“As social software has become more probabilistic and personalized, the more important thing is to have ‘shots on goal’ to keep people engaged and prevent churn,” Messina says. “And so Instagram does limited, progressive feature rollouts.”
Masha Liberman, a tech investor who previously built 3D bitmoji for Snapchat, believes that social media is experiencing a “crisis of ideas,” but she says that’s not a new thing. “It’s always been tough to invent something new,” she says. “What’s happening with social media companies is that they want to see themselves as media networks that offer everything inside the app. That’s the competitive advantage right now. And at some point we will probably view some of these things as new formats rather than copycat features.”
Social media as a category is probably overdue for a serious rethink, both in the usability sense and the regulatory sense. The time-suck it has become for some people, its potential mental health harms, and its fire-to-gasoline spread of misinformation are all reasons enough to question it.
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It has also, over the past 20-plus years, offered connection, community, entertainment, and access to information unlike anything humanity has ever experienced before. And a new group of apps is now promising a decentralized social media experience instead of the founder-driven model of the past two decades.
But this era of platform identity crises, brand pivots, and frenetic feature reinvention isn’t necessarily in service of users, either. “My experience working at a social media company during turbulent times, especially when there’s a separate app or even a separate page, is that these are huge internal political projects,” Liberman says. “They’re not for users directly, and users sometimes feel this.”
It’s hard not to feel it, to have a persistent sense of déjà vu after another new app feature is announced, or to feel like you never really asked for the thing to begin with. It’s hard not to feel like it’s getting a little late at the social media party, and that there has to be some other reason to stay.
“As social software has become more probabilistic and personalized, the more important thing is to have ‘shots on goal’ to keep people engaged and prevent churn,” Messina says. “And so Instagram does limited, progressive feature rollouts.”
Masha Liberman, a tech investor who previously built 3D bitmoji for Snapchat, believes that social media is experiencing a “crisis of ideas,” but she says that’s not a new thing. “It’s always been tough to invent something new,” she says. “What’s happening with social media companies is that they want to see themselves as media networks that offer everything inside the app. That’s the competitive advantage right now. And at some point we will probably view some of these things as new formats rather than copycat features.”
Social media as a category is probably overdue for a serious rethink, both in the usability sense and the regulatory sense. The time-suck it has become for some people, its potential mental health harms, and its fire-to-gasoline spread of misinformation are all reasons enough to question it.
See What’s Next in Tech With the Fast Forward Newsletter
A weekly dispatch from the future by Will Knight, exploring AI advances and other technology set to change our lives. Delivered every Thursday.
Your email
By signing up you agree to our User Agreement (including the class action waiver and arbitration provisions), our Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement and to receive marketing and account-related emails from WIRED. You can unsubscribe at any time.
It has also, over the past 20-plus years, offered connection, community, entertainment, and access to information unlike anything humanity has ever experienced before. And a new group of apps is now promising a decentralized social media experience instead of the founder-driven model of the past two decades.
But this era of platform identity crises, brand pivots, and frenetic feature reinvention isn’t necessarily in service of users, either. “My experience working at a social media company during turbulent times, especially when there’s a separate app or even a separate page, is that these are huge internal political projects,” Liberman says. “They’re not for users directly, and users sometimes feel this.”
It’s hard not to feel it, to have a persistent sense of déjà vu after another new app feature is announced, or to feel like you never really asked for the thing to begin with. It’s hard not to feel like it’s getting a little late at the social media party, and that there has to be some other reason to stay.