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Mike McCue

The only feature that matters for any social media experience is the people who are on it. I'm amazed at how many technology leaders forget this and get distracted by the underlying tech, protocols, features, etc.

Elon is a great example. He thinks he bought a platform. But what he really bought was a community. And of the two, the community has degraded far more than the platform.

6 May 2023 at 4:26 | Open on flipboard.social
15 comments
ch0ccyra1n :she_her:

@mike
Speaking from personal experience, it's much harder to build a community, especially from scratch

6 May 2023 at 4:30 | Open on emeraldsocial.org
maegul

@ch0ccyra1n@emeraldsocial.org @mike@flipboard.social For sure. Community building is the hardest, and sometimes, there isn’t anything you can do, sometimes your best attempts won’t change that the essential ingredients of a community are simply missing.

6 May 2023 at 6:17 | Open on calckey.social
Sasha Fox

@mike Yeah, definitely. And as soon as Bluesky opens up to everyone I feel like Twitter is really going to empty out. The people who want another Twitter will go to Bluesky, and the people who don't but didn't want to leave Twitter while people were still there will head over here.

6 May 2023 at 4:31 | Open on eightpoint.app
Mike McCue

@sashafox I agree with you.

The cool thing is that whether they flee to Bluesky or Mastodon, all these people are about to join a federated social media platform which, once there's a bridge between AT and #ActivityPub, will make it possible to follow folks on Bluesky just like we can follow others on PixelFed or Friendica.

6 May 2023 at 5:27 | Open on flipboard.social
Chris Glass

@sashafox @mike The difference is this time around, I have a hunch, the tech will bridge the gap between the two.
It's going to end up like eDonkey and eMule if you remember that network split.

6 May 2023 at 5:51 | Open on worldkey.io
Mike Fraser :Jets: :flag:

@sashafox @mike@flipboard.social My prediction is BlueSky will open too soon and it will break under the weight of moderation issues. You could see backflow to both Twitter and the fediverse.

6 May 2023 at 6:19 | Open on thecanadian.social
BarneyRCN🇨🇦⚓️🎓
Gabriele Pollara

@mike Agree totally, in fact I said a v similar thing to someone yesterday 👇. It's the people and content that really matter far more than the tech, features etc... as long as they have basic functionality
med-mastodon.com/@gpollara/110

6 May 2023 at 5:20 | Open on med-mastodon.com
Rufus J. Cooter

@mike I think this ~85% true! Further, the remaining ~15% is something of a chicken/egg problem, where there are large swathes of people who won't get on a social network that lacks certain features. (For example, I'd say that having a "Block" button is a necessary, but insufficient, feature of any social network...)

6 May 2023 at 5:23 | Open on mstdn.social
Mike McCue

@RufusJCooter Well said. The features and tech are in service to enabling the community.

6 May 2023 at 5:30 | Open on flipboard.social
Haily Merry

@mike Agreed, although the tech has degraded a fair bit as well. Just look at what he did to the API, not to mention laying off the accessibility team.

6 May 2023 at 5:28 | Open on eightpoint.app
Mike McCue

@haily very true. It's a huge self reinforcing downward spiral.

6 May 2023 at 5:32 | Open on flipboard.social
ＬＡＵＲＥＮ

@mike@flipboard.social
He had a solid hand in the degradation of that community.

6 May 2023 at 6:09 | Open on calckey.social
Mike Fraser :Jets: :flag:

@mike@flipboard.social That's why I've thrown most of my effort into community building as opposed to pouring over performance metrics, etc. We suffer from being a regional instance so we don't get huge user inflows but our interactions are steadily and consistently rising which is my key metric.

6 May 2023 at 6:25 | Open on thecanadian.social
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