what is Social Media doing to us?

Shitty retention is ubiquitous

First, perhaps obvious, but no wonder retention in mobile products is terrible. I’ve often written about these benchmarks for retention:

• daily retention of consumer apps: D1/D7/D28 of 60/30/15


• the % of active users — that is, DAU/registered — should be 25%


• or, for consumer/SMB subscription: M12 of >30%

When you reflect... See more

“There will be only answers,” the writer Marguerite Duras said in 1985 when a TV show asked her to make a prediction about the year 2000. “The demand will be such that there will only be answers. All texts will be answers… about [man’s] body, his corporeal future, his health, his family life, his salary, his leisure. It’s not far from a nightmare.

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the internet isn’t some alien force that descended upon us.

It’s just us, but bigger.

Regardless, what becomes important is the ability for *any* media to find the humans to enjoy it. And so, there’s likely a future inflection point where having more humans on your project is actually beneficial because it means you start off with a higher likelihood of it being shared. If the extreme becomes that we may be able look at anything for... See more

A personality sketch of the marginal user

Here’s what I’ve been able to piece together about the marginal user. Let’s call him Marl. The first thing you need to know about Marl is that he has the attention span of a goldfish on acid. Once Marl opens your app, you have about 1.3 seconds to catch his attention with a shiny image or triggering... See more