Consumer Social

Something I’ve noticed, however, is that exclusively using TikTok doesn’t mean I’m only exposed to TikTok-specific trends and culture. In fact, many of the dust-ups from other platforms still make their way onto my For You page. Rather than a standalone platform, as it was in its early days, TikTok has become the ocean into which—and out of which—t

... See more

On the one hand, Octavia Butler has this to say:

“The only lasting truth is Change.”

On the other hand, Bill Bernbach would counter as such:

“A communicator must be concerned with unchanging man, with his obsessive drive to survive, to be admired, to succeed, to love, to take care of his own.”

And you know what, they’re both right!

When we think abo

... See more

Below, co-founders Dylan Diamond and Max Baron share their biggest lessons on building a viral social consumer app, including:

1. Embracing single-player mode as a wedge for social products


2. Building a product that users feel was built just for them


3. Why it’s OK to be unscalable—you can make it scale later


4. Building a familiar product is much easier if you’r

... See more

One thing that complicates people’s willingness to devote their energy to vibrancy is context collapse, a term that Alice Marwick and I coined long ago. When a social media site grows slow and steady, it starts out for each user as a coherent context. Things get dicy over time as people struggle to figure out how to navigate divergent networks. But... See more

the most important new social networks of the last few years have been notable for not really being social networks at all.

I’m referring to the TikTok-ization of user-generated content: the reason why TikTok was such a blindspot for Facebook is that, unlike Snapchat, it doesn’t depend on network effects, but rather abundance.

Add it all up, and the social web is changing in three crucial ways: It’s going from public to private; it’s shifting from growth and engagement, which broadly involves building good products that people like, to increasing revenue no matter the tradeoff; and it’s turning into an entertainment business. It turns out there’s no money in connecting p... See more