Why I‘m Interviewing the New Social Media Contenders On Their Own Platforms
Are the newcomers posing a threat to the social media giants?
“The Contenders.”
That’s what we’ve decided to call the interview project that Di Digital and I have planned for a while, with the purpose of identifying up-and-coming contenders who try to take on the social media giants — such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat.
At 5pm GMT (that’s 10am PDT), I will interview live TV app Busker’s founder and CEO Lippe Oosterhof. The interview will be conducted through a live broadcast in the Busker app. An hour later, at 8pm GMT (11am PDT), I’ll interview live chat app Talkshow’s founder and CEO Michael Sippey, former VP of product at Twitter, in a live show in the Talkshow app (whose slogan is “Texting in public”).
You will be able to follow both of these interviews as they happen live, in the apps. Readers/viewers may even submit their own questions, if they wish to do so.
When the interviews are completed, I will write traditional articles, with the interviews in their entirety embedded (when technically possible; otherwise we will link to each original interview). The articles will be published on Di Digital.
Articles published so far:
You discover — in real-time
One of the key themes of this project is transparency; as readers will be able to follow the entire process from start to finish, and take note of all information — even that which does not end up in the traditional news articles.
But that is not the main reason for this project.
We’re doing it because it’s a fun way to put the newcomers’ strengths and weaknesses to the test, allowing creators not only to describe their visions but also exemplify them directly in their apps, and to give readers/viewers the chance to discover and analyze platforms in real-life situations, instead of just reading a pre-packaged compilation.
If all goes well, it will be a total of seven interviews.
The contenders we have selected are:
- Busker
- Talkshow
- Anchor
- Steller
- Li.st (unfortunately, they have turned down our request to make an interview)
- beBee
- Beme (yet to respond to our interview request)
Feedback? Give us a shoutout!
The criteria are simple: the platform needs to be new to the market (2-year-olds Steller and Pixotale are the oldest), it must be possible to conduct an interview in the app or on the site, and the platform itself should have the potential to grow large — or at least fill a void of some kind.
The project‘s time-frame isn’t set yet; we’ll continue until we feel that we have exhausted all available resources. Hopefully there will be a total of seven interviews. Worst case scenario: no more than two. That’s the risk you have to take when you invite readers/viewers to join from the very start.
Do you have suggestions on other platforms we should contact with interview requests? If so, please leave a comment here on Medium, or send an email to henrik.stahl@bonniernews.se.
See you in the Busker and Talkshow apps tonight! (Or in the morning/middle of the night, depending on your current location…)
Henrik Ståhl is a journalist and Product Owner at Bonnier News, managing a plethora of editorial systems within the Dagens Industri and Dagens Nyheter organizations. In the interview series “The Contenders”, he interviews creators and key persons of newly founded social platforms — in the selected platforms.
More info on the platforms:
