2025 Embrace Reality: Real Information and Users, Real Creation and Connection

Author: Zolo, Deep Tide TechFlow

It seems that everyone is looking forward to 2025, for market reasons, hot topics. Project parties, leeks, KOL, VC… Everyone is ready to make a big deal.

I am also a part of it. But I am starting to be cautious, how can I not “be” affected when everyone wants to make a big move.

Looking back on 2024, I hope that in 2025, everything I come into contact with and create is genuine and brings positive value to the industry.

Real information: Information cocoons are everywhere, and what we pursue is not more information, but real information

Do not be superstitious about a single channel

The first time this year that made me deeply aware of this matter is the US election. If you only look at Polymarket, you would always think Trump is sure to win, but the fluctuations in between would catch you off guard.

If you only watch “certain American party media”, you will think that Harris still has a chance to win; And if you change the information channel to Twitter, you will find that Twitter is full of news that Trump is going to win.

Information is neither right nor wrong, but it can be narrow-minded.

So, when we evaluate the popularity and reputation of a project only through Twitter, we should also look at on-chain data, community discussions, and interactions with others, etc.

Enrich your channels and make yourself receive more diverse signals.

Escape the prejudice of KOL

The most impressive thing for me this year is the discussion about ai16z, and I happened to follow it from the beginning to now.

There are good ones and bad ones. For example, at the beginning, the founder’s unbridled speech made many people worry about their holdings. Even KOLs as big as Ansem and Him publicly FUD ai16z.

In the dispute between eliza/Eliza capitalization, different KOLs have very different opinions.

It is normal to have different opinions, and it is also normal to criticize a project. However, if all viewpoints become illogical, emotional, and rigid, it is biased.

During this period, if you only listen to those who are always bullish ai16z, you will feel that the problems with the project are not worth mentioning, of course, you also need to bear the selling pressure during that time.

Also during this period, if you only follow KOLs who keep spreading FUD regardless of how good ai16z becomes, the information you receive will always be negative, which will cause you to miss out on 10x or even 100x returns.

KOL is not right or wrong, but each KOL is just an information cocoon. They have varying quality, but because they are individuals, they definitely carry their own solidified understanding and even biases. When you are researching a project, do not overlook those friends around you who have truly delved into the project.

Beware of the conspiracy group, your insider information is all “losing money news”.

Many friends have shared on Twitter that more than 80% of the ‘insider information’ they received resulted in losses.

I feel the same way, it’s not because I have ill intentions in sharing ‘insider information’ with you, but because we are all part of the game.

You do not know the truthfulness of the news (will it pull);

The validity of the news is unknown (where to pull).

I don’t know how many other people know this news (whether they have enough to buy at a lower price);

…

The probability of these messages being “distorted” is too high,

So much so that these ‘little rumors’ have become ‘losing money rumors’ by the time they reach you.

Real Users: Reject the prosperity of false data, traffic is important, but do not be addicted to traffic

Industry traffic becomes more false, we need real influence

Whether it’s Twitter followers, website traffic, or the number of AMA participants, fake traffic is becoming more and more prevalent, and it has also spawned many services that sell traffic.

For my own work, I have a deeper understanding.

The influence of the media, traffic is a very important judgment factor, many people who do not understand the industry, generally directly judge whether this media is worth cooperating from the perspective of traffic through some third-party tools.

This also directly leads to “buying traffic”, attracting “business”, and becoming a common phenomenon, as is the case in any industry.

However, ‘purchased traffic’ does not bring ‘real influence’;

The “business” they attract does not bring them “good results”.

In this loop:

The platform wants to buy traffic to make itself appear influential.

The project party needs attractive traffic to prove that what they are doing is effective;

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

The traffic increases, the surface effect improves, and the industry enters a false prosperity, only real wealth is transferred to the “traffic service providers”.

I would call this phenomenon ‘traffic addiction TrafficSick’. Once infected, it will become deeper and deeper.

How to determine real influence?

Try to communicate with real people, interact with different roles in the industry, ask them how they view a certain issue, if they have seen certain content, and what their feedback is, etc.

This is also the reason why I participated in many activities throughout the past year. Only through real offline contact and communication with different friends, I can understand how everyone truly views us, what everyone is currently discussing, what the atmosphere of the community is like, and what kind of content truly interests users, and so on.

Only with real influence and genuine feedback can we enter a positive cycle.

Don’t be afraid of low traffic, it might be a good idea to first build a niche community with emotional connections.

When I was doing advertising before, I was always deeply influenced by a viewpoint:

Everyone’s underlying nature must have some commonalities, to the extent that no matter what you do, as long as it is something that truly moves you and you deeply identify with, there will always be someone on the other side of the world who resonates with you.

Just like listening to music, “indie music” is always a relative concept and always has a market.

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

1- Are you doing things that truly move and validate yourself?

2- Have you spread the word enough about this matter?

For Web3, although our market is growing, the benefit is that our traffic is not very scattered. Users in which regions, using which social software, and what are your competitors, can all be counted.

Loyal Members must have been 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, forming a community.

We don’t need a lot of people, because these dozens of people may be much more effective than tens of thousands of people. So, we shouldn’t worry about the traffic, but whether what we do can really attract people.

Real Creation: When AI becomes a universal creative tool, what kind of content will attract people?

This year, in addition to the hype around concepts like AI Agent, AI as a tool has greatly improved our productivity. However, one common comment now is: this thing has a strong AI flavor.

Whether you realize it or not, you will gradually discover:

The content you see will become more and more homogeneous; the content framework and reasoning logic will become more and more similar; the content of argumentative references will gradually converge; there will be more and more research-type content (because it is increasingly easier to produce water articles).

I know that some content platforms, in fact, have always been using AI to generate content, expand their own databases, do SEO, and make money from traffic.

But users will definitely experience aesthetic fatigue.

So when AI is widely referred to as a creative tool, what kind of thing will attract people? I think there are two aspects:

1- We should value ideas.

Have your own ideas about the content of production, break the inherent framework, and approach from different perspectives.

2- We should create something new.

People always applaud things they have never seen before. Creativity is illogical, it is a random combination, and it is also something that has never been seen before.

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

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

A long-term and healthy relationship should be mutually beneficial, rather than constantly freeloading unilaterally

People who don’t recognize the value of your labor will constantly ask you for “help”;

Those who are stingy towards others/community are unlikely to be willing to share benefits that match your contributions.

When everyone seems to be gearing up for a big change in 2025, I don’t want to be the person who “only knows how to take” without being willing to give.

This year, my dog had a serious illness. When I spent a lot of time taking care of her, I realized that I had always been seeking emotional value from her before.

When I satisfy my own Maslow’s emotional needs, I cannot even meet her basic dietary needs such as eating on time.

Many people’s time is very precious this year. Don’t be afraid to seek help, but always remember not to ask for too much.

A mutually beneficial link is the only truly effective link.

Once the arrow is shot, it doesn’t come back. I think this should also be the attitude towards doing things this year.

Focus on what is recognized, do not scatter too much, and do not think that if you do not do well, there will be another opportunity.

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

Finally, thanks to the partners who chose ShenChao in 2024, and hope to work together in 2025 to do more interesting and creative things together.

To those who see this, I wish you all success in recognized matters in 2025, Happy New Year🎉~