Quite interesting article on the dynamics of launching social networks.
They basically try to have every user from a specific community start using the service at the same time, creating strong community wide network effects from launch instead of a fragmented user base with the traditional approach where users install at different times from their social peers as they learn about the app through marketing or word of mouth. Making so new users rarely have contacts on new apps whenever they try them out.
It seems the only reason this was targeted at high schoolers is because they focused their community boundaries on each high school, but this approach seems promising for any new social network targettig any community of any age
Internally within Google I proposed G+ to launch to small communities first to test the products "social" features, with exactly this effect in mind.
Leadership decided there was no way to launch to small communities without screenshots being leaked all over the web and them missing the initial press wave of the new product launching.
The only way to do it would have been to launch under another brand (ie. Let the small test communities use G+, but without Google branding). Technically that was too hard to do - it was too integrated into Google infrastructure and services to hide the fact it was a Google product.
I think leadership made the wrong call, and it resulted in the products rapid failure.
I really hate the biased terminology and implied accusations that always follow these articles. Imagine McDonalds getting similar coverage back in the early 90’ies with them talking about their “dangerous growth at all cost strategy” and evil “psychological tricks of putting billboards on the roads that pass by the restaurants locations”
Or the ever present toy commercials sprinkled in between childrens tv shows.
There’s no grand conspiracy or evil masterminds here, and teens aren’t being exploited. It’s just marketing targeting the target audience.
If we bought into the premise that adverts for teens where bad for them or that Facebook itself is harmful. We should not be discussing which ways they carried out their advertisement, we should be discussing how the government outlawed all forms of advertisement, print and media for teens and children and shut Facebook down along with all other social media.
Good point I'd love to have that discussion. Advertising to children should be illegal. Does anyone know of existing bills or proposals in this direction?
This is basically how Facebook started around 2004. It was only open to college students, and they would invite new colleges to sign up with a bunch of fanfare.
TLDR: Create private Instagram accounts named "TBH (local high school)" and request to follow teens at that school (triggering curious kids requesting them back).
>1. What is TBH?
> It’s an app for answering questions about your friends. You’re given a (mostly) positive question, such as, "the person I relate to most," and then it lists four of your friends who are also on the app. You have to choose which one of them the question applies to most. When one of your friends chooses you as a response to a question, you get notified that a boy or girl (there’s a non binary option, too) chose you as the answer. You don’t see the name of who chose you.
Then, when school gets out, accept the requests and put the app link in the bio. Users will get a notification that their follow request was accepted, they'll click it, and are likely to install the app (fear of missing out on juicy gossip!!1!).
>BuzzfeedNews has surprisingly high journalistic standards, actually.
No they don't. Remember when BuzzFeedNews was peddling such fake news garbage that Robert Mueller's team had to call them out on their bullshit [0]? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
They basically try to have every user from a specific community start using the service at the same time, creating strong community wide network effects from launch instead of a fragmented user base with the traditional approach where users install at different times from their social peers as they learn about the app through marketing or word of mouth. Making so new users rarely have contacts on new apps whenever they try them out.
It seems the only reason this was targeted at high schoolers is because they focused their community boundaries on each high school, but this approach seems promising for any new social network targettig any community of any age