Gab: A First-in Social Network Opportunity
What is Gab?
Accessible at this website, Gab is similar to Twitter but with this mission “The People First Social Network” (here is a write up on Gab).
Gab and Their Perspective on Social Media’s History
I reached out to Andrew Torba, CEO of Gab, who summarized Gab and his thoughts on social media’s history:
“For years, Big Social has promised users, small businesses, and content creators one thing: distribution. Over the past two years it has become apparent that Big Social has transitioned into a pay-to-play game for enterprise-level advertisers only.”
“The rest of us are pawns in a con job of data collection and reselling eyeballs to advertisers. We’ve reached peak advertising on the internet and soon adblockers will dominate marketshare and browsers like Brave will continue to rise in popularity.”
“At Gab, our mission is simple: put people first and promoting free speech online for all. Putting people first means worrying about empowering our users instead of empowering advertisers with deep pockets and shareholder profit.”
Should Businesses be on Gab?
Yes. Gab has first-in potential (like I wrote about Snapchat here) for any business.
Gab could be like Twitter 10 years ago and presents a possibly tremendous upside.
Create a Gab Account
Go to gab.ai, sign up for an account and a spot on the waiting list is reserved. An email notification will be sent out when the account is ready to be used.
Social Sharing Without Extra Work
Any content currently being shared on other social networks can be shared on Gab and vice versa.
For example, this article will be shared on Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, as well as Gab. The video based on this article will be shared on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Gab.
As I wrote before, the company that provides the best content, which solves a customer’s problems in a creative way, wins.
Before Posting on Gab
- Follow a variety of accounts
- Observe
- Interact in a non-business way
- Get a sense for the informal Gab community code of conduct
- Start posting content being shared other places and vice versa
As number 4 states, each social network has its own unwritten rules:
- Twitter is for micro-blogging / rapid fire posting while users would block a company page for sharing 30 posts per day on Facebook.
- Instagram Stories and Snapchat are for micro-vlogging (where lower production quality videos and photos are accepted / encouraged) while Instagram is for posting museum quality pictures and videos.
Gab Now
At less than a month old, features are continually being added and things are changing. There is no mobile application yet and people are on waiting lists to join.
I get the sense that most people want to talk politics right now, probably as a direct reaction to social media censorship.
This will change as CEO Andrew Torba makes it clear that one of Gab’s goals is to provide small businesses and content creators with distribution.
Gab’s Early Growth
By just word of mouth, Gab already has thousands of users and thousands more waiting to join. A friend signed up the other day and was in line behind over 30,000 other people.
These web stats are from less than two weeks after Gab’s launch.
Gab’s Future
Gab may or may not be successful, it is too early to tell. However, it is not a new phenomenon for new social network’s to beat out competition:
- MySpace was the most visited website in the US until Facebook crushed them
- Meerkat was a gem of the 2015 SXSW Technology Conference and lost to Periscope
- Instagram Stories is trying to take down Snapchat but has so far proved unsuccessful (I wrote about Instagram Stories here)
Twitter, YouTube and Facebook struggle with questions of censorship and if usage and engagement falls on each platform (like what is happening with Twitter now), Gab could pick up users.
Gab is also working on a similar YouTube like video platform to draw even more users.
The Big Question
Will you start Gabbing? Find me on Gab here.
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Even though I write this on every post, thanks for reading.
Originally published at www.erp101.com.
