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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

#351

Post by mrtksn »

zjaffee wrote: post #347
mrtksn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, FB and others moved away from being about your friends to become content sharing machines long time ago. It’s like reddit but without sub separation + influencer glamour. Tiktok on the other hand came from purely creative angle. It’s not about your friends, it’s about using creative tools to express something. That’s why TikTok dominated the original new content market. TikTok’s editing tools are ph…

I have to disagree with that, snapchat was just as innovative if not more so in the early days of tiktok and musically in the space around camera filters and editing. There are two big things that make tiktok unique. The for you page, and shared sounds that are able to go very viral rapidly. No other platform has been able to circulate viral videos as quickly as tiktok has proven to be able to, and the for you page,…

I like Snapchat, though I never properly used to because I don't know anyone who uses it. I have been entertaining that app only because of its originality and I do appreciate their innovative spirit. I believe FB has copied their features and Snap continues to be an underdog.

Also, FB apparently was running VPN apps in disguise to monitor the traffic of the younger audience[0] to identify upcoming competition and crush it.

IMHO, this behaviour of the established players destroyed the innovation in America, lost it to China. I remember, at one point it became unfashionable to create new social networks or invest in them but it turns out, FB is not the end of history.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/

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

#352

Post by ayngg »

freecodyx wrote: post #346

Influencers culture has killed social media platforms, most ppl want to be influencers today to make easy money. Back in the days social media platforms were used to connect with friends and maybe strangers just for the sake of socializing. Not anymore

Influencers are just the byproduct of social media platforms commoditizing interaction as means of driving growth and engagement, since just keeping up to date with your friends doesn't drive much engagement. Once you add metrics for engagement like likes, retweets or whatever, it is only natural that interactions become gamified once you put these incentive structures into how the system functions.

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

#353

Post by Pulcinella »

treasurebots wrote: post #278
fragmede wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each video is node. Figure out where to add edges to existing content, graph theory some shit and tune for similar content maximizing viewing time of short video clips. No ML necessary. Of course, given the magic ML sometimes seems to be, they could certainly be using it but the inputs and outputs are remarkably simple if you get the data structures right. To be clear, I'm not saying it's easy , just that ML's not ne…

It's all if-then statements, like "If this video has a bird in it, then show it to people who like birds." No ML needed /s

You jest, but at this point YouTube’s recommendation system sees even less complicated than this. Just random videos from years ago will one day become blessed by the algorithm and receive millions of views.

YTs algorithm now just seems to amplify very, very small fluctuations in view counts. 3 people just happened to watch the same video at the same time? It must be trending! Shove it in front of everyone. It’s like Google has used all of machine learning to recreate taking a derivative.

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

#354

Post by dimitrios1 »

fragmede wrote: post #323
dimitrios1 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just want to highlight that this is a very tech-focused perspective. "If we make it good enough people will use it!" Also is there room in this utopia for people who want their privacy and secrecy? Will they be disadvantaged if they don't participate in this digital phone booth? My gut tells me yes.

Those that don't have Facebook are already disadvantaged in that way. They don't get invited to the party, they aren't told about life updates via the feed. But you soon self-select for friends that don't use Facebook and that do invite you to parties and tell you about things. That same divide isn't going to go away, no matter the technology. (ofc replace Facebook with whatever app is popular with your group.)

Perhaps from your vantage point. My vantage point is more and more people are ditching the social sites for real connections again. A few years ago when privacy issue after privacy issue came out, and the revelations on how manipulated we all are on social media by algorithms, my circle decided to ditch social media. I was always the "pioneer" in this front, having ditched it around 2015 or so.

The craziest thing started happening when I got rid of it. I started getting these crazy old things called "phone calls." And people started sending out these really cool decorated cards called "invitations" that apparently come to my house through this really old but fascinating technology called "mail". Real life actual people started walking past me on my neighborhood road and inviting me to house parties or get-togethers again. I met so many wonderful neighbors since!

It had this amazing other side effect as well: it acted like a filter for all the events I used to "miss". Suddenly, it's as if the weight of FOMO was lifted off my shoulders.

But illustrative snark aside, I suppose its going to vary from circle to circle and group to group. My hunch tells me a lot more people simply tolerate social media because they realize much of society has hitched it's wagon to it, and they see this as an unfortunate thing, and it will take just one person in the group to break the mold.

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

#355

Post by roody15 »

"This explains Facebook’s recent transition toward short videos and algorithmic recommendations of content that doesn’t come from friend groups."

I agree with the authors perspective that if Facebook and Twitter try and capture the TikTok market they will only in the end up hurting themselves. In fact the reason I don't use Facebook much anymore is because of the changes they have made...

When I login I may see a funny video of a guy falling in Texas (Who I don't know) or an attractive women in exercise pants doing somethings quasi provocative.

I am not coming to Facebook for national news, for TV 3.0 like entertainment... I am coming to check in with friends, family see some pictures of relatives and see what people have to say about what is happening in their life.

The further they move away from this model.... IMO could lead to further decline in the platform.

My two cents.

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

#356

Post by dang »

cumshitpiss wrote: post #75
mrex wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

We've banned this account for using HN for political/nationalistic battle and also for having a trollish username - on the latter point, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32253323.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll use HN as intended in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

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

#357

Post by dang »

trash3 wrote: post #38
thematrixturtle wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got source? The social media market in China is fiercely competitive and TikTok (Douyin) got to be king of the hill by delivering exactly what its users want, not what the CCP wishes they wanted.

Oh sweet child

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN? We ban accounts that do this because we're trying for a different sort of forum here.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

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

#358

Post by nemo44x »

tgv wrote: post #345
nemo44x wrote: post #257

Social media and Websites in general are like TV shows or recording artists - they exist within an era and eventually become legacy/classic and irrelevant to the new youth culture. No one wants to engage with the same cultural artifacts of their parents or the previous generation. They want to establish themselves as a distinct cultural era and need symbols, etc that are distinct.

Still, young people actually listen to 60s, 70s and 80s pop music.

I was careful in my wording to say the previous generation. It’s almost always uncool. For instance, 80’s music went out of style almost immediately when Nirvana came about. Then 10 or so years later some 80’s music was enjoyed ironically and now today the beat of it is preserved as “classic”. It’s OK for anyone to enjoy but it isn’t influential any longer.

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

#359

Post by dopa42365 »

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…

>because people are afraid of data collection now in a way they weren't in 2006

People may say they're afraid of big data, but it's just mindless repetition of something they heard and doesn't affect their behaviour at all.

70%+ of them are mobile users on a first party app and happily receive targeted ads.

Realistically, how many people use instagram etc. on a browser with an adblocker (especially on mobile), less than 1%?

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

#360

Post by nemo44x »

dntrkv wrote: post #308
nemo44x wrote: post #257

Social media and Websites in general are like TV shows or recording artists - they exist within an era and eventually become legacy/classic and irrelevant to the new youth culture. No one wants to engage with the same cultural artifacts of their parents or the previous generation. They want to establish themselves as a distinct cultural era and need symbols, etc that are distinct.

> Social media and Websites in general are like TV shows or recording artists I don't think this is necessarily true. All of these social media companies serve different purposes with a focus on different types of content. When a new content format appears, users will flock there until they either get bored or a competitor iterates on that format and provides a better experience. The first era of mainstream social me…

It takes time. We haven’t crossed over yet but eventually Reddit will be massively rejected. It’s still young, give it about 5-8 more years.

20-year increments feel right.

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