Firehose #163: 👥 Social recall. 👥

How vertical networks can monetize

Earlier we were talking about a lot of the social networks are basically built on the same set of primitives. I'm sharing some container I can share, retweet, like, etc.

The sports fan has a ton of attention and time to spend on the content that they care about. The average run time of an NBA game is three hours. If you can find a way to be a meaningful part of that person's experience on a nightly basis for the duration of a season, and then multiple seasons across sports, there's a lot of potential to monetize th... See more

On my panel, in which we discussed the next social platform, we focused on the idea of new social primitives, and how we’re already starting to see them emerge in games like Fortnite* and Roblox. The below is from Rec Room CEO Nick Fajt:

My partner Jana Messerschmidt asked her panel how business models of vertical networks will different from utility networks like Facebook*. The panelists argued that the benefit of a vertical network is greater trust, and that trust creates the possibility of direct monetization. Moving away from ads may also create more aligned business models for... See more

Trust and safety plays a big role here. We're starting to see some of the backlash against Facebook, Twitter, Instagram because of what we've seen them do with all of our collective data. And so now being able to position as a company and say, "We will not do that, and therefore, here's monetization strategy X," actually resonates and has value. — ... See more

The thing that we are seeing with Fortnite and Roblox is the shape of whatever is next. That social gaming space [is where] a lot of those primitives are emerging. There are these worlds or rooms or islands that are built by not the publisher and then you're seeing more of a social exploration than a true like, "Hey, I'm moving through level one, l... See more

The next network will have new primitives