Twitter in a nutshell
The Next Social Network is Private Messaging
Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Today we already see that private messaging, ephemeral stories, and small groups are by far the fastest growing areas of online communication. There are a number of reasons for this. Many people prefer the intimacy of communicating one-on-one or with just a few friends. People are more cautious of having a permanent record of what they’ve shared. And we all expect to be able to do things like payments privately and securely.
Not saying I called it, but I called it. Look to WeChat for how we’ll be doing “social networking” here in the US within the next 5 years.
Twitter completely flopped and missed the ball by not shipping a DM app.
Instagram egg is worth “at least $10M”
Some days… I just don’t know… wow.
Marketers, however, are taking the bait. Nik Sharma, the head of DTC at VaynerMedia, told The Atlantic, “being the first brand to crack out of the egg is worth at least $10 million.” He went on to say that businesses, in fact, should “spend on the egg instead of the Super Bowl.” Read that again, because that’s a quote a supposedly human being made about a picture of an egg!
Source: VaynerMedia exec: Instagram egg is worth “at least $10M”
Facebook’s Internal Politics and External Ramifications
Mr. Kaplan balked when briefed on internal Facebook research that found right-leaning users tended to be more polarized, or less exposed to different points of view, than those on the left, according to people familiar with the analysis. That internal research tracks with the findings of academic studies.
— Read on www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-lonely-conservative-takes-on-a-power-position-11545570000
Why people quit Facebook
Eric Baumer, an assistant computer science professor at Lehigh University, has found in his research on Facebook “non-use” that people who cite concerns about data privacy in relation to corporations or the government as their main reason for quitting are likely to stay away from the site. Meanwhile, those who wanted privacy from people they know online are more likely to return. “Oftentimes questions about why people should delete their Facebook accounts are framed in terms of privacy,” Baumer said. “However, that single word glosses over a lot of complexity.”
— Read on slate.com/technology/2018/12/delete-facebook-movement-lessons-on-quitting.html
Instagram Party Accounts
Only a matter of time before us 40-year-olds start spinning up Instagram party accounts (just like we took over Facebook)!…
While Facebook event pages make clear who their organizers are, Instagram party accounts frequently don’t divulge that information. The anonymity of a party page allows for plausible deniability if the account gets discovered by a parent. If a party you spent weeks hyping up on Instagram gets out of hand, you can simply “be like, ‘Yeah, I had friends over and more people came,’” says Brown.
NASCAR’s Social Media Leaderboard
Marketing and NASCAR are two of my longtime passions (lots of overlap on that Venn Diagram)… so I couldn’t resist sharing these stats.
Interesting to note that Danica retired from NASCAR after this year’s Daytona 500… that doesn’t say very good things about the health of the sport from a marketing perspective.
Kyle Busch led all drivers in engagements and total video views, with Danica Patrick coming in a close second. Busch and Patrick are both sit near the top in nearly every category.
Source: NASCAR’s Social Leaderboard: How the Top Drivers Stack Up | opendorse
“Everything that rises must converge”
Twitter, and social media in general, is a harsh lover. I’ve heard similar laments from other Twitter personalities and I think we’re reaching a tipping point…
“Translating the essence of who you are into a digestible product is a strange way to live, especially when you’re a young adult and your sense of self is in flux. It was never my main intention to peddle my personality for a living, but in the era of social media, the personal brand reigns supreme.”
Via First Twitter Gave Me Power. Then I Felt Hopeless by Eve Peyser on Vice
Walking Away from $850 Million
Fascinating story of morals, standing up for your beliefs, and watching others ruin what you created…
Under pressure from Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg to monetize WhatsApp, he pushed back as Facebook questioned the encryption he’d helped build and laid the groundwork to show targeted ads and facilitate commercial messaging. Acton also walked away from Facebook a year before his final tranche of stock grants vested. “It was like, okay, well, you want to do these things I don’t want to do,” Acton says. “It’s better if I get out of your way. And I did.” It was perhaps the most expensive moral stand in history. Acton took a screenshot of the stock price on his way out the door—the decision cost him $850 million.
Instagram is Dead
For starters, this is the end of Instagram as we know it. Systrom and Krieger were deeply involved in day-to-day product decisions, and retained an unusual degree of autonomy over the company. For years, they were careful to the point of being obstinate. Even as they began to expand Instagram’s suite of offerings, they remained deeply cautious. (Features for creating groups of “favorites” and a standalone messaging app have been in testing for 15 months and 10 months, respectively.)