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51 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
51 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
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---
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title: Why New Social Media Fails
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date: 2017-06-16
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---
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#### (for now)
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We all know and love social media. In this day and age,
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it's almost impossible to avoid it. As social creatures we crave the
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satisfaction of being connected to so many people at once. But we also
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hate the platforms that are available -- Facebook is data hungry,
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Twitter has some bizarre developer policies and is rife with bots,
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reddit is a hive mind... the list goes on. So why can't we just make a
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new social platform that solves all these issues?
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The sad truth is that incentivizing people to move to another platform
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is really difficult. We can observe this with something like Google
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Allo, which surged with popularity when it was announced but has
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apparently completely stalled in downloads (via [Android Police](http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/11/29/google-allo-hit-5-million-downloads-in-5-days-two-months-later-its-momentum-seems-utterly-stalled/)). A handful of people I talk to on a regular basis
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have it installed, but we also end up communicating a lot on Twitter,
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which defeats the purpose (I also have a sneaking suspicion I might be
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the only person they have on Allo)
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> [](https://twitter.com/gmem_/status/870790497727422464)
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> [](https://twitter.com/jaredallard/status/870790618238210048)
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Unfortunately Facebook is no different. Despite my best efforts, for a
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lot of people including my bosses, it has pretty much completely
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replaced SMS. Facebook Messenger is the only messaging platform they
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use, and who can blame them -- it's a solid messaging app. And I say
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this with a hint of sarcasm
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([reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/Nexus6P/comments/4jpcvt/absolutely_ridiculous_facebook_messenger_battery/), although I've seen some reports [suggesting they fixed it](http://mashable.com/2017/01/11/facebook-messenger-battery-drain/#jfK9Pvnv9iqP) recently).
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And other social networks... have fared no better. The two biggest names
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out there, Facebook and Twitter, dominate. Startups have attempted to
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build better platforms -- I remember signing up for the beta of
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[App.net](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net), which ended up shutting because the company simply
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ran out of money, due both to low adoption rates and low conversion of
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free customers to paying. Niche platforms have risen like
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[Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/about), which have potential but the adoption rate will be
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low and very niche.
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Now there is a bright side to all this. There will always be a place for
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startup social platforms -- Remember, we all thought MySpace couldn't
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fail (and when was the last time you thought of *MySpace*?). There will
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be a time when Twitter doesn't manage to keep up with the times, or
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people wise up and ditch Facebook completely. I don't want to discourage
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people from exploring the potential of their twist on the idea, who
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knows what could happen.
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