from Hacker News

Meta preps new social app

by zaplin on 5/22/23, 7:54 AM with 139 comments

• by asim on 5/22/23, 8:13 AM

  Public networks are dead. We did it for two decades and now people need to go back to something more real and private. Social networks in the current form are just attention seeking. We've been trained to say things that will garner likes and retweets. I welcome text and chat, maybe even voice to text but not in the public form. Closed networks only now.

• by v4dok on 5/22/23, 8:57 AM

  I want to offer a counterpoint to the current consensus in the comments from (my) real-world interactions. In many countries outside of US, Twitter is occupied by a minority audience which is usually in its own bubble. Instagram is much more popular especially in Millenials who are now in the age group where they start to be more politically active and less motivated by the "pure entertainement" side of the social media.

  Facebook, is dead for them in terms of engagement because its the "old people" place and discoverability is quite bad outside of groups. I know many people who use Instagram for social/policy commentary in their stories, and its very inefficient because its one-way. Pictures do not allow for proper discussion or easy discoverability of comments.

  Even tiktok has better interaction via duets and pushing up new content all the time but conversation is limited.

  I believe that instagram is mainstream enough to entice this group into a forum-like experience and drive insane engagement. Currently, if you are not traveling or doing some kind of beauty influencing, instagram is dead and its successor (tiktok) is limited to short videos. There is a legit market for more long-form/term discussion place in that (very important) age group outside of the US especially.

  I am bullish on the offer, especially since Twitter seems to be prioritising US.

• by yosito on 5/22/23, 11:22 AM

  The thing I don't like about mainstream social networks is that they control not just what you say and what you see, but also how you say it and how you see it. Meta says we're all gonna share our thoughts and opinions via short texts posts on Instagram now, so that's what *we're gonna do.

  Don't like it? Well, too bad, because that's how the app works now. Oh, and by the way, you can post whatever you want, unless the algorithms decide it's against the community standards, and even then, only the posts of upstanding digital citizens that promote the narrative they want will actually be shown to others.

  And literally all of your online interactions are going through a few tech companies now. You don't have freedom of speech, expression or even thought, unless you comply with the Meta/Alphabet approved narrative.

  *There is always the option to not participate if you prefer to sit in a closet with your Raspberry Pi.

• by mtlmtlmtlmtl on 5/22/23, 8:14 AM

  I'm sure it won't be a horrible privacy-violating, mental illness-inducing mess.

  Meta would never do that.

• by edpichler on 5/22/23, 8:13 AM

  > The decentralized app is built on the back of Instagram but will be compatible with some other apps like Mastodon.

  This can be interesting.

• by implements on 5/22/23, 8:13 AM

  Isn’t this exactly what you’d expect to happen given Twitter has become a raging dumpster fire and Meta has enough networking effect to get a Twitter clone off the ground?

  File under: “Obvious things to do when you think about it”, really.

• by firekvz on 5/22/23, 8:09 AM

  So they are copying twitter now, I guess the circle of the internet has been completed, or maybe they after they fail this they will take a shoot on copying vbulletin/ipb forums from 2007 again?

• by jtode on 5/22/23, 11:50 AM

  My first take was "They are also, along with Bluesky, attempting to grab the Twitter sceptre of power."

  There is a tidbit in there about "compatibility" with other networks, including Mastodon; I wonder if their implementation of the protocol will include Mastodon reaching into their garden. If it does, I might believe they have learned something.

• by senttoschool on 5/22/23, 8:13 AM

  Maybe Meta is trying to follow the model of Chinese tech companies.

  * Copy what works

  * Build re-usable internal systems so you can quickly go from prototypes to millions of users

  * Internal competition where teams are trying to create the same product and outdo other internal teams

  Unfortunately, I'm not convinced that Meta can successfully copy Chinese companies. One major reason is that software developers in the US are significantly more expensive so you have to be more strategic.

  Chinese companies are dominating in social apps. TikTok is just the start.

  https://hbr.org/2022/02/how-bytedance-became-the-worlds-most...

• by patatino on 5/22/23, 8:22 AM

  I am waiting for the day they integrate something like this in whatsapp. Welcome to your new social media app 2bn users. Would be the first social media account my parents have

• by ipsum2 on 5/22/23, 8:07 AM

  The people who care about decentralization and like Meta/Facebook are two separate circles, but its interesting that they're supposedly building on ActivityPub.

• by KoftaBob on 5/22/23, 8:14 AM

  Their choice to make the app "compatible with Mastodon" (uses the ActivityPub protocol and is basically a huge Mastodon instance) reminds me of the famous Microsoft "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" model. Not sure that Extinguish part is going to work though, considering AP/Mastodon are open source protocols/platforms and easily forkable.

• by schmorptron on 5/22/23, 8:58 AM

  Tumblr said they'd work towards ActivityPub a couple of months back as well, I wonder if that work will ship at some point soon. As much as you have to be skeptical with anything to to with facebook, I still remain cautiously optimistic about this. Although the kind of content you can follow on tumblr is infinitely more fun than on instagram imo :)

• by bilekas on 5/22/23, 8:07 AM

  I really can't see the point in this.

  > Tagline: “Instagram for your thoughts.”

  That will be a hard no from me thanks.

• by h1fra on 5/22/23, 9:11 AM

  While I don't believe it will be as huge as Twitter, and that Twitter users won't migrate there.

  This have the potential to do it well for Instagrammer that wants a new medium but in a platform that is not for shitposting and memes. However when you think about it, it's just Facebook all over again :D

• by AlexandrB on 5/22/23, 11:29 AM

  > There are currently no set plan for monetization being shared, which could mean no ads to start? In which case, expect the emphasis to be on an organic social strategy.

  I wonder if, collectively, people will ever stop falling for this kind of bait & switch.

• by iLoveOncall on 5/22/23, 8:14 AM

  Sounds a lot like... Facebook?

• by ignoramous on 5/22/23, 8:32 AM

  It isn't a Twitter clone built for the sake of it.

  This is Meta wanting data for its LLMs aware of the latest trends and news-worthy events as they happen. Probably generate ad videos and banners on-the-fly, even?

• by chatmasta on 5/22/23, 11:18 AM

  I'm no fan of Meta, but I'm hesitant to write off their chance of success at this, considering how successfully they took market share from snapchat with their stories product.

• by smokel on 5/22/23, 8:17 AM

  I am actually quite positive about this.

  Instagram is great for visual artists, but its extreme focus on images (and short videos) seems to favour shallow ideas. Text seems more appropriate to my likings.

• by nih0 on 5/22/23, 8:17 AM

  one twitter is already bad enough for my mental health

• by jonathanstrange on 5/22/23, 8:11 AM

  No, thanks. Facebook/Meta has already done enough harm and I rarely meet anyone younger than me who still uses it. People tend to not like it.

• by threeseed on 5/22/23, 8:12 AM

  Meta runs the world's most highly regarded adverting platform which is already populated with the campaigns of almost every brand on the planet.

  Brands already have limited ad spend with the global economy the way it is. And the fact that this will be a new channel that will be highly effective, work with their existing tools and require no additional effort will be compelling.

  And that will extinguish what little revenue Musk hasn't fettered away. Twitter is finished.

• by lakomen on 5/22/23, 10:37 AM

  So Mastodon with Meta censorship.

  They really hate boobs over at Meta.

  Women show off their cameltoes and boobs, there's even hardcore porn that's not being removed despite being reported on Instagram. But if you dare to post "Nice boobs" when the poster starts off to show her nice boobs, it's "harassment".

• by seydor on 5/22/23, 8:10 AM

  Isn't instagram twitter-like already? So it seems they want to capitalize on the Mastodon crowd and make a centralized version that works well.

  At least they should revert back to 140-200 character limit. Twitters extended tweets is a mistake and are degrading it