What is a tweet?
It is an idea with the possibility of connection.
What does it mean to send a tweet? Perhaps a sparrow is resting in your hands with your message, ready to be released into the air- to fly out into the world. Its the idea of freely sharing your thoughts with limited to no restriction of expression (assuming you aren’t a bad actor).
An image is worth
a thousand wordsbillions of dollars?
The Twitter brand is an influence on the world and its’ social ecosystems. A simple bird- that has the freedom of speech and choice. This image is 100% of Twitter’s value. Why is that? It’s a representation of your voice- all else is secondary.
Your Voice and Enablement
Sure, a restrictive word count on the platform can be seen as limiting or perhaps foundational. Can there be threats to the Twitter bird? Certainly. It is a race between ideas of all shapes and sizes. A never-ending race, as human connections are unique- a race where the environment around you is in constant motion.
Enablement is secondary to freedom for the social dynamics involved in modern society, but the meta of enablement is what separates a Reddit from a Twitter to a Google or a Facebook.
A Link is a Connection
Remember that feeling when you first met someone new? You might have many first impressions of that person. It is in that moment, that a link is created– weak or strong, personal or impersonal.
That link becomes unique and alive. When the link is brought alive, does it matter if its private or public? Certainly some people prefer to develop their connections with others in private. Those same people may also enjoy the natural flow of that connection in public spaces, circles of friendship, and experiences. What many in this industry are coming to discover is that privacy comes first for many.
Connections. Private or Public? Personal or Impersonal?
So let’s talk about Snapchat. Is Snapchat a camera app? Perhaps to Snapchat it is. Yet there we are- seeing an image with no face (like Twitter). Seemingly if it does have a face, it certainly doesn’t appear to be facing our direction, but unto the world. Perhaps embracing the world with open arms (a camera). Or perhaps a ghost of a captured memory that appears for a few seconds, only to never return again.
Links can exist or be created on Snapchat, and now we get to discover more about fellow friends and new connections. And just like life, it doesn’t happen in any particular order. That’s right, discovery on Snapchat can lead to many links, and links can lead to many discoveries. Links can be private, personal, public, or any other types of interactions that Snapchat has brought into its’ arsenal.
Is it ironic that the connections people make on Snapchat, can not disappear, but the captured moments can? Not at all- it is simply a moment within time we subscribe to.
Perhaps Snapchat and Twitter mean more to us than other social apps in the long run. No forced or unnatural personalization, presenting us with silos of discovery, sharing, privacy, and freedom.
In the Year 2017
Does it matter that 70% of Snapchat users are female? Or that US penetration rates among ages 12-17 for the app are at 83%?
Different Dynamics of Enablement: The Social Meta
Not at all- all that matters is choice and enablement (freedom). The choice to choose how we communicate. The fact that I can send personal snaps to my closest friends– or choose to share a moment with the public or other friends. These distinctions carve out and create important metas in social dynamics connected to technology.
And how natural does it feel? How much do i need to care about this moment? Can i just let it fly like a bird? How free am i feeling when i deliver this message?
Certainly these brands are all sitting in the blue ocean, each floating in the shared space. An ecosystem of tools that empower individuals and their links… a community of unknown size and depth.
Ideation & Positive Disruption: Facebook, Dead and Alive?
Ideation is a beautiful thing. Remember Facebook, the quite controversial social application? Saturated with dynamic and static ads, syncing disruptive messaging into your consciousness. Personalization that has sent you to the depths of hell and back? Relevant ads that have sunk into your soul and identity- serving more impressions than you’ve ever served to your family and friends (those closest to you). These platforms can be re-imagined.
Think to yourself: In what scenario do you identify yourself as a person who naturally shares on Facebook? It’s a bit more rare than Snapchat, Twitter, or say- Instagram? Or perhaps Facebook is your stomping ground.
These organizations and strategies can be positively disrupted within or without. Imagine the next day an update pushes into the Facebook ether:
The Announcement
Starting today- When you share on Facebook, you’ll have a natural choice to share your post with those closest to you- algorithmically and with ease- based on your interaction data (edit: this actually was released).
That’s right- the imaginative world is shaken by surprise. Another Snapchat concept stolen- You are telling me that i’ll easily be able to share again with those that matter most to me? What harmed the enablement of Facebook? It’s easy to explain- life happened. Life changed in so many different ways, that a majority of your connections on the application are less relevant than ever to your current state.
Yet, the technology didn’t evolve in that realm (by choice)- and you end up with post features that restrict you. Your enablement is restricted. Now you are linked with a bunch of people that might have had meaning to you at some prior moment of past. Now you can read threads that connect you to outsiders and other events or topics. Both beautiful and of despair.
And this is just one example. Iteration for the sake of iteration didn’t end up working for the presently globally-scaling organization. It was both inside-out and outside-in that was necessary. Ideation is a fascinating thing again.
Instead it was announced that Facebook is removing the trending piece within Facebook. This is being replaced with 3 pieces angled at breaking news, local level news publishing, and a video news aspect. I’d like to see Facebook hone-in more on the user-sharing angle, and maybe this is a step towards that- but initially it seems like it isn’t about a bottom-up community approach, but quite top-down or even mid-bottom.
Would it be too crazy to believe in a scenario where Facebook levels the publishing playing field like Reddit to all users and organizations of the world?
Content is King; Quality is Queen.
Is this declaration limited to a Google search engine, or does it have a more universal effect?
It turns out the balance between users and businesses on Facebook is clearly one-sided. Is the iteration of ideas for businesses surpassing that of the users? A lopsided content war? Perhaps legions of teams of engineers are assigned to books of business within Facebook. It turns out the agility of the company and resource management defeated the power of the end user. In fact, this brings us back to branding and what a brand means to the user. It turns out the metrics that executives review, need to be more human than ever to truly understand a user’s footprint.
Bring the World Closer Together; Focusing on Links that Matter
The mission is still alive and kicking for Facebook. How do we bring the world closer together? By building a community platform that enables You.
In the Year 2018
Reddit just surpassed Facebook as the #3 most visited website in the US.
The Reddit Renaissance
You mean a community that focused on freedom, enablement, privacy, among a variety of other things surpassed the global phenomenon of Facebook by visit count and other key measured variables? That’s right. The exchange of ideas and the ability to change and act. The indulgence of micro and macro topics. The closest digital feeling one can feel to a live vibrancy of community- it reminds me of a living and breathing city like NYC. A dynamic phenomenon that molds, lives and breathes at all times of the day or night. A place of serendipity.
So let’s talk about those differences.
Reddit – authentic human connections and a community by design. Facebook – bringing the world closer together.
Top down, bottom up, or perhaps a hybrid? The approach of the social meta is a live race. Something to think about.
Links
We are–in this moment–distilling and disseminating the social truths of reality.
Social Ballad 