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Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

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Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#591

Post by beckingz »

Several years ago I saw an ad on Tumblr (I know, I know), for a strange meme site. After seeing several hundred of these ads, I got curious about how it could be profitable to run such nonsense and clicked. Content that was just funny enough to keep me scrolling mixed with ads. It turned out, that was a site run by an Israeli ad-tech media company that used algorithms to find out how many ads they could could put in while maintaining attention, a sort of google ads style auction running on the page to determine if it should add an ad or a meme to the page next.

Linkedin has public research doing the same type of thing.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#592

Post by thrusong »

Karunamon wrote: post #568
rob74 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus there's one small detail: you can still enjoy e.g. a pizza that's not hot anymore; other food (Indian, Chinese, ...) can mostly be kept hot without losing its quality. With burgers and fries (especially McDonalds), you have to eat them hot, and trying to keep them warm during delivery results in a soggy mess that's not enjoyable at all anymore IMHO.

There is something about McDonald's fries that gives them the sharpest drop off in quality over time compared to literally any other fast food restaurant. I swear, it's like they are 100% within a couple minutes of being pulled out of the oil, merely okay for the next three, and then literally inedible by six minutes.

It's true— McDonald's will toss any leftover fries from the fry station after seven minutes. Burger King has a similar timeline.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#593

Post by neutronicus »

rightbyte wrote: post #346
zdkl wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the only active users I see anymore are engaged in advertising even if not necessarily for profit. (Self) Promotion always was one of the draws of fb.

Really? I have not used FB in like 5 years. One of the things it had for it compared to Instagram and Twitter is how it was not celeb or micro-celeb oriented. Has that changed?

In my experience, the people doing self-promotion on FB are generally not trying to be famous, they are trying to drum up customers for their own or their friend's business.

So no one is really trying to get you to "follow" them, they just hang around neighborhood groups to see if they can find someone who needs a caterer or a contractor.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#594

Post by e_i_pi_2 »

kinghtown wrote: post #249
thex10 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s really no viable platform anymore where you can just go passively keep up with what friends and acquaintances are doing. IMO it’s pointless to “passively keep up with what friends and acquaintances are doing”. We should either actively keep up (thus actually maintain the relationship), or let it go~

Sure, but there is a desire or even need to have robust and interactive options in our communication devices for keeping in touch with all the people we know in a more inclusive and less active way than just directly messaging or calling a specific person, which to be clear people are still doing. People want something like Facebook as an option. It has usefulness- sharing photos, inviting people to events, a simple…

> inviting people to events

This is the single use case that kept me on Facebook for a while, I decided it wasn't worth it but just by their network effects so many people were on the site that it was very good for that.

I think we need some public alternative(s) - then you don't have to worry about funding it through advertising or the company trying to use the users for profit by selling data.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#595

Post by andsoitis »

pjmlp wrote: post #320
thfuran wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Myspace was never a ~trillion dollar company.

A matter of how long it managed to stay around.

I don't know that that is a relevant rebuttal to the argument that "lots of money means more likely to survive (even thrive)".

More money means more degrees of freedom to experiment, the acquire others, etc.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#596

Post by kristopolous »

kristopolous wrote: post #259
civilized wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> …unless perhaps… we build a social network on the blockchain Ah yes, the one thing that would be worse than the status quo.

Why don't you see, we'll solve the social dysfunction created by a commercialized monetized internet by hypercommercialization and monetizing it even more! There is no alternative! It'll be the end of history!

To respond to the dead comment below, the last two disjointed sentences are from Margaret Thatcher and an allusion to Francis Fukayama's "End of History".

I've given that guy a fair shake, I think he's a well spoken idiot. I wish I could come to some other conclusion.

There's an adage that (properly defined) economic liberalism warps the imaginary and closes off possibilities, he may be a victim of it. The guy is clearly sincere and passionate and I really like that, I just think he's really mistaken

There's healthier futures possible based on we and not on me, one that pulls from more human emotions than greed and fear and there's something that precludes the man from considering it possible or palatable.

I want so much for those that care to be better.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#597

Post by Alex3917 »

SrslyJosh wrote: post #6

Nobody hates Facebook users more than Facebook, I guess. :-/ I've tried to type out several pithy comments, but the bottom line (to me) is that Facebook just doesn't respect its users or care about their needs. Can you imagine if brick-and-mortar businesses tried to do this? You go out for a Big Mac, but it's not on the menu anymore because Taco Bell had a few really good quarters, so McDonald's decided to pivot to t…

> Can you imagine if brick-and-mortar businesses tried to do this?

The difference is that, similarly to how social networks grow exponentially when things are going well, they lose users even faster when things are going bad. There are tons of academic papers explaining this.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#598

Post by josephd79 »

Banana699 wrote: post #367
stevenjgarner wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those of us in families that are spread over the globe in a dozen time zones and separated in different countries, what other methods of connection even come close to social media? Facebook (and the rest) have provided a way for us to vicariously experience glimpses into each other's lives and in many cases reconnect with people who we never would have otherwise.

Why not "closed world" apps like Whatsapp or Discord ? I personally loath them (specifically Discord) but they seem optimized for the kind of use case you want. Facebook and friends are a huge and dysfunctional towns square, but you don't need a towns square to talk to your family, you need a private shed.

If they haven't already, it's only a matter of time before Discord spins up a way for companies to advertise on their platform.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#599

Post by e_i_pi_2 »

prawn wrote: post #214
xwdv wrote: post #74

It’s crazy to think the social media era may finally be ending. There’s really no viable platform anymore where you can just go passively keep up with what friends and acquaintances are doing. Everything is about feeding you content you didn’t ask for but may be targeted enough to catch your attention. And for what? To show you some ads here and there? To collect data that can be used to… sell more ads and products?…

It's been an interesting path. It went from the early days where you'd post just about anything, then people tightened up on what felt "good enough" and some of the charm was lost. I got the sense that people became more anxious about what reached that "good enough" mark. A friend who was making a living from putting up Instagram content just abruptly started turning down money and stopped posting. No one should be f…

> I got the sense that people became more anxious about what reached that "good enough" mark

Bo Burnham has some interesting comments in his "Inside" special about how social media makes us disassociate from ourselves and think about both living in the moment and how it will be perceived afterwards. I think that's a big part of what causes this - after you know that you're not just posting for fun then you have to think about why you're posting something and what it means. This has caused by to basically stop using them because it never seems "worth it" to post something

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#600

Post by josephd79 »

mst wrote: post #426
stevenjgarner wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those of us in families that are spread over the globe in a dozen time zones and separated in different countries, what other methods of connection even come close to social media? Facebook (and the rest) have provided a way for us to vicariously experience glimpses into each other's lives and in many cases reconnect with people who we never would have otherwise.

My chosen family (most of the people of my bio family I kept in touch with have passed on) are very much like that, but I keep in touch with them via a mixture of IRC, gchat and twitter DMs (fascinatingly the one member of my bio family I enjoy talking to who's still here uses twitter DMs to talk to me.) The people who're local to me I catch up with in person, and regularly get "oh, yeah, you're not on facebook, I ca…

IRC > *
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