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Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

nytimes.com

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Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#191

Post by est »

Alex3917 wrote: post #7

We might be at a local maximum, but we're nowhere near the peak. What we're seeing is an end of the race to the bottom. What's happened is that most of the major social networks only hire and promote people who make decisions primarily based on analytics. As a result these sites no longer have any real communities or organic content, and have been completely hollowed out by math-friendly refrigerator magnet junkfood.…

> What's happened is that most of the major social networks only hire and promote people who make decisions primarily based on analytics

Few years back there was a similar company called Zynga. Analytics was its secret of success as well as demise. Snap or FB is on the same course but with an evidently longer life span.

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#192

Post by ulfw »

I believe social media fatigue is setting in.

Twitter is becoming the political infighting network. If it wasn't for Donald John Trump and the millions following or belittling him - what is there to do for the masses on Twitter?

Facebook struggles with revelations about their deep privacy invasions and complete lack of vision/product development for years and it seems Snap having never figured out what they really are or should be is now losing users too.

Let's just say, having been a Myspacer back in the day - I know how quickly the tide can turn once user growth starts to staqnate.

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#194

Post by [deleted] »

leon_sbt wrote: post #69

I really wish social media would "peak" to towards meeting people in real life semi-spontaneously. No profiles, no media uploads, no digital showboating. The best relationships I have with other people fall in this category. Real life,common interests,no digital uploads. Just add attributes of your geolocation and hobbies [biking, yoga,tensorflow,etc] or let it crawl your digital profile(s) to autobuild your attribut…

[deleted]

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#195

Post by quotemstr »

josephg wrote: post #157
quotemstr wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chronological is just one ordering. Why are you so attached to it? Why must deviating from this one specific ranking approach lead to "chaos"? Algorithmic ranking is not evil. A tiny minority of people rail against algorithmic ranking, but the vast majority, as demonstrated by their engagement , prefer the algorithmic model. Should we let this tiny vocal minority dictate policy, data be damned?

> Algorithmic ranking is not evil. A tiny minority of people rail against algorithmic ranking, but the vast majority, as demonstrated by their engagement, prefer the algorithmic model. Should we let this tiny vocal minority dictate policy, data be damned? I was listening to the Next Billion Seconds podcast the other day. They made the point that in social media 'engagement' is a polite euphemism for 'addictiveness'.…

How can you distinguish "addictiveness" from people just liking the product? The default assumption should be that people are in control of their own actions.

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#196

Post by quotemstr »

terryf wrote: post #151
quotemstr wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chronological is just one ordering. Why are you so attached to it? Why must deviating from this one specific ranking approach lead to "chaos"? Algorithmic ranking is not evil. A tiny minority of people rail against algorithmic ranking, but the vast majority, as demonstrated by their engagement , prefer the algorithmic model. Should we let this tiny vocal minority dictate policy, data be damned?

"As demonstrated by engagement" - isn't really true. It's more "As demonstrated by count of time spent in the app". I believe that is true. But it's also a worse experience. Those two really seem to contradict each other, however, it's really quite nuanced. I'd like to see mostly what my friends are up to. Instead of that, on Facebook at least, I mostly see viral videos from whatever groups I happen to be in. It is t…

If your theory were true --- that apparent engagement increases really just represent navigational inefficiency --- you'd see drops in other metrics, like user retention and visits. But you don't. What you see is that people use the thing more. It's hard not to interpret that as better.

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#197

Post by solaris152000 »

dkrich wrote: post #115

How did this article make the New York Times? It’s awful. I listened to the entire Snap conference call and Spiegel directly attributed the drop in active users to the app redesign, a fact that wasn’t mentioned until 2/3 of the way through the article. Moreover, they gave no guidance for DAU projections, and merely said that historically fewer users are active in the third quarter than the second. This does not equat…

The new Snap design is awful. It's confusing and difficult to use and overly pushes promoted content onto me. I am a young male, I don't care what snap chat stories some women's fashion magazine (or any other 'mainstream media' for that matter) are publishing. Why does Snap try and push it in my face?

Snap could have been something amazing, a true rival to Facebook perhaps, but now instagram just does it all better.

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#198

Post by gaius »

quotemstr wrote: post #128
florabuzzword wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bailed at the advent of forced non-chronological timelines. I would have been less insulted if Facebook hired someone to spit in my face. Easily the scummiest design decision I have ever whitnessed. Actively manipulating the structural representation of time in a communication platform is begging for chaos. Yes, of course I know the time stamps are still presented. That is not my point. Communication is sensitive;…

Chronological is just one ordering. Why are you so attached to it? Why must deviating from this one specific ranking approach lead to "chaos"? Algorithmic ranking is not evil. A tiny minority of people rail against algorithmic ranking, but the vast majority, as demonstrated by their engagement , prefer the algorithmic model. Should we let this tiny vocal minority dictate policy, data be damned?

the vast majority, as demonstrated by their engagement, prefer the algorithmic model

All engagement measures is time spent on the site. Or how much people are prepared to tolerate.

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#199

Post by wastedhours »

rebuilder wrote: post #169
quotemstr wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chronological is just one ordering. Why are you so attached to it? Why must deviating from this one specific ranking approach lead to "chaos"? Algorithmic ranking is not evil. A tiny minority of people rail against algorithmic ranking, but the vast majority, as demonstrated by their engagement , prefer the algorithmic model. Should we let this tiny vocal minority dictate policy, data be damned?

The biggest issue for me, when FB moved away from chronological ordering, was that if I clicked on a post in my feed, I could no longer go back to the feed and continue browsing where I left off, because the ordering appeared to change when the page was refreshed. I pretty much stopped using the service around that time, and though I didn't actually think about it, I think this change was a big factor in that.

The same for me - it got to the point of infuriation that if I navigated away by clicking on a link to a Chrome tab, if I came back to engage with the post organically, it was hidden from the feed.

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#200

Post by dalbasal »

Alex3917 wrote: post #7

We might be at a local maximum, but we're nowhere near the peak. What we're seeing is an end of the race to the bottom. What's happened is that most of the major social networks only hire and promote people who make decisions primarily based on analytics. As a result these sites no longer have any real communities or organic content, and have been completely hollowed out by math-friendly refrigerator magnet junkfood.…

Maybe. I hope so.

But... If other mediums are a guide, the messages don't get more artisanal over time. They can get more mass produced, "click-baity' and sacrine...TV=>reality TV ; Ne spaoers => tabloids.

These mediums aren't purely crap. We get Westworld and GOt too, but the thick part of the pyramid is low cost, replicable-by-hacks, low brow "content."

The online version of that is the algorithmic bias confirmation version of flame wars and cat pictures.

Specifically on online social media... History shows these have lifecycles. Digg, Reddit, stumbleupon... these were different in year one. Novelty wears off, low hanging fruit gets eaten and mature games take over.

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