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Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

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Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#231

Post by wolrah »

Zak wrote: post #117
steveBK123 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instagram followed a similar trajectory for me. For a while, as a photography hobbyist, it was a far more "active" social community for photography enthusiasts than whatever came before (Flickr, Smugmug, photo.net, various niche forums). I made photography friends thru it that I met in person even when traveling overseas. This lasted maybe 2 years. Then all the "normies" got on it and my feed started to just be casua…

I never saw Instagram as appealing to photography hobbyists. Instead, I saw it as deliberately nerfing things where hobbyists have advantages (image quality, choice of aspect ratios, posting from desktop PCs), likely to increase participation by making it less intimidating to share snapshots taken on phone cameras. It's probably impossible to make something that's good for any kind of enthusiast that's also effective…

> I never saw Instagram as appealing to photography hobbyists. Instead, I saw it as deliberately nerfing things where hobbyists have advantages (image quality, choice of aspect ratios, posting from desktop PCs), likely to increase participation by making it less intimidating to share snapshots taken on phone cameras.

I agree with this 100%, on top of what you said remember that Instagram launched in 2010 as an iOS exclusive during a time where Apple was not particularly focused on camera quality, ignoring Android where there were numerous devices with substantially better cameras. IIRC someone was even selling one with an optical system in the ballpark of a low-end mirrorless. They also limited image resolution to 640 pixels square until 2015.

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#232

Post by orsenthil »

Everything evolved into a marketing platform right now. It is innately driven by the human desire for power, control and greed. There are very humans that recognize it and act in beneficial ways when power is given to them. With the rest, we get what we have right now. That’s normal thing with humans. We want to market to others, show our power, and we want to be marketed by powerful hoping we will become like them.

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#233

Post by amatecha »

Almondsetat wrote: post #17

IMHO, any social network that offers an "explore" section (i.e. a feed of strangers' posts) is doomed, independently of whether it is algorithmically filtered or chronologically. I ultimately dropped Mastodon because the "dumb" feed from my instance was already enough to waste my time. To prove this, just use Instagram or Facebook from your browser with the proper extensions and they'll stop being absolute worthless…

> the "dumb" feed from my instance was already enough to waste my time

I guess you joined a crappy instance. The Explore feed on my instance is freakin' awesome and full of a constant stream of interesting and enjoyable posts by cool people. Mastodon isn't very optimal when you join the biggest instances on the network (like mastodon.social or similar). The tech is best experienced with invite-only communities of people who agree on a basic set of standards for their social experience.

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#234

Post by kelvinjps10 »

lukeschlather wrote: post #179

The funny thing about Facebook is that it's got a perfectly good social network in there, I think the only one that exists. In the menu is "Feeds" which is what you want. It only shows friends and followed things. If they made that the default when you go to facebook.com I don't think I'd have any complaints feature-wise, though an ad-free option would be nice. It's a genuine social network. Of course, then there's t…

The only thing I used Facebook, is for marketplace and groups you can buy cheap stuff on there.

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#235

Post by kelvinjps10 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #228
lukeschlather wrote: post #179

The funny thing about Facebook is that it's got a perfectly good social network in there, I think the only one that exists. In the menu is "Feeds" which is what you want. It only shows friends and followed things. If they made that the default when you go to facebook.com I don't think I'd have any complaints feature-wise, though an ad-free option would be nice. It's a genuine social network. Of course, then there's t…

> I think the only one that exists Wechat moments show you the things that your contacts post. There are theoretically ads too, but ever since they forcibly converted me to a US-based account I don't get ads because no one is interested in advertising to me. It's too bad; I liked seeing the Chinese ads. Comments on wechat follow the Maplestory system where you can see comments (on anyone's posts) from your own contac…

WhatsApp too is my only social media, you can see the updates from your contacts

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#238

Post by esafak »

jwr wrote: post #103
gradus_ad wrote: post #57

I will admit, one thing the crowd attention model does exceptionally well is surface the best comments on content. Whether it's HN, Instagram, YouTube, etc... the top comments are usually the "best", depending on how best is defined in the given context. On the silly Instagram meme videos my algo serves up, the top comments are invariably hilarious, often funnier than the actual content, and as you scroll it's impres…

> depending on how best is defined in the given context That is a big hedge there. I found over time that many of my objectively correct and informative posts on Reddit get downvoted because the truth is sometimes inconvenient (don't critique a manufacturer in the reddit devoted to devices from that manufacturer, people will not like that, they are not there to hear unpleasant things about their buying decisions), an…

Slashdot let you rate content across multiple dimensions.

I see no specifics about the scoring in the wikipedia article, but a search revealed that it was a simple, single five star rating scale. The same as on Amazon, and formerly Netflix?

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#239

Post by ageedizzle »

rsolva wrote: post #104
asim wrote: post #22

Mastodon really isn't the answer. You frequent enough servers and you realise social media has taught people bad habits..not everything needs to be expressed online. Genuinely I think people need something else. The format fails. What's the alternative? I don't know. But I'm trying to figure it out. Why? Because walking away from it all isn't the right answer. Why? Because we leave behind all those people addicted to…

I would like to see social networks that facilitates real life, face-to-face encounters to a much larger extent that the current state of affairs. The Fediverse has the pieces to this puzzle, but I do not know of one project that combines them in the right way yet. We do have Mobilizon for events, we have Mastodon and all the other similar projects for sharing and commenting, but we need something that puts the piece…

What sets Bonfire apart from other federated social media networks?

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#240

Post by strix_varius »

When our first child was born, we wanted to share photos with family. So I set up a Google photos album and shared it with parents, aunts, grandparents, etc.

It supports general chat plus comments and reactions linked to posted media. It's exactly what I wish social networks became... Something like the "circles" idea that Google abandoned years ago.

Now with several thousand images and videos and comments we're hitting the limits of what Google seems to have designed for with however shared albums sync.

This community feature though is the only reason I haven't self hosted all this stuff...

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