Recently, a lot of the discussions we’ve been having about technology have been shaped pretty sharply around social media, particularly around

Not Ready For The Camera

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2024-11-23 22:30:04

Recently, a lot of the discussions we’ve been having about technology have been shaped pretty sharply around social media, particularly around what the next generation “wants” from a social network. Are we going to all lean on video? Do we need visuals? Is text the ultimate gold standard? A pretty-good comment I spotted this week from journalist Sophia Smith Galer suggested that the problem with Bluesky was that it was a throwback popular with journalists, and it was giving journalists yet another excuse to ignore the clear popularity of video with audiences. To me, the key paragraph was this: Social media video drives far more interactions than a text post, and that’s why platforms love it. More interactions = more time spent in app = more advertising money. Famously, journalists have been incredibly slow to pivot to video platforms. A minority make their own Instagram and TikTok videos; I was an early adopter, but still remain one of a small few regularly doing it. Fair point, and she is not alone in making it, but I think my response to this is pretty simple: Does one format have to “win” over the others?

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