Post · Spark

Remember when “social media” was “social networking”?

What changed? That second word: media. It’s all about capturing your attention and selling you stuff.

Humans are social and want to connect with one another. That’s what makes the #fediverse special to me - authentic connection. We haven’t forgotten the social part.

rostundrad

@rostundrad@mastodon.social replied · 7 days ago

@andypiper Als Späteinsteiger kenn ich noch Foren und kleine Chats. Dann kamen die großen Netzwerke, und dann die globalen Netzwerke. Und vorbei war es mit Netzwerk vertrauter Personen. Eingesogen in den Sumpf kommerzieller Interessen.

Jesse Karmani

@jesseplusplus@mastodon.social replied · last week

@andypiper 💯 I try to be intentional about not using “social media” and using “social network” instead for this very reason. When you describe something as “social media” to someone they focus on the “media” part and expect that kind of experience.

just small circles 🕊

@smallcircles@social.coop replied · last week

@andypiper

My definition of social networking is: Any direct and indirect human interaction between people.

Social media then is a particular set of social networking use cases where people publish content to other people to interact with in a variety of ways.

Thomas Kräftner

@kraftner@mastodon.social replied · last week

@andypiper Surprised by how that seems to have happened a very long time ago already:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2007-01-01%202015-01-01&q=Social%20Media,Social%20Networks,Social%20Networking

Google Trends showing a comparison graph of the popularity of the terms "Social Media" "Social Networks" and "Social Networking". Around end of 2009 "Social Media" overtook the other terms.

Simon Brooke

@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot replied · last week

@andypiper or the network part. We see not only what our friends post, but also what they boost; and very often what they boost will be the posts of people whose views resonate with our own — friends whom we have not yet encountered.

The thing which makes #Mastodon (and the whole #ActivityPub ecosystem) so good is that it does the network part so well.

Old Fucking Punk

@lwriemen@social.librem.one replied · last week

@andypiper The big tech platforms provide "social control media".

Some (like #Techrights) argue that Mastodon instances, and any other social application that allowa server side enforcing of codes of conduct, fall into that category. I would argue that the right to join a gated community is more "self control" than "social control", but I prefer self filtering over server filtering.

Dave bauer

@davebauerart@mastodon.social replied · last week

@andypiper Before it was "social" anything it was just online community. I hate instagram but have built so much of a community on there, and I haven't figured out how to migrate it off just yet. I suspect I'll need to build it myself, or one-by-one guide my friends somewhere else.

bit101

@bit101@mstdn.social replied · last week

@andypiper I loved Twitter in the early days when it was just people talking to each other. Same with Instagram, sharing photos with friends / family. Then it all became brands and marketing and politics and gross. Coming to the fediverse was like taking a time machine to the good old days.

Alan is @cogdog

@cogdog@cosocial.ca replied · last week

@andypiper What happened to Clay Shirky? Anyone remember his definition "Social software is stuff that gets spammed.”

Of course the original link dies at CloudFlare calling on a sifting of the internet Archive (bless the Srchive! bless and support the Archive!) for the source

https://web.archive.org/web/20201202215443/https://corante.com/many/tags-run-amok/

Andy Piper

@andypiper@macaw.social replied · last week

@cogdog Here Comes Everybody!

Alan is @cogdog

@cogdog@cosocial.ca replied · last week

@andypiper Along with "it's not information overload, it's filter failure."

That has aged well.

Richard MacManus

@ricmac@mastodon.social replied · last week

@andypiper @cogdog As you implied Alan, it was "social software" back in 2003-04. I liked that term, although it was too geeky for the non-blogging population.

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)

@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange replied · last week

@andypiper

I remember when we called them 'advertising platforms'. The fact that they persuaded journalists to refer to them as 'social media' was a very impressive piece of marketing.

Franz Graf

@hikingdude@mastodon.social replied · last week

@andypiper
Social media has turned to entertainment media over the years. (no real bad feelings about it, it was A slow pivot in my point of view)

Simon Wolf

@simon@social.sgawolf.com replied · last week

@andypiper I’m just catching up on my feed over a late lunch and have to say that I agree. I’ve just spoted something to LinkedIn about it in response to someone saying they’d had enough of all of the nonsense there.

A screenshot of a post I made on LinkedIn saying how I wished there was a business-focused version of Mastodon where we would have no algorithm, no promoted posts or suggested posts, just genuine human-to-human connections.

hiphopheaven

@hiphopheaven@mastodon.social replied · last week

@andypiper it's so cool the lack of politicians and businesses. What i hate about the fediverse ia memes. Fortunatly i can block them

Maria Langer | 📝 🎬 ⚒️🛥️

@mlanger@mastodon.world replied · last week

@andypiper I've been thinking about this a lot lately I will likely write a blog post about it sometime in the future. It seems that a lot of people just want to put out content instead of interacting with other people and I find that extremely disappointing.

Chee Aun 🤔

@cheeaun@mastodon.social replied · last week

@andypiper I think only Japan (and surrounding countries) sticked with it until now but termed as SNS instead.

Gregory

@grishka@mastodon.social replied · last week

@andypiper the main thing that changed is that logo accounts and algorithmic feeds were introduced. Because it turns out much more ads can be shown to you if you have an endless stream of content from strangers and meme pages and celebrities and influencers.

Tom Morris

@tommorris@mastodon.social replied · last week

@andypiper I remember when it was “social software”. Software that’s useful and made more useful by data from others.

Andy Piper

@andypiper@macaw.social replied · last week

@tommorris yes. Flickr was "social photo sharing". Last.FM was "social music". Back in Web 2.0 when things became more interactive and social components were added to things.

Andy Piper

@andypiper@macaw.social replied · last week

@tommorris I wrote an outline for a book that was going to be titled "Social Everything", somewhere around 2010 ish; obviously, I was too lazy to actually write it.

dick_turpin :essex: :cc:

@dick_turpin@mastodon.org.uk replied · last week

@andypiper I think the word "Media" was tacked on as an alternative to "Networking", networking sounds like some sort of business venture, which is usually a turn off for most people, whereas "Media" means you might get a Meme of Pepe the frog.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepe_the_Frog

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