Tragically, American opinion of social networking sites could be better.
More than 1,000 American internet users were surveyed by the Washington Post in November 2021, and the results showed that 72% of them needed more confidence in Facebook to manage their data and personal information appropriately.
More than 82 percent of respondents said they find targeted online advertisements on all social media platforms obnoxious, intrusive, and useless.
Almost 60 percent doubt Tik Tok and Instagram’s capacity to do so. Failures like the significant data breach Facebook suffered in 2022 have worsened these emotions.
According to Zaven Nahapetyan, a social media specialist and the creator of the Web3 social networking platform Niche, more individuals than ever are seeking social media alternatives that value security and privacy.
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The creators of these emerging platforms are responding to that demand and, in doing so, are revolutionizing social media.
1. True: Private Message Boards Without Targeted Advertisements
Bret Cox founded the social media platform True in Mill Valley, California, in August 2022 to provide users with an ad-free, private space.
Users of the True app may converse in either public or private threads. Yet True’s primary product is private threads.
Only two individuals or hundreds may start these threads, but they can only be joined by those invited one at a time by the thread’s author.
No personal lines are accessible via web searches or even by other app users. According to Cox, ads will never be supported in the app’s private discussions.
The advertisements now shown in the public threads are determined by the user’s first indication of interest in the True app.
Cox has also seen bloggers and creators promoting their courses in open discussions, and he believes that this may eventually result in money for True.
Around 10,000 people have already downloaded the app. Former Microsoft senior vice president Paul Maritz donated $15 million to True.
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2. Be Real: Genuine Materials And Inventive Communication
Ultra-curated photographs are no longer appealing to younger customers. Adults between the ages of 18 and 24 are the primary users of BeReal.
This picture app requests users share an unedited, unfiltered photograph once per day, according to a Statista article from August 2022.
According to reports, the program has been downloaded at least 20 million times. BeReal is a platform that only lets users see images their friends share.
It was founded in December 2019 by former GoPro workers Alexis Barreyat and Kévin Perreau.
According to Nahapetyan, “new social applications like BeReal provide users greater control over who sees what they post, making them feel more comfortable posting things that they would not feel like publishing on Facebook or Instagram.”
BeReal officially forbids accounts from using the app for advertisements, forcing businesses to develop more creative—and intrusive—marketing strategies.
Chipotle published a picture of a takeaway bag in May 2022 with a reusable coupon. The first 100 persons who saw the promotional code were eligible for a free dinner.
According to the daily email firm Morning Brew, all 100 coupons were used up in just 30 minutes.
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3. Mastodon: Decentralized Content Without Ads
Many Twitter users have flocked to Mastodon, an ad-free microblogging network founded by German software engineer Eugen Rochko in October 2016 after Elon Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022.
As of November 2022, according to Rochko, the site has more than a million active users.
Many servers operate the open-source software that powers Mastodon, and the platform hosts thousands of social networks.
Users may choose an open-ended server focused on a particular subject when signing up for the site.
Every server has a set of privacy rules, community standards, and privacy choices. When necessary, the server hosts remove and filter material.
Also, Mastodon fosters a culture of discourse; thus, heavily commercial material could be better received.
As a result, companies and company owners that use the platform often choose a community-first strategy rather than a conventional marketing strategy to establish meaningful connections with their target demographic.
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4. Post: Relevant Discussions And High-Quality News Stories
In November 2022, Noam Bardin, the former CEO of Google-affiliated Waze, released the beta of Post, a competitor to Twitter. More than 610,000 users had signed up for the platform’s queue, Bardin said a month later.
Post aspires to promote civil, meaningful dialogue between acquaintances, total strangers, leaders, and subject-matter experts.
But Bardin also intends to roll out a news-only stream with content from premium providers. This feed allows users to explore the most recent news without subscribing to specific media sources.
Post does not anticipate relying on advertisements and instead plans to utilize micropayments to commercialize those news pieces and reward highly engaged readers.
Bardin slammed the Evening Standard in a November 2022 interview for social media companies’ reliance on advertising.
He said that many of today’s ad-based platforms prioritize grabbing users’ attention above everything else, which “sows instability in our society, amplifies the extremes, and mutes the moderates.”
We cannot cede the town square to radicals since there are already enough outlets for them to do so. Post is meant to give the voice back to the silenced majority.
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5. Diem: Genuine Venues For Knowledge Exchange And Community Among Women And Nonbinary People
Diem, a privacy-first social search engine that went into beta in January 2021, enables women and nonbinary people to exchange news and information directly while discussing their experiences.
The platform was developed by CEO and co-founder Emma Bates to counteract the performative material and click-bait headlines that are often published for this demographic.
There are presently more than 20,000 people on the Diem waiting, with roughly 3,000 users.
While users can create public and private community spaces, only the public communities may be accessed using hashtags or interests.
According to Bates, community spaces may also serve as a venue for events.
