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A new generation of social upstart is filling the social vacuum left by the giants.

Due to the multiple effects of economy, politics and epidemic situation, the performance of American technology companies is low, especially the social media giants represented by Meta and Twitter. On the one hand, platform companies such as Apple have tightened privacy policies, resulting in a decline in advertising revenue that social giants depend on for a living; on the other hand, even if the voice is high, new businesses such as Metasmos are still a long way from success.

At the same time, when social giants gradually become "social media", they gradually leave "social" space behind them, so that the new social applications of BeReal and Poparazzi are gradually favored by young users and develop rapidly.

Author Mario Gabriele's article on generalist points out the shift in power between current social platforms and the future social media trends reflected in it.

This article is the second part of the series, which mainly expounds the new trends and new logic of social platforms in the future behind the rise of social upstarts such as BeReal and Poparazzi.

Author | Mario Gabriele

Original text |

Https://www.generalist.com/briefing/socials-next-wave

Edit | Meiyi

As mentioned earlier, social giants are facing unprecedented dilemmas-vague business models, fiercer competition, increased political pressure and turbulent management.

All of a sudden, subverting these giants seems to be difficult, not impossible.

In order to seize this opportunity, a new social wave is emerging.

Rising stars like BeReal, Poparazzi, Mastodon and Post News seek victory by promising to make better use of our most precious resource-time. The goal of these companies is not to dominate every second of our day or every relationship we have. They position themselves as an effective substitute for the controversy and chaos of the old platform.

At present, these new companies are still in growth mode, and their investors will not judge their current success or failure based on their income. Over time, however, investors will need to make some trade-offs. These startups either use the same strategy as established companies to find the most effective ways to engulf users' time and then make money through advertising, or they have to accept alternatives, which may involve subscription, payment, e-commerce or other methods. After all, it costs money to make better use of our lives.

We will evaluate these most promising startups and how they use strategies such as intimacy, "counter-positioning", and cash-out models to counterattack.

At the same time, this article will also discuss how social networking may change in the next few years as AI, VR, and AR technologies mature.

01. The "four artifacts" of new players are not only in the shadow of the giants, but also full of small players in the social media field. Spend a little time in your mobile app store and you will find a dynamic ecosystem of secondary-scale applications that adapt to established use cases and try new ones.

In fact, what is more interesting than apps is the strategy that the startups behind them are trying. These strategies are usually coordinated, but at the same time independent. Among them, there are four methods, which are particularly worth emphasizing.

1. Focus on intimacy as discussed above, it is more accurate to call TikTok a media company than a social network. Because it only provides content that you will be interested in, and you don't need to know who your friends are. With its rise, other companies have followed suit.

Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat have all introduced features to retain users' attention. If you think of social media as a spectrum, then all these companies, from social to media, are moving to the back end.

Giants are getting closer to "media", leaving a "social vacuum" behind them. Startups such as The GeneralistBeReal, Poparazzi, Locket, Gas and Slay are entering the "space" vacated by social media giants in the past. These companies don't try to monopolize your attention every moment, they just want to provide you with a better way to keep in touch with your close friends. Each mechanism of these platforms clearly demonstrates this focus.

BeReal, Poparazzi, and Locket all restrict the publication of user content:

On BeReal, users can only post one photo at a specific time of day.

On Locket, users push pictures directly to a friend's home screen and appear in a widget (Widget)

On Poparazzi, users can only post photos of their friends, not their own. Neither application provides filters or other ways to improve the quality of images-they are intended to be "authentic" rather than "glamorous". As Alex Ma, CEO of Poparazzi, said in our conversation, "you can't fake it." This version of you is more real.

Although all three companies are in their early stages and seem a long way from commercialization, they represent the vanguard of this new movement.

BeReal currently has an estimated 7350 million monthly active users (MAUs); round B financing in October 2022 raised the company's valuation to $600m. Locket has received at least 2000 million downloads and $12.5 million in financing. In 2022, Sam Altman, the now hot founder of OpenAI, participated in Locket's $10 million round A financing.

The painting style of BeReal is very lifelike | the scale of Errin Mathieson and Ben Goggin,NBC NewsPoparazzi is slightly smaller. CEO Alex Ma said: "We have nearly 8 million downloads and shared 100 million photos." However, the platform has attracted a great deal of attention from venture capital. Benchmark, which supports Instagram and Snap, led the $15 million round A financing for the Poparazzi team in 2021. The company is currently valued at $135 million.

Gas, which was acquired by Discord not long ago, takes a different approach to pursue similar goals. Gas is designed to provide new ways for friends to interact, but it is achieved through voting. Users are asked questions such as who they secretly worship, who should DJ at every party, and whose smile melts their hearts. Since its launch at the end of 2022, Gas has quickly attracted teenagers. Slay provides a similar function for the European market. Other applications of "boasting and praising each other" include Sendit, NGL and nocapp.

Although these applications use different mechanisms, they are all attached to the "social graph". Their focus is not on building a "media machine", but on building a "closely connected network".

2. "Anti-positioning" the second core strategy used by the social upstart is to carry out anti-positioning on moral grounds. To some extent, almost every social media startup does this: highlight the moral advantage of its products by comparing their products with the big companies that have attracted attention before. Some companies do this by abandoning advertising models, while others emphasize moral failures or political biases in the products of big companies.

We can see that the strategy of "anti-positioning" is most obvious in the case of Twitter.

Although Musk's ownership may be feasible in the long run, it undoubtedly opens the door for new competitors. Replacements like Mastodon and Post News have benefited from Musk's controversy over ownership of Twitter, gaining new users and investment.

Although these platforms have adjusted the functions of Twitter, in the eyes of new users, their biggest advantage is that they are not Twitter.

Despite their different positions, platforms such as Gab, Truth Social and Parler have made the same point. Although their three positions are more free and open than those of Mastodon and Post, they have also become platforms for the right to gather. For users of these platforms, Twitter is a proxy for rival factional censorship. All in all, both groups believe they are creating a platform for real freedom of speech.

Mastodon's "mammoth" name comes from the founding team's favorite heavy metal rock band. Mastodon, will these alternatives last? Maybe, on a smaller scale.

In the United States, traditional media have become more and more polarized. A 2019 study by the Pew Research Center illustrates the partisanship of news consumption in the United States. Of those who chose Fox as their main news source, 93 per cent thought they were a Republican, while 95 per cent of those who chose MSNBC thought they were a Democrat.

The information we consume reflects our political factions to a large extent.

The fragmentation of information consumption mentioned above may also occur on social media. Instead of gathering on large platforms like Twitter, users are increasingly scattered across several platforms, each of which caters to a different worldview.

Although we are now living in the echo room of social media, the walls of these rooms are connected. For example, if you are a right-wing conspiracy theorist, your tweets on Twitter are likely to be opposed. In the Twitter Colosseum, "fighting against each other" is part of the focus. Perhaps, the emergence of implicit and explicit politicized alternatives can reveal whether this "struggle" is "function" or "Bug" from the point of view of use.

3. Non-advertising "cash-out" as mentioned earlier, one of the main problems for these startups is how they will make money. As consumers become more wary of advertising-driven models, these companies have tried other business models.

Gas is a good example. Since its launch in mid-2022, the app has generated $7 million in revenue. This is thanks to its "God mode" subscription service, which allows users to see who votes for them in different ballots. Yubo, a live streaming network with 40 million users, also has a subscription product, and the team expects to generate $20 million in revenue by 2023.

These are small numbers compared with social giants. But they still show the potential of other business models beyond the advertising model.

Subscriptions and in-app payments may be better suited to the "hot-driven" attributes of social media companies. Offering paid products means that even if your app is only popular in the summer, the job can still generate millions of dollars, so it makes sense.

Subscriptions and intra-app payments are not the only options.

TikTok teaches its American counterparts what "live e-commerce" means. Techcrunch as TikTok has shown, social networks have the opportunity to become e-commerce portals. Turner Novak, founder of Banana Capital and author of The Split, stressed that fashion-focused Teleport is a promising company in its portfolio. The company is using this e-commerce as its revenue model. "this is an app for posting videos of your clothes every day," Novak said. Creating videos is very simple, the content is centered on sharing clothing inspiration, and each video is shoppable. This provides Teleport with a natural opportunity to generate revenue by promoting e-commerce.

Alex Ma emphasized the possibility of realizing Poparazzi's brand. In his view, if a product is popular enough, it can lend that affinity to monetized products such as concerts, music festivals and designated merchandise. Maybe the next Coachella festival may be named by the Poparazzi or BeReal brand.

While this may generate a sizeable business, it is unlikely to shake up Meta's position, a fact Alex Ma acknowledges. "you may never have a business as big as Facebook," he says. But there is a moral question: should a trillion-dollar company really exist? "

4. New scene the last strategy adopted by social media upstarts is to master the next user scenario. These companies want to be pioneers in developing potential but unproven categories.

Clubhouse is the best example of the past few years, and the audio social platform recognizes the shift in consumer behavior.

First of all, audio content is experiencing a popular craze. Second, the launch of AirPods means we are ready to receive more audio during the day. Therefore, in the context of the global blockade of the epidemic, this gave birth to the popular darling of Clubhouse. Although Clubhouse failed to maintain its early momentum, it recognized some of the facts of the world and laid the foundation for future social networks.

Of course, audio is just one of many opportunities. In the past few years, there have been many projects at the intersection of cryptocurrencies and social media, such as Decentraland, Farcaster, Context, DSCVR, Geneva, Revel, T2, and more.

These projects introduce new functions and infrastructure, such as providing blockchain services (NFT or token purchase), turning creators into tradable assets (social tokens), or using decentralized structures to simplify construction and protect censorship. Of course, if cryptocurrencies do catch fire in the way that many people want, these projects will not necessarily be successful. But at the very least, these platforms will be in an advantageous position over alternatives to web2.

Arthur Clarke, a writer of three social trends in the future, describes science fiction as "an escape from reality". He believes that, unlike other art forms, his chosen genre focuses on "practical problems; the origin of mankind; our future".

Now is the time to try Clarke-style travel. Looking to the future is not a distraction from reality, but an understanding of the status quo. Given our current understanding of the patterns and tendencies of social media, how will it change over the next decade? What trends can we identify and infer? I think there are three trends that deserve particular attention:

Richer forms of media, economic models that replace advertising, and the rise of the intimate relationship between people and AI.

1. Richer forms of media one of my favorite social media interpreters is Rex Woodbury, author of Digital Native Communications and partner of Index Ventures. In our conversation, Woodbury highlighted a key development in social media: "moving towards richer forms of media." The text was replaced by photos, and the photos were replaced by videos.

What will it be after the video?

"Media forms may naturally transition to immersive experiences," Woodbury said, emphasizing that Minecraft and Roblox are the models for future immersive experiences. He also points out that while these models can exist in browsers, they may eventually become mature VR or AR ecosystems.

Poparazzi's Alex Ma also points out that the gaming world is potentially predictable. "by far, Fortnite is the place where you can get the most social experience online," he said. Fortnite is a PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS game, and it has also held virtual concerts.

Marshmello gave a concert in the hit game "Fortnite". Will YouTube's future social experience be more like Roblox or "Fortnite" than Facebook? Of course, this is the view of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook.

If social interaction follows this historical pattern, then Meta's high-level arguments will prove to be correct. However, the wisdom of their investments in VR and AR will also depend on how and when immersive experiences become mainstream media forms.

"I'm skeptical about the short-term development of meta-universe," Alex Ma said. But in the long run, I think this is indeed the development trend of the world.

2. non-advertising cash-out model social media can also get business model inspiration from immersive games. Platforms like Roblox have demonstrated the ability to make money in virtual worlds.

Instead of using advertising, Roblox makes money by selling game avatar accessories, game upgrade services, or other special experiences. Users must buy the company's game currency, Robux, to get these items. One of the advantages of doing so is that, in essence, Roblox gets interest-free loans from its consumers: it collects money through Robux, which is often spent only later. In fact, this is a very strange new type of bank, denominated in a virtual currency.

Roblox has launched its own system currency, Robux | PCMag, it's not hard to imagine these games in social media apps. Users can pay to raise their awareness, shape their image, unlock information, or buy real and digital items. As mentioned earlier, we have seen these behaviors in applications such as Gas and Yubo. This is also common in dating applications. Apps like Tinder and Bumble make hundreds of millions of dollars by making users pay for similar features.

"this business model is very common outside the United States," Woodbury said. In China, many large enterprises combine subscriptions, gifts, ticketing and other sources of income. "by contrast, the US business model is a little more monotonous (Snap and Facebook are 90 per cent ad-driven), but we are likely to see more comprehensive realizations in the next few years," he explains.

The next generation of social media giants may not be obsessed with attracting attention. Instead, they will focus on creating multi-functional and multifaceted economic models.

3. Human and AI social artificial intelligence may be responsible for the most profound changes in social media.

It's not hard to imagine how generative artificial intelligence tools can be used to create content for social media. ChatGPT can write decent tweets, and DALLE-2 can generate pictures that are more attractive than those produced by most Instagram users. It is estimated that it will soon be able to produce fascinating videos.

AI may not simply change what we publish; it may completely eliminate our need for social media. Fundamentally, we are looking for these platforms in order to gain "connectivity". Humans crave intimacy and a sense of belonging to a larger group. Now, this can only be satisfied by interacting with other humans. But soon, that may not be the case anymore.

Now, artificial intelligence has matured to the point where it is possible for human beings to establish a meaningful relationship with it.

For the first time before, The Generalist has used an article to outline how a date "surpasses humans". Like the romantic chatbots provided by Replika, they are not just tools for humans to pass the time, but artificial intelligence partners that humans are attached to.

Users have already begun to use software such as Replika to interact with AI. Although Replika is still a minority, it is in line with William Gibson's classic motto: "the future is here, just unevenly distributed." With the progress of technology and the change of social atmosphere, we can expect to see more people seeking connections from artificial intelligence friends. Although it is dystopian, it seems very reasonable that human beings may have more than a dozen AI friends and partners in the coming decades. We will talk, play and share with these artificial intelligence, just as we do with people now.

Will we rely on a network or platform to organize these relationships? Maybe. In some ways, this feels like a logical extension of social media dynamics.

We are divided into more and more echo chambers. But we may end up hiding in the ultimate echo room: a room of our own, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of artificial intelligence friends. We may live in a private version of "the World of Truman" (The Truman Show), with artificial intelligence acting as other NPC and no longer need to connect with humans.

Less hopelessly, artificial intelligence can also be used to guide new social experiences. The founders of future social media platforms can solve the problem of "cold start" at the beginning of app launch through billions of AI interactions with human users. Even a network with only a few hundred "real" users can become active in this way; the line between human and intelligent people will become more and more blurred.

The writer Virginia Woolf once wrote, "what I value is the naked contact of the heart." Writers are not the only ones who have such wishes. In fact, humans crave "connection"; social media is an attempt of our generation to provide "connection".

After so much experience, we know that social media is not the correct solution to "connection". It not only can not satisfy people's desire for the community, but also often contradicts it directly. In this process, it also brings a variety of problems, which have proved to be difficult to solve.

So, can we find a better substitute? These social media upstarts still need time to prove that they can achieve similar success. Nevertheless, they are introducing new variables, and these variables may prove valuable.

This article is from the official account of Wechat: geek Park (ID:geekpark), by Meiyi

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