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Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

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Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#31

> Friended wants to give users a deeper and more meaningful connection to one another, which the company believes they crave. > The idea is to give people a chance to share how they really feel in a vulnerable, one-to-one setting. In playing around with the app, I had conversations with people about how to make friends in NYC and why it sometimes feel like others don’t care about us as much as we care about them. I'm…

> It. Takes. Time. That's it. There's no shortcut

There is - being in deep shit together for a brief time. The deeper the shit the shorter the time needed for a true friendship.

Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#33
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Why is this iOS only? Limited resources excuses can be answered with 'do a mobile web so all mobiles can'. Is it the 'sometimes iPhone users tend to pay more for the same things Android users are too cheap to'? Even simpler... Progressive Web Apps will install on both and I believe you can have a PWA in either app store... Code once. Run anywhere...

PWAs still feel very janky in real life. They’re slow, you can’t do any complex animations, weird bugs always show up, etc. Most importantly, they still feel like websites , which isn’t a good thing. Reimplementing something of the complexity of Snapchat as a PWA would be impossible: seamless camera usage, real-time AR filters, smooth animations, swipe gestures, usable built-in maps, video without buffering, and it’s…

Depends. Which app does need complex animations? And you could very well build Twitter as a PWA (and probably FB). Maybe not Snapchat. Most apps aren't heavy on filters, camera and video.

Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#34

> Friended wants to give users a deeper and more meaningful connection to one another, which the company believes they crave. > The idea is to give people a chance to share how they really feel in a vulnerable, one-to-one setting. In playing around with the app, I had conversations with people about how to make friends in NYC and why it sometimes feel like others don’t care about us as much as we care about them. I'm…

> There is no short conversation you can have that'll turn a stranger into the kind of friend they're seeking. I'm actually not sure this is true. And I say that because I'm actually not sure this is true: > It. Takes. Time. And I say that because of things like [0], which seems to say that connection is more about vulnerability and depth of understanding than anything else, and achieving that depth can be accelerate…

Real world relationships, those that are truly meaningful, take a lot of investment from both sides.

Outside of the lab being vulnerable carries significant risk. For one, you risk being taken advantage of. This happens all the time, people are manipulated for sex, financial gain, and sometimes just for social status gains (clique shunning etc.).

It's pretty common for vulnerable bonding to be misused by one or both parties. This can be in the form of using inside knowledge for blackmail or negative gossip/social shaming of some form.

People can be horrible. Finding good friends takes time because you have to learn to trust each other. Fast friends in my experience do not last.

Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#35

I like the idea, but 2 things. 1) where did they get the prices of $4.99 a week? Facebook's average revenue per user per quarter is ~$25. That's approximately $1.50 a week, for their most profitable section. Elsewhere, FB makes $6 ARPU per quarter, or around 37¢ a week. I'd be willing to pay $1 a month for a social network if it manages to get around the network effects etc. but ~$20(!) for something Facebook enables…

I love the outrage about $20/month. It's clear that social networks create almost no individual utility at all, and that the reason we have privacy violating ones in the first place is that people "really want it" but also really don't want to pay for it. Facebook will clearly win, based on the comments about pricing. People don't value privacy, they value free stuff.

> It's clear that social networks create almost no individual utility at all...

That's a broad statement. I find a lot of utility in social networks like FB to keep me in close contact with my family on the other side of the country.

Yes I value the fact that it's free - there's a low barrier for folks in my family to join. There's no way in hell I'm going to convince my grandmother to pay for a social network; she has no interest in yet another subscription that offers no marginal value over the free services like FB or even Twitter.

Well...she _might_ if that was the _only_ way to contact me, but I personally wouldn't put her through the hassle of memorizing yet another account/password login.

Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#36
This is a pretty good idea but, it's monetization strategy probably isn't inclusive enough. I find that a lot people on social media aren't trying to make friends. They're mainly just there for themselves or content. But, putting the focus on developing proper kinship seems like a step in the right direction.

Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#37
> No pressure, no public commenting and no rejection

Adults need to learn how to handle rejection. It's so essential to learning how to be happy in the real world.

People who are lonely because they fear rejection need to fix the fear of rejection part before they will actually experience a real friendship. Being open with each other is essential to friendship, and being open risks rejection.

Friendship isn't a individualistic pursuit, it involves multiple personalities and is full of risk and rejection. No reward without risk, contrary to what you might be sold on to mask your social anxiety.

Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#39
post #9

I like the idea, but 2 things. 1) where did they get the prices of $4.99 a week? Facebook's average revenue per user per quarter is ~$25. That's approximately $1.50 a week, for their most profitable section. Elsewhere, FB makes $6 ARPU per quarter, or around 37¢ a week. I'd be willing to pay $1 a month for a social network if it manages to get around the network effects etc. but ~$20(!) for something Facebook enables…

>Limited resources excuses can be answered with 'do a mobile web so all mobiles can' There's always a delta of capabilities between HTML5+Javascript mobile web app vs native iOS/Android. (E.g. native app has more API access to device hardware like camera video, GPS, accelerometer, multi-touch pinch zoom, etc.) Even if HTML5+Javascript standards get the new capabilities in 2019's iOS 13 and Android 10, both Apple and…

I think they just want artificial exclusivity, similar to how Facebook was university only in the early stages.

You are not limited to browser technologies. There's React native, Flutter and some other cross platform frameworks. What super new OS level features a social messaging app needs?

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