Social media newcomers — underdogs or copycats?
S1E10 | Highlights and impact of this week's top tech themes.
Hi, Friends —
✰ Welcome to [our digital disco]! Keep scrolling for this week’s key themes in tech news and other misc. thoughts (Snack Time). You can also check out last week’s newsletter here.
✰ I also kickstarted my monthly deep-dive series! Head here for the post. I explore a newer business model bubbling up in the social media sphere, the impact on content creators + our online conversations, and how the Twitter vs. Substack feud speaks to the future of this space.
Notable Themes
☞ What’s up with Lemon8?
Lemon8 is quickly gaining popularity around the world — and will be well-positioned to replace TikTok if the US gov’t decides to axe the reining social platform. Also owned by ByteDance, Lemon8 is a ‘social e-commerce platform’ that combines the looks of Instagram and Pintrest with the content tailoring TikTok achieves so well. Unlike the latter platforms, Lemon8 emphasizes lifestyle — and routes to purchase that lifestyle. The app might just solve two big obstacles that have been blocking ByteDance’s way: TikTok’s looming bans, and breaking into e-commerce. It initially launched in Japan in 2020 and has been reaching top app store charts in the US and UK markets in recent months. Whether Lemon8 lives up to its potential remains to be seen, but its outcome could have far-reaching implications for the future of e-commerce, social media, and foreign affairs.
Why does it matter? With its unique features and benefits, Lemon8 has the potential to become a major player in the industry. (E.g., Lemon8’s "Group Buy" feature enables users to purchase items at a reduced price by forming groups with friends.) Yet some experts have expressed unease about Lemon8 due to its connection to TikTok and ByteDance. Many of the security concerns regarding TikTok (i.e., ByteDance monitoring users and giving user data to foreign governments) could be just as applicable with Lemon8.
Pros: The rapid growth of Lemon8 may lead to increased innovation in the social media app market. Lemon8's unique integration of social media and e-commerce has the potential to revolutionize the e-commerce industry, especially given Byte Dance's significant investment in marketing the app. It also poses an interesting threat to dominant platforms by challenging how we’ve — for the most part — considered social networks separate from digital marketplaces. Brands on Instagram and otherwise have generally found success only after the social network has begun to thrive.
Cons: Lemon8's growth raises concerns about data privacy and the app's connection to ByteDance. The rise of Lemon8 also speaks to a key limitation of the “ban the app” approach. As come policymakers debate TikTok bans, TikTok’s parent company — and any other tech firm that wants to compete — will freely continue to make new platforms. If TikTok is knocked out, at least two more will grow in its place. Lemon8 could be ByteDance drawing inspiration from Greek mythology — a Hydra growing another head in anticipation of the TikTok takedown. Further, content on Lemon8 is also largely fueled by ByteDance itself. Users are apparently promoting products without disclosing sponsorship (in contrast to FTC guidelines). The latter might both pose legal challenges to Lemon8, as well as dissuade some creators from considering it a viable alternative.
☞ … and what about Bluesky?
Bluesky is a Twitter-esque, decentralized social media platform created by Jack Dorsey, one of the co-founders of Twitter. The app has surged in popularity as it opened up invitations to more beta testers and quickly reached its first 50K users over the weekend. It functions almost identically to Twitter — and to some, better, given how starkly its quick moderation contrasts with today’s Musk-era Twitter. Bluesky is also dolling out many quirks that users love, including their “skeets” (tweets) and “the hell thread,” an accidental bug that launched the platform to virality.
Why does it matter? There are some key differences between Twitter and Bluesky — the most important being that Bluesky is built on a decentralized framework, similar to Mastodon (but with more simplified onboarding). Yet Bluesky's success is not guaranteed. Its early success is largely due to the novelty factor, and it remains to be seen whether it can retain users and grow over the long term.
Pros: Bluesky's surge in popularity shows that there is a demand for a more open and free social network, and its success could pave the way for other decentralized social networks. The choice to go decentralized allows users to build their own independent social media experiences — unlike centralized platforms (e.g., Twitter, Instagram), which subject users to the platform's rules and decisions. It harkens back to Twitter's early days, when third-party developers created novel user interfaces and helped grow the platform. (Check out this post for more on decentralized social media.)
Cons: Many critics lament that Bluesky is just one of many Twitter copycats, in a sea of many social media copycats (*ahem* Lemon8). In other words, rather than create something new, companies are choosing to make slightly better versions of apps that someone else made successful. This lack of novelty may reduce the diversity of content available online, increasingly silo users in their preferred platform, and result in greater polarization and tribalism. Moreover, on the decentralization route — reliance on a single server makes users vulnerable to censorship and control by whoever operates that server. Users may not be subject to the whims of a large company, but they can still be subject to the whims of the server owner. This might also make decentralized platforms such as Bluesky could become a breeding ground for extremist views and hate speech, as they lack the content moderation tools that centralized social networks have.
Snacktime
📓 Reading: The WSJ journalist who cloned herself and fooled her bank, add her family, with a digital dupe. Read it here.
♬ Listening to: Hozier’s Eat Your Young.
✰ Thinking about: How much of what we think we know about life, or ourselves, is reality? And to what extent does this internal reality shape our futures?
Next up
✿ As always — any and all feedback is welcome! In the meantime: give someone a hug and say an ‘I love you’ this week. Make the world a little happier.