4 ms·
I think you're really on to something here. The details are different, but it reminds me of how I use social media. Most of my engagement consists of a privat
by tempestn 8y ago
I think you're really on to something here. The details are different, but it reminds me of how I use social media.
Most of my engagement consists of a private Slack groups with groups of friends who enjoy discussing various topics. (And within these groups I tend to subscribe to only the channels that I find more interesting.) Similarly, on Instagram I have one account where I follow a group of close friends I've mostly had since high school, and another where I mostly follow a bunch of car related channels I like. Having that separation and ability to go and seek out a specific kind of content is fantastic. (As opposed to just being subjected to a fire hose "feed" of whatever an algorithm thinks will be engaging.)
Actually, I resisted RSS in the past for much the same reason. Even though you curate the feed, I vastly preferred having a bookmarks folder of blogs and other sites I followed, which I could then pick and choose from to suit my mood, than to have it all served up in a reader.
It would be nice to see things move more in this direction. For example, the default Facebook view, rather than a general news feed, could be a set of groups you belong to, along with ad-hoc groups of interconnected contacts, encouraging you to pick what genre of updates or conversations suits your current mood. Even then I don't know if it would be siloed enough to capture the same benefits, but it would be a step in the right direction I think.
- jnovek 8y agoI emailed slack about a year ago suggesting that they were totally missing the boat on slack as a social network. I am in 4 slacks and only one of them is professional. They were not interested.
- tempestn 8y agoThey've got a lot on their plates already; probably best not to try and dive full into social network for now. Plus you'd have to be really careful not to lose the separation that makes it good in the process.
- wolco 8y agoThey can't be seen as a consumer product while marketing for enterprise dollars.
- s_trumpet 8y agoIMO Discord already is what Slack as a social network could be.
- chrisallenlane 8y agoAgreed. Discord is also what got me off of Facebook entirely. Discord today feels like how Facebook used to feel when it started: I'm actually friends with everyone on there, and we're having real conversations. There's also 100% less politics, moral panic, virtue-signaling, outrage, ads, "fake news", Farmville invitations, and similar garbage. It's nice.