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Evaluation of TikTok vs. Instagram Reels

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Re: Evaluation of TikTok vs. Instagram Reels

#191

Post by t_mann »

sytelus wrote: post #167
btilly wrote: post #37

Time to trot out http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/metcalfe.pdf again. (Yes, I am one of the co-authors.) Multiple lines of evidence point to the basic value of a social network scaling like `O(n log(n))`. So getting your first million users is hard. But after you've got there, you don't have to be that much better than the competition to win. The conclusion is that social networks should be a lot less sticky and d…

You are missing a huge point. MySpace and Friendster didn't got out of fashion suddenly because social is not "sticky". Friendster was heavily burdened with scaling issues, design complexity and bugs that basically force moved users to FB which remained fast, slick and extremely usable. Similarly, MySpace just couldn't engineer features faster that users wanted. The big point here is that social is very hard engineer…

Aren't you just rephrasing the GP's point? If social media was "sticky", users would suck up the poor UX and missing features and stick with platform X because 'that's where everyone is'. The fact that users are willing to 'start over' their accounts over such issues just shows that the moat offered by being the place where everyone is is more shallow than one would think.

Re: Evaluation of TikTok vs. Instagram Reels

#192

Post by dom96 »

bluehorseray wrote: post #85

I think Meta really screwed up by not creating a stand-alone Reels app and instead trying to integrate it with Instagram. As someone who doesn't really like Meta as a company, I would admittedly be interested in trying out a totally new video-centric app released by them. But instead all they did was make instagram a little worse. I mean they already had instagram videos, shoe-horning a fifth tab at the bottom isn't…

They did actually create a standalone app, it was called Lasso. They put Lasso out there and did Reels at the same time. Then I guess their metrics made them decide to focus on Reels, possibly they looked at the wrong ones.

Re: Evaluation of TikTok vs. Instagram Reels

#193

Post by dom96 »

I feel like there is a big problem with this comparison: many of those asked to use TikTok and Reels already likely have been using TikTok for a while. Maybe I missed it but I didn't see any mention of resetting TikTok so TikTok for them would have had a major advantage as its would have been pre-trained.

Re: Evaluation of TikTok vs. Instagram Reels

#194

Post by fabiankutschera »

Wait, I need to ask about the sample data & methodology here: - these 100 users they asked, were they already frequent users of TikTok and Instagram reels?

This experiment makes no sense if users spent a lot of time training the TikTok algorithm, prior to running the experiment while they didn't train the Instagram Reels algorithm? Of course the results are more interesting and less generic if they had used TikTok a lot before...?

Re: Evaluation of TikTok vs. Instagram Reels

#195

Post by fabiankutschera »

dom96 wrote: post #193

I feel like there is a big problem with this comparison: many of those asked to use TikTok and Reels already likely have been using TikTok for a while. Maybe I missed it but I didn't see any mention of resetting TikTok so TikTok for them would have had a major advantage as its would have been pre-trained.

100% agree. Also just commented this.

You could only run this experiment if you had watched exactly the same amount of videos on both platforms or if you would start from scratch on both!?

Re: Evaluation of TikTok vs. Instagram Reels

#196

Post by fortym2 »

I loved the humor of the first part of the post.

IMO the problem of Instagram is not only related to Reels, but is more generalized. For the past ~5 years I have been noticing a serious decline in the quality of the interactions and of the content around.

Any interaction nowadays on Instagram feels fake, for the sole purpose of getting attention. The old-style pictures that are almost sure to generate more interactions are recycled old jokes that people with common sense are now tired of reading, but somehow a lot of users still enjoy them.

There are also some unexplainable phenomenas, like pictures with absolutely trash content that probably took zero effort to produce, getting thousands of likes and comments.

These situations (and more...) for me have eventually taken away all the fun of using the app.

Re: Evaluation of TikTok vs. Instagram Reels

#197

Post by fortym2 »

fabiankutschera wrote: post #194

Wait, I need to ask about the sample data & methodology here: - these 100 users they asked, were they already frequent users of TikTok and Instagram reels? This experiment makes no sense if users spent a lot of time training the TikTok algorithm, prior to running the experiment while they didn't train the Instagram Reels algorithm? Of course the results are more interesting and less generic if they had used TikTok a…

Yes, this is something important that the post is missing

Re: Evaluation of TikTok vs. Instagram Reels

#198

Post by thatjoeoverthr »

I so liked to to doomscroll Instagram because it would just find nice pictures for me, but it’s ruined with Reels.

First, they rig it so that on every page, there’ll be a reel. You can spot them and flag each and every one with “I don’t want to see this” and it will continue trying to show you reels. It’s definitely an explicit rule to show Reels.

Each Reel it finds for me has some mildly interesting-looking footage combined with the worst sounds you can think of.

Usually it’s some generic down-shifted voice that says “drop the bass” before these clipped, farting sounds come out of the phone.

The best example I ran across had someone putting lubricant until a ball bearing, coupled with what seems to be a cover of a Justin Bieber song but with what sound like cartoon dog voices.

In a dull moment I would like to mindlessly scroll for pretty pictures. It used to show me rockets and women. I like rockets and I like women. Now it shows me farty bass.

Re: Evaluation of TikTok vs. Instagram Reels

#199

Post by [deleted] »

user_named wrote: post #190
soco wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TikTok seems the only one who actually put thought about it, because that's exactly the beef I have with Spotify as well. You play a "song radio" and find a new song so you move to that other song radio but only to get exactly the same list maybe shuffled a bit. Somehow they create bubbles of content and that's it, no way out. At least on Spotify you can change bubbles, while on YouTube good luck.

Exactly. Youtube and Spotify show me the same things for six months at a time.

[deleted]

Re: Evaluation of TikTok vs. Instagram Reels

#200

Post by user_named »

quitit wrote: post #80
nemothekid wrote: post #11

I like that they asked actual users, and provided actual examples; it's something I've always felt off about Instagram's Reels vs TikTok. However the takeaway is that your TikTok feed is curated by hand by artisan robots vs Instagram is curated by lizards who only care about data. Both companies are completely data driven with some amazing engineers; but why is the Reels product boring, while TikTok is engaging has t…

I feel like TikTok took the Vine idea to its natural extent. Meanwhile Facebook/Meta shoehorning Snap & TikTok features into Instagram ruined Instagram and wasted their lead. Many big tech companies don't perform real R&D, instead they're fast-followers - piggybacking off whatever their competitors do, but the truth is that "disruption should come from within" because letting a competitor design your next product fea…

Kind of funny when somebody talks about having PM experience from Meta... Bro, you didn't do anything at all.
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