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TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

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Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#171

Post by api »

jsemrau wrote: post #89
captainmuon wrote: post #77

Modern social media leaves a very big gap - that was filled by old Facebook, or to some extent MySpace: The "people directory" where basically everybody has a page, and you can see what friends are doing, or look up acquaintances and strangers. For me, social media feeds were never addicting, but more tedious. I found visiting friends pages and sometimes finding an update, sometimes not, like a slot machine, more add…

We have moved from a people focus to a content focused UX design. TikTok is this in perfection as while "creators" get millions of views, remembering them on scale is hard and following usually doesn't alter the experience much. The reality is that a "people directory" doesn't have the same level of engagement.

TikTok is basically an algorithm to crowd source superficially engaging content in order to keep people staring at the app as long as possible to show ads (and propaganda) while the app hoovers up data.

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#172

Post by nprateem »

k4rli wrote: post #139
nprateem wrote: post #90

A good analysis. Whether you like it or not, Tiktok is a classic example of disruption. They've not only circumvented the moat of their biggest competitors, but made it a liability - FB & Insta can't just abandon the social graph without disenfranchinsing their existing users. Absolutely textbook innovation.

Is there innovation? Seems like Tiktok is just a more "evil" iteration of Vine.

Well not every attempt at innovation will catch on - luck plays a role too. But in terms of positioning it offers something distinct from YT/FB/Twitter/Instagram with short form video, a focus on entertainment, and like the article points out, it doesn't depend on the social graph. That puts it in a strong position vs the incumbents who are struggling to compete since they assumed customer value required other things. The innovation, whether conscious or not, was in challenging the assumptions and conventions of social media.

The trouble the incumbents have is how to compete since they can't just change their core products without a backlash. They need to find a new niche. More likely another startup will compete better and FB will try to buy them. This is just like old media's battle with 'traditional' social media.

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#173

Post by IgorPartola »

baby wrote: post #144
captainmuon wrote: post #77

Modern social media leaves a very big gap - that was filled by old Facebook, or to some extent MySpace: The "people directory" where basically everybody has a page, and you can see what friends are doing, or look up acquaintances and strangers. For me, social media feeds were never addicting, but more tedious. I found visiting friends pages and sometimes finding an update, sometimes not, like a slot machine, more add…

> The "people directory" I think this is Facebook's biggest issue: they moved from being a very useful tool to being the app that tries to drive traffic and engagement so much that it becomes less useful. I think they should refocus back on being a useful tool to keep track of friends, and keep in touch with people you meet, and then do the other stuff they want to do separately. Facebook IS still useful, but because…

But how would you make as much money as FB does off a very useful tool?

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#174

Post by pessimizer »

alexvoda wrote: post #99

I still wish for a clone of Google+ v1 to succeed and replace Facebook. Sometimes i still wonder why it failed.

Real name policy. Now you practically need to send an id and a birth certificate to get a free email address, but the overton window hadn't been completely forced yet during the period Google+ needed growth. Combine real names with they fact that they would pull your youtube (and any other google property) account in, and it was really repulsive to people. And Google held strong and kept trying to push that for years before shutting it down.

I think they thought that it was necessary to leverage the rest of Google to give them an advantage in social media, to draw people into a Google ecosystem, but really they just needed to do Facebook better, and take advantage of whatever anti-consumer move that Facebook would make and market "That doesn't happen here!" You can close the net once people are in. Instead people with gmail addresses and youtube accounts felt like they were under attack.

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#175

Post by mrkramer »

fallingknife wrote: post #160
mrkramer wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Modern social media leaves a very big gap - that was filled by old Facebook, or to some extent MySpace: The "people directory" where basically everybody has a page, and you can see what friends are doing, or look up acquaintances and strangers. This was Social Networking 101 and Zuck got it right and he won big but there are so many different forms of social networking that are possible and are happening today like…

When you share your data on Linkedin you get part of the financial value of that data collection. This is different than any other social media platform.

You get fast, powerful and easy to use communication tools for free when you use Facebook and its family of apps. Why do you think Whatsapp is so popular now and not SMS anymore?

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#176

Post by mrkramer »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #155
mrkramer wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Modern social media leaves a very big gap - that was filled by old Facebook, or to some extent MySpace: The "people directory" where basically everybody has a page, and you can see what friends are doing, or look up acquaintances and strangers. This was Social Networking 101 and Zuck got it right and he won big but there are so many different forms of social networking that are possible and are happening today like…

> Then why the hell all wannabe successful people are on LinkedIn aka the directory of professionals. They keep signing up every single day because they want to be looked up and found by their fellow professionals and potential employers. That's an entirely different thing than individual sharing private details of their personal lives.

Your business career is also your private life. Why would the whole world need to see it or anybody who uses the internet?

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#177

Post by pessimizer »

behnamoh wrote: post #2

I have mixed feelings about this. For all their fault, social media websites (e.g., fb) reflected our reality, but amplified the controversial parts to increase "engagement". TikTok, OTOH, is shaping our reality by literally altering our culture. I'm not that old, but even 10 years ago, the concept of dancing in front of a camera on the street was odd, but now almost every teenager and college student does that. What…

> even 10 years ago, the concept of dancing in front of a camera on the street was odd, but now almost every teenager and college student does that.

This is not true. Before youtube started aggressively curating/deranking/demonetizing, there were thousands and thousands of dancing teenager/young adult videos on youtube. Youtube actively purged the TikTok inside of it.

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#178

Post by ajross »

oars wrote: post #17

The Tiktok algorithm we have rewards repetitive dancing in front of the camera, pulling ("fake") pranks and random snippets from movies edited together with dramatic music added. In China (their app is called Douyin), the algorithm rewards things they want their youth to be doing. Content which involves maths, engineering, medicine, etc are rewarded. I'm certain that there is some strategic motive from China to push…

> I'm certain that there is some strategic motive from China to push American children in the wrong direction

I don't buy that. Engaging content is engaging content. Math is boring everywhere. You can push on trends at the edges, but there's no way Douyin is going to succeed, even in the PRC, as a social virtue nag. And there's no need to invoke a conspiracy theory to explain why western kids are drawn to fashion and fun.

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#179

Post by pessimizer »

gilrain wrote: post #166
lionkor wrote: post #143

tiny nitpick: > competition became all but impossible This means competition became everything but impossible, no? So, possible.

No. This common phrase is not literal.

No, it is literal. It means that there exists every form of difficulty that you could enumerate in competing with them, except impossibility. It's possible in the way it's possible to shoot a bullet through a wall without either being damaged if their atoms are arranged in the right way at the right moment. It's not only literal, but very precise (and hyperbolic in that precision.)

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#180

Post by whywhywhywhy »

captainmuon wrote: post #77

Modern social media leaves a very big gap - that was filled by old Facebook, or to some extent MySpace: The "people directory" where basically everybody has a page, and you can see what friends are doing, or look up acquaintances and strangers. For me, social media feeds were never addicting, but more tedious. I found visiting friends pages and sometimes finding an update, sometimes not, like a slot machine, more add…

Personally I think Instagram (The core product, not stories or reels) is to today what Facebook and MySpace where back in the day.

Obviously though that is being eroded away by Instagrams lack of confidence and insistence to fight TikTok, which I also find strange I mean yeah its a vertical feed of video but really why you go to it is really different for why you go to IG, TikTok has more in common with YouTube than IG.

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