Everything About Social Media Is About To Change Again
And it’s not another Twitter clone
By Reed Berkowitz
It seems that everyone is grasping at straws trying to find the next incarnation of social media.
Meta put its money on a VR only metaverse. Elon hopes to turn Twitter into an “everything app” like WeChat. Everyone else (including Meta again) seems like they are trying to clone the current Twitter with more open standards or a particular flavor of politics.
The truth is we can feel these are already failures. It’s just not cool. It’s not fresh. And maybe, they aren’t safe. Increasingly, we see that these ideas are no longer useable anymore. Shallow, algorithm-driven platforms are too open to manipulation by bad actors, AI, and even the companies themselves.
The future of social media isn’t going to be an open source Twitter clone. It’s not going to be a slightly more private Facebook. It’s not going to be a pastel VR only world with casual games.
One thing we know for a fact about social media is it isn’t going to be the same as what we’re using now.
What will it be then? Where is it heading? Is it the fabled metaverse? Is it monetized content? Is it a crypto blockchain world?
We are in that space at the end of one paradigm before the new one is obvious.
But there are clues. What’s coming isn’t going to fit in a single app. It’s too big. But there are qualities that will become extremely important.
Persistent. Always on.
Just like a home, this is a place where you always are. Where people can reach you. If you want people to reach out to you, then the app has to be on a lot. Like all the time.
People like to be with each other. They like to drop in. They like to watch. They like to broadcast. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 3D house in the metaverse or an app on your watch, the future of social media is going to be extremely connected. It’s going to be an always-on affair that is going to give select people a lot of access.
Think of the trends of co-working, pair coding, and live streaming. Everyone will have a “place” where people can access them. Maybe they can see your screen and you can code in public, maybe they can see and talk to you on video, or maybe it’s a virtual representation of you for the more privacy minded, but for sure, it will be a vastly increased amount of contact.
There is an app called Life360. It’s an app designed to let people know exactly what someone else connected to it is doing. You know everything all the time. You know how fast they are driving. You know what their phone’s battery life is. You know where they go and how long they stay there. You can geo-fence areas and get alerts when someone enters or leaves specific areas.
Originally it was used for parents to keep tabs on their children. Guess what? The street finds its own uses for things. Now kids use it. They use it to keep aware of friend groups, circles, and especially their “partners”.
This level of awareness seems almost threatening to an older generation but, get used to it. It’s passive and always on information. It isn’t just Life360 either. You can see hints of it growing everywhere.
Right now you can see when your PlayStation friends turn on their machine and what games they are playing. On Discord, you can broadcast everything you listen to or play. Couples have started sleeping with Facetime on the entire night.
It’s just like that. And it’s getting more intense than ever.
The future is an intimately connected persistent social experience. This isn’t just quipping on Twitter. This is deep, meaningful connection with trusted friend groups.
Cozy. Customizable.
I hate to say it, but the future might be a lot more cozy than you think.
Ok, not all of it, but if you’re going to have a persistent environment, a home, expect that people will want to decorate it and enjoy it.
In the future social media may be a vibe. This doesn’t mean that it won’t be spicy, dangerous, active, etc. but why does it make sense that it will be cozy?
Because it’s where we live. We want where we live to be calm. Chill. Of course we want to go out on adventures. Of course we want to party, but we don’t want to live in a 24hr a day battle.
As I’m writing this I’m listening to the live stream Lo-Fi Girl. It’s a streaming YouTube channel where people can listen to chill beats. But it’s got something else. It’s got the lightly animated image of a girl sitting at her desk doing her homework. With a cat. It also has around 13 million subscribers who tune in to chill with her, do homework, and chat in the live chat with each other. It’s a destination visited well over 1.5 billion times. And they’re young. Briefly looking at the introductions, no one over 21 is admitting it.
It makes sense along with the persistence, always on/often on, quality of the new social media sphere.
Already streams are picking up on this aesthetic.
Maybe look for side cameras? Notice the heck-a-cute dog cam in the lower right!
Does that mean it’s going to have to be CUTE? No. Not at all. It does mean though, that it will have to make us feel good. That means it has to be livable for us. Customizable. A real space. Especially as the gaming and metaverse elements connect with this kind of social media networking.
Home is where the heart is. It might be a haunted castle, it might be a cozy house in a rainy forest, but why make it NOT cute? Why make it frenetic and jarring right off the bat?
When creating the future home online, remember that it is a home. A fantastical home, but a home all the same and it has to feel great.
It might even mean we’re decorating our actual physical spaces more!
It doesn’t matter if the “home” is a flat page or a 3D model in a popular game. It has to be customizable, and I expect for many, it might be a comforting experience.
Speaking of “Cozy Core” games, remember Animal Crossing where basically all you got to do was decorate a house? And during Covid almost everyone you met was doing it? Over 40 million people? Stardew Valley was 20 million. Games like Unpacking continue to rack up incredible downloads. Even the style of social games like Minecraft and Roblox give a strong hint about what people are actually into.
From kids to grandparents, people want a cool home. And if we’re going to be online 24/7, we might want it to be someplace we feel good and belong. Safe and also inspiring for those moments when we’re NOT hanging out.
Passive
The new social media will have a huge passive element to it. If you’re going to be on it a lot and if you’re going to be available, then everything can’t be consciously directed.
Of course, you’ll be there, maybe streaming, but likely you’ll chose to share some passive data with others.
Anything from allowing people to tap into your video feed and see what you’re working on, to posting travel and location data, to sharing your sleep and health data (not me, but some of you, I can tell :) ). I can’t predict how far this will go, but this is already a growing trend as mentioned above. Always on apps collect data and share them. Steam, Twitch, Snapchat, Xbox Live, PlayStation, Google, Discord, etc. all collect and share passive data. I expect this to increase.
Even passive gaming is increasing in popularity. Games like the new Pokémon Sleep take it to the next level, monitoring your sleep all night and giving you the chance to collect Pokémon as a reward!
The key thing about passive social is that unlike Twitter, you won’t have to “go on Twitter” and “post something”. People can just poke in and see how, and maybe what, you’re doing.
Passive is actually extremely social. This is how Discord became such a success. While people were gaming, sometimes they weren’t actually gaming, they were just hanging out chatting. Just… chilling, chatting, and being social.
Think of it more like a teenager’s bedroom. Several people are “hanging out”. Some are doing homework, one’s on the phone and everyone is kind of listening in with one ear. Another is playing a game. If something gets interesting, maybe people will come over and get involved. But it’s passive.
Like a coffee shop. Like work. Like real life.
People just want to BE with each other. They don’t have to be doing anything! Just being together is wonderful.
Selective. Gated.
If you’re going to give unparalleled 24/7 access to the most intimate details of your life, you’ll want your group to be highly curated. There will absolutely be levels of access. From family and close friend groups, to open one-way broadcasts of information.
It’s like letting people into your life. Your room. Your 3D worlds. You wouldn’t give out your phone number to anyone, but some people you’d love to “ping” you and see if you’re around and hang out together.
Intense gating of groups will be a priority aligned directly with access.
Some people are going to broadcast everything 24/7 and some are going to limit it to a virtual only connection, or office hours, or limit the crowds that can reach out to them, but let everyone “watch” a broadcast.
Form Factors
It’s going to be all form factors all the time. Phone, watch, mounted screens, VR, AR, XR, everything. If you can’t access it everywhere, it is probably incomplete.
The not very hard to grasp truth is that the harder the media is to access, the fewer people will access it. It’s why VR-only social spaces are still a niche.
This is a mix of always on connection, social media, and gaming.
Accessibility is the key here.
Even if your social network is a metaverse, based in your very specific game that only works on a high powered gaming PC, your social aspect, could easily connect to a phone. You can get alerts of things happening in the game world, or social events.
I’m not here with you but I want to be.
I wish we could all hang out together.
If Covid taught us anything, it’s that we need each other. We need strong social connections to survive. We die inside if we’re not with the ones we love. If we can’t meet new people and stay connected to our friends and family it literally hurts us. We need something more than a “post” now and then. We need real connection.
The current social media sphere is completely poisoned. There is no way to tell a real person from a “fake personality” with an agenda on Twitter or Facebook. Those innocent days are gone. With AI this only increases the problem. We can’t even tell if someone is a person AT ALL! This is directly because the level of engagement on current social media is so shallow that anyone could fool us.
We need an interface that is more direct. Less mediated. Less susceptible to algorithms and AI. More curated. Deeper. A meaningful connection that can sniff out fakers. A media system with less marketing between us and our friends, new and old.
This is the real metaverse that’s coming fast. A modern mix between one-to-one, face to face, virtual, and IRL encounters with game-like social interactions with persistent, passive, and gated access.
I can’t wait to vibe with you all in the future.
