On what and why "VKontakte" experimenting in the tape

To begin with we shall understand important and why we need a news feed, and why again something changes it. The tape we communicate with friends and a variety of authors: the Public entertainment, business, media, bloggers, media theme. The tape helps to learn the news, express opinions, to discuss events and be aware of everything that is happening right now.

We have very ambitious goals for the development of the tape:

• make an ideal service for communication between readers and authors;
• allocate among the vast amount of information and the most important news show in the correct order;
• create a fast and convenient interface for viewing text and media, as well as the communication on all platforms.

It can be divided into two key sub-tasks: interesting content and user-friendly interface.

Experiments with the content

We are working in parallel hundreds of different models of smart tape and recommendations - not all experiments are visible to users. they sometimes differ little things: show 1% more content from friends than from the publishers, and see how it affects the use of news feeds. Sometimes tests are more radical: a fundamentally different rank the situational content, and that is always important. This greatly changes the structure of the tape for the readers. Some posts are relevant only for a few hours (the media news, announcements, sports scores), and other publications may be of interest for many days (reviews, articles,

Photo from vacation).

Some experiments can be assessed for a couple of days - then refresh quickly enabled for all users. Other tests, on the contrary, can last more than a month. User habits do not change so quickly, and it is important to evaluate the results after a few weeks.

In a complex product can not be immediately identify the ideal formula, it is the way of iterative improvements. Step by step we check hundreds of hypotheses. For example:

• positions with a lot of interesting comments;
• long reading of the post - more important message than the Like;
• posts, bookmarked, the most interesting;
• longridy and short text posts should be shown at different times of day for each user;
• posts that commented on friends and other interesting.

All these hypotheses, we check in the first place to himself: implement a new feature in the algorithm and start to enjoy themselves. If we like, we turn to a test group of users. Enjoying objective metrics, we evaluate the statistical significance of the experiment. Draw conclusions: either rolls out all or finalizing on. And so for several years since the launch of the smart belt. Thousands of different hypotheses and experiments. According to the results of each there are new ideas and assumptions, there is still a huge list of ideas.

Work on the interface

It seems that in the newswire nothing fancy and nothing to invent in terms of interface? But in fact it is also a constant search for beauty.

So mapping the post has changed over the past years:

In the recommendations positions look quite differently. Why? There are very different patterns of consumption and the emphasis in terms of perception. In the tape, we have subscribed to specific authors, it is important who wrote the post, when, whether his friends are discussing. And is it possible to react quickly, Like, write a comment.

And the recommendations we do not know the author. Most likely, it is important to us contentSo we all represent different positions:

The recommendations were also experiments. We showed the different positions of the author, carried Laika button in the compact tape mode and so on. Even now, on iOS and Android interfaces are slightly different, since the experiments do not end there.

We are looking at what tasks users often decide to tape, and try to make the interface ideal for these tasks. And here is something to work right now.

1. Tape without unnecessary counters

The film wants most convenient to read the content itself and less distracted by the various counters. Therefore, in one experiment, we do not show the number of likes and repost, leave only comments. There is a hypothesis that this could have a positive impact on the involvement and the amount of activity in the film as a whole and make themselves huskies more meaningful over time.

Why are comments left? This is not just counter. Comments - this is also the content information to supplement the post. Counter comments helps to understand whether or not to move to a separate screen post to read the discussion. Sometimes they are the most interesting publications.

How do we evaluate the experiment? For objective metrics and feedback from users. Sometimes there are complaints, which is unusual, but there are a lot of positive feedback, which is really convenient when the tape is more concise and no overload unnecessary information. But the interface is launched recently, the objective metrics to assess the food early. In the beginning there is always a period of getting used to.

We plan to check the other version of the interface, in which there are no counters, but will focus on the content. If the objective metrics will show growth of activity in the tape (time, number of sessions, participation and so on) and feedback of readers and writers would rather positive, it is possible that this version at some point in the rolled out all.

2. Easily add to your favorites

Another idea that is being tested, - to carry out the add button in the tab on the screen belt. In dealing with customers, we have heard many times the idea that Husky can be used as a way to keep the post "for later". To do this in "VKontakte" is a handy tool than the Like - bookmarking service. Therefore, we experiment to replace the tape counter reads the post to add a button to your bookmarks. This test is already running, we collect the views and metrics.

3. Compact Display posts

In addition to the counters and the action buttons, we have long been engaged in a compact stations. Unfortunately, there are many examples where in the stream can take two or three phone's screen, which objectively uncomfortable. Therefore, we ran an experiment where the show is not all attachi and only key.

This approach has many advantages: the tape becomes a visually pleasant and convenient. But he strongly breaks a number of habitual patterns. For example, it is convenient to make a survey and two photographs to choose the best. And if such a post to hide photos and leave only a poll, then lost all convenience. Therefore, the study of this experiment continues.

4. The speed of

In addition to visually noticeable experiments, we are now actively working on the task of speeding up the work of the interface. It is about the speed of loading the tape, and media content, with the opening comments of the screen.

Our servers handle tens of thousands of requests per second tape. Therefore, fast loading tape and recommendations section requires at least creativity and effort than ideal for the arrangement of elements interface. To improve such a plan, we have a separate team, which creates a special database, the most optimized for our tasks.

In addition, we are implementing an artful logic of multi-stage cache information. It includes the cache on the mobile client - for instant download data from the previous session. And yet - a variety of caches on the server, which allows a lot of calculations done in advance.

5. comfortable comments

Over the past year, much has changed in the comments. We made them two-level - this is very lacking. But there is still a huge plan of obvious improvements.

Discussions with dozens of branches and hundreds of participants in the conversation is difficult to view the phone. Not so long ago launched a convenient rankings branches comments: you can watch the most interesting or the most recent. But in general, we are still at the beginning. The plans - to significantly improve detection algorithms interesting comment and display them above, to implement updates and receive comments and responses in real time. In addition, make the interface as easy as possible to communicate in a format similar to the dialogue, and implement the notification and interfaces that will be aware of the most interesting for the user discussions.

conclusion

The devil in the details. We are working hard to reach, in different formats, and other monetization opportunities to make in content system as convenient for authors and readers. But at the same time we believe that in parallel with the overall strategy and the fundamental starts is critical to work out all the minute details of news feeds and recommendations. Expect even more experimentation and updates.