lines is the current trend, but it is not my business scope. As @MableMeibao said: stay focused; don't fear a narrow track, fear not being refined enough.
I only help clients "hand-make" high-quality content beyond 3 Sigma to fight AI with statistics — as a Founder, you only have one bullet; do you choose to believe in humans, or believe in AI?
Attention VC
@attentionvc is a product I made with my good friend Justin. The core "brain hole" (idea) is my discovery that getting traffic is very similar to investing. To improve the ability to get traffic, you must quantify input/output and practice deliberately. For specific details, see the introductory post.
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There are various functions on the product roadmap; stay tuned, and feel free to provide valuable suggestions to guide our product development.
