Spotlight The Future Of Social Media

From Must Reads Drop 0924

Here is my deep dive from today’s newsletter (the full newsletter can be read here) on the future of Media and why chat apps are the only option in the controlled web by big tech and the current default paywalled and gated web.

Spotlight The Future Of Social Media

• Jack Dorsey On The End Of Social Media 
  One of the main reasons social media became toxic media is down to Twitter (& let’s call it out Facebook too) and its inability to make decisions that did not benefit its users. Twitter was the “news” + engagement around news stories for a long time but in the background, it had so many executive changes and infighting it ultimately lost its identity and the result: today’s version X under Elon. I don’t disagree with Jack’s point, however, social media now is short-form entertainment for most users (without the users understanding the shift or they role in how the platforms plan to make more money from training of their user data and behaviours) and rarely a social experience.

• Future Social Or Future Fades? Social in the future might end up like ‘noplace’ (vodcast below) which is a throwback to Myspace might just be a fad but shows how old is new and how Product Recyclement is commonplace even with social sites launching back in 2003. I’m old enough to remember the original fondly therefore i’m too old to sign up for noplace

• Social Media To Chat Social — We have all shifted over to group chat, whether that’s friends, colleagues or local communities, everything is a group chat. What X has seen is the move away from X and small communities popping up on Telegram, WhatsApp, iMessage and tools like Discord and Slack. Communities will have to go niche to win and be valuable enough in a commercial setting, expect sponsors to flood your group chats soon and pay a high premium to do so.

• Journalist Taylor Lorenz Entering Wave 2 Of Independent Journalism - Taylor Lorenz has made a name for herself, often offering inside scoops, reporting on what others do not and not being afraid to be outspoken on the latest trends. Taylor has created usermag to tell the stories mainstream media won’t. Taylor is definitely the new journalist model many try to fulfil creating podcasts, creating videos on YouTube and then going live on Substack with Q&A. Despite some wild accusations Taylor has quite the resume including The Hill, The Daily Beast, The Atlantic, The New York Post & The Washington Post.
  We have had a wave in 2020/21 with journalists leaving and setting up on Substack and now I predict we are going to see wave 2 with many going onto Substack (or Beehiiv or Ghost) to build out the reporting they want through a subscription model. But the question now should be: Is this sustainable for the average reporter and not one that’s amassed thousands of followers because of the beat they have? I have the feeling super niche and big beat will be ok, many won’t (and subscription fatigue is kicking many creators hard).
  The best of luck to

  Taylor Lorenz
  - I doubt that Taylor will ever need it!

• The Future Of Media? Chat Apps? Media publishers think so but as I suggested previously, media can’t fall for another bait and switch from Meta and big tech. Channels could be great but most of the media companies simply won’t invest other than treating like RSS.

Thanks for reading the deep-dive today and have a great weekend ahead, if you want to discuss anything in Must Reads just hit reply and say what you think.

Danny Denhard