BITES // 06.01.23 // NEW ERA OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Every month we collect six of the best pieces of content published on the web and share them with you because we believe that the most extraordinary thinking is inspired by looking to unexpected places. BITES is a reading list for those who want to bring a little of the outside in.
OVERVIEW -
This year we’ve seen social media be influenced by a plethora of internet platforms, including technological advances, changes in user behavior, needs and interests, and shifts in the broader social, cultural and political landscape. The days are over when mainstream platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were designed to connect people with family and friends and share daily updates. Users are searching for community and realness based on their interests along with connection to their friends and family. I would say Especially with government regulations coming into play, other platforms are coming in. But we’re also seeing a trend in platforms trying to copy other platforms or bring back old platforms.
- TIKTOK BANS ARE LOOMING
Governments have expressed concerns that TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, may endanger sensitive user data. In recent months, lawmakers in the United States, Europe and Canada have escalated efforts to restrict access to TikTok, the massively popular short-form video platform that is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, citing security threats. Lawmakers and regulators in the West have increasingly expressed concern that TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, may put sensitive user data, like location information, into the hands of the Chinese government. They have pointed to laws that allow the Chinese government to secretly demand data from Chinese companies and citizens for intelligence-gathering operations. Since November, more than two dozen states have banned TikTok on government-issued devices and many colleges — like the University of Texas at Austin, Auburn University, and Boise State University — have blocked it from campus Wi-Fi networks. Montana could vote on a bill to block TikTok in the state, and it has a strong chance of passing. It’s not going to disappear overnight. There’s no way of removing a platform from someone’s phone, but if TikTok were banned, it could become illegal to do business with the company. While other states have banned TikTok on government-issued devices over national security concerns, Montana’s new law blocks TikTok from operating inside its borders and penalizes app stores from making TikTok available for download in Montana. The ban goes into effect January 1st. TikTok alleges that the ban violates the US Constitution, including the First Amendment, as well as other federal laws, according to a complaint filed in Montana District Court.
2. LEMON8 IS TRYING TO BE THE NEW TIKTOK
Lemon8 is a photo-based platform that resembles a mixture of Instagram and Pinterest, and is sprinkled with videos that look like the ones posted on TikTok. Lemon8 describes itself as a “content sharing platform for a youthful community” where its users can discover “beautiful, authentic, and diverse content.” The ByteDance-owned platform jumped into the U.S. App Store’s top 10, across both platforms and games. So far, the company is inviting a number of creators to become launch partners in the platform, which seems to be focused on fashion and health & wellness. ByteDance has made it clear that Lemon8 shares the same “recommendation engine” as TikTok — the one feature that no other social network has been able to replicate or match and put TikTok streets ahead of its competition. Lemon8 has actually been around since 2020, only available in Asia, where it already has over 5 million active monthly users. It quietly launched in the US and UK in February, mostly to get creators posting on the platform. Lemon8 has already racked up 650,000 users. Experts don’t know if Lemon8 is under the same threat as TikTok, being owned by the same company, but influencers are flocking to it regardless.
3. TRYING TO RECREATE TWITTER
Meta’s new Twitter-like platform “Barcelona” will be a similar framework to the one that powers Mastodon, another Twitter-like platform that launched in 2016. Meta’s platform would be a standalone, text-based social network platform that will be both a rival to Twitter, and its decentralized competitor, Mastodon, at the same time. And substack is hatching a Twitter clone, dubbed Notes, to make it easier for writers to attract new subscribers all within the Substack ecosystem — no more farming for followers on Twitter. Writers can include six photos or GIFs, but video isn’t yet supported. Users can then like, reply, and “restack” the notes, and they can subscribe to a writer’s substack directly from the post. After years of hype and speculation, Bluesky is seeing some daylight. Bluesky quietly released the platform through invite-only on the App Store on February 17th after launching for just developers last October. The platform already has over 2,000 installs. Techcrunch called the platform a “bare-bones, Twitter-like experience” so far, with nearly all the same features.
4. SPOTIFY TUNES UP A TIKTOK CLONE
Spotify rolled out a major overhaul of its mobile platform meant to address its discoverability issue. Highlights of Spotify’s redesigned platform experience include a new vertically oriented Home feed, with sub feeds for music, podcasts & shows, and audiobooks with personalized visual and audio previews; Smart Shuffle, which suggests new songs when you’re building a playlist that you can add with the tap of a button; and autoplay for podcasts, which will automatically start playing a new podcast episode that matches a user’s tastes. Spotify’s recommendations drive nearly half of all users’ streams, and when listeners decide to follow a creator, on average they listen to five times more of their music. Within the new Home experience on mobile, users can scroll through visual feeds for music, podcasts and audiobooks to sample audio before diving in. If they find something they like, they can tap to save or share, preview multiple songs from a playlist or album, read along with transcriptions for many episode picks, or even watch video podcasts.
5. REBIRTH OF GOWALLA
One of the original location-based social platforms relaunched at SXSW, 14 years after it debuted. The platform is a social network that uses a map as its primary interface, allowing you to “check in” to share your location with trusted contacts, and to see the locations where others in your friends list have also checked in. You can add comments on friends’ check-ins, and have conversations right in the platform, too. There’s a new mechanism for swiping through recent friend check-ins, and a gamified element via collection of stamps related to your activity. It’s simple, but engrossing and distinctly different from what’s currently available from just about any mobile social competitors. Already, Gowalla has a prototypical version of this approach in play: its “street team” feature, which provides additional features and early beta access to users who pay a small recurring membership fee. Josh Williams, the CEO, says one of the things that has changed is the sheer scale of mobile users, which means that even if only a small percentage of their overall user base wants to pay up, they stand a chance of building something that can successfully monetize in this way.
6. NOCAM IS BEREAL MEETS TIKTOK CHALLENGES
A new social video platform called Nocam has a radical idea to make social networking more authentic, it’s turning off the camera so you can’t see how you look while filming. The idea for Nocam evolved from the startup’s, Snack Break, earlier efforts with a short-form video platform called Popcorn. The platform aimed to make work communications more fun by letting users record short messages, or “pops,” that could be shared in lieu of longer emails, texts or Slacks. To use Nocam, users first authenticate with their phone number and allow the platform to access their address book to find friends, similar to other social platforms. You’ll then receive your first prompt to record a video. The whole concept in Nocam is around being prompted to record but initially, the prompts will be system-driven. As you add more friends, you can receive prompts from them as well.
TAKEAWAY-
From the early days of social media that included MySpace, Friendster to the current major platforms like Instagram and TikTok, social media is constantly transforming how we connect, communicate, and consume content. Even though the established players still are holding dominance, new social platforms are emerging to challenge that dominance by offering new and fresh engaging ways for people to interact with each other. We’re also seeing new social media competitors come up as the government is putting more regulations on social media giants, especially TikTok. As we see these emerging platforms continue to evolve and grow they are a valuable reminder of the constantly changing nature of social media and what people value in content and community.
