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How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study

tedgioia.substack.com

31–39 of 39 posts

Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study

#31
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, this is it. When I ask my younger friends why they prefer IG over FB the reaction is "ew, Facebook? That's so over." The cycle is repeating now with IG becoming uncool in favor of TikTok. If I were a social media mogul, my strategy would be to relaunch the same platform under a different name every 5 to 10 years. Put some new css in there, release some flashy ads, and users will think it's a different thing. Mos…

YouTube lacks a personality like Facebook/Instagram have. It just “is”. It’s closer to infrastructure than any other social platform out there. Kind of blends into the background as you browse it. Also, there’s a better separation of the content from the vitriolic comments than other platforms. I use YouTube all the time, and literally never read comments. Instagram/Facebook, the comments are integral to the consumpt…

I think it’s more about the centerpiece being subjects rather than people. I read Reddit threads all the time and comments there are front and center. There’s plenty terrible subs and people but they are easy to ignore and not the norm with what I look at.

It’s kind of fascinating to me that things have ended up like this. There was a period where Facebook was incredibly bland because people were using their real names. At some point that boundary got crossed and now most of what I see when I look at it is excoworkers who would have never gone on about politics around the workplace trying to get their message across. The rest of the people I followed who posted interesting moments about their lives have stopped posting altogether.

Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study

#32
post #27
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could pull it from wikidata pretty easily. This would cover all major bands and many more minor ones.

Oh, maybe for like, really organized groups. But even those change over time. Most of the musicians I know just work with random one-off hires when they get around to recording a track.

That's not a member of the band, that's a session musician. Not the same thing.

Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study

#33
post #4

> I can’t imagine a single Spotify user ever saying: “Please make sure you never tell me the members of the band.” Does Spotify even know who was in the band? Is that metadata anyone attached to the tracks? Sure: if it wasn't they could have asked for it, but if they already have a ton of music without that metadata is the feature ever going to be useful as an afterthought? Does any other music platform have this fea…

Every song on Spotify has a credits list which you can get to in a couple of clicks. Some of them have band members.

Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study

#34
post #4

> I can’t imagine a single Spotify user ever saying: “Please make sure you never tell me the members of the band.” Does Spotify even know who was in the band? Is that metadata anyone attached to the tracks? Sure: if it wasn't they could have asked for it, but if they already have a ton of music without that metadata is the feature ever going to be useful as an afterthought? Does any other music platform have this fea…

Spotify only knows what you tell it.

Currently, you can add a Bio, links to social media sites and create an image gallery, but the admin section isn't particularly smart, I can't see anywhere to set specific data like band members or timelines.

Not sure who's expected to admin all of this though, I'm published on 30+ streaming music platforms including Spotify and iTunes and I don't have time to go round adding data to all of them.

Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study

#36
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, this is it. When I ask my younger friends why they prefer IG over FB the reaction is "ew, Facebook? That's so over." The cycle is repeating now with IG becoming uncool in favor of TikTok. If I were a social media mogul, my strategy would be to relaunch the same platform under a different name every 5 to 10 years. Put some new css in there, release some flashy ads, and users will think it's a different thing. Mos…

YouTube lacks a personality like Facebook/Instagram have. It just “is”. It’s closer to infrastructure than any other social platform out there. Kind of blends into the background as you browse it. Also, there’s a better separation of the content from the vitriolic comments than other platforms. I use YouTube all the time, and literally never read comments. Instagram/Facebook, the comments are integral to the consumpt…

YouTube seems to have cleaned the comments up a huge amount over the years. Whenever I check them it’s always full of people thanking the creator, talking about the stuff they want to see more of, and continuing on the talking points of the video.

Sure it probably depends what kind of content you watch but I seem to remember old YouTube had a dumpster fire in every comment section.

Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, this is it. When I ask my younger friends why they prefer IG over FB the reaction is "ew, Facebook? That's so over." The cycle is repeating now with IG becoming uncool in favor of TikTok. If I were a social media mogul, my strategy would be to relaunch the same platform under a different name every 5 to 10 years. Put some new css in there, release some flashy ads, and users will think it's a different thing. Mos…

I think youtube just has so much content that is nowhere else that it can't go 'out of fashion.' It's a massive public archive of creative and educational content which you can't just discover on another platform. It'd take a very long time for something (like rumble/vimeo) to catch up or an amazingly large stuff-up at Youtube to drive people away.

Yeah Facebook posts and even tiktok videos are short lived things. No one will care about them in a year, but YouTube regularly shows me old stuff that’s great.

YouTube premium is the only streaming service I use on my TV because it’s got a never ending list of good content.

Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study

#38
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apples to apples? Mr. Houser didn't have to compete against Amazon, Target, Wal-Mart, specialty retailers (Home Depot, Best Buy), clothing discounters (TJ Maxx, Kohl's), any internet stores, or any suppliers selling Chinese-made goods.

Sears had pretty much the 1st crack at creating an "Amazon" and blew it. I mean, it's fair to say the "Sears Catalog" was the blueprint for that.

Huh? We were talking about the career of Mr. Houser -- not sure exactly when he ran Sears but he died in 1963, I'm pretty sure the technology needed to build "Amazon" didn't exist at that time. Anyway 25 years later Sears (and IBM) at least took a shot at it with Prodigy.

Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study

#39
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sears had pretty much the 1st crack at creating an "Amazon" and blew it. I mean, it's fair to say the "Sears Catalog" was the blueprint for that.

Huh? We were talking about the career of Mr. Houser -- not sure exactly when he ran Sears but he died in 1963, I'm pretty sure the technology needed to build "Amazon" didn't exist at that time. Anyway 25 years later Sears (and IBM) at least took a shot at it with Prodigy.

I was talking about "Big Business and Human Values" and how it was when Sears left those behind at their retail outlets their downfall began. And I think how the Sears catalog was a business model predecessor to Amazon is pretty clear.
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