The current era of social networking began with MySpace which enabled the creation of communities. .
Facebook scaled it to a global community and now the big blue is redesigning again.
This redesign which is partly influenced by the TikTok design of short videos is currently a subject of a challenge by Kylie Jenner and her famous family member.
For now it seems they are winning the battle to the current Facebook design. The reality is completely different.
It’s not the first time Facebook is being challenged for changing its design.
Ever since the platform has existed every change of its website or app infuriates some and excites some of its users.
The backlash, however, has never really stopped Facebook from pushing ahead.
Mark Zuckerberg will find another way of achieving his objective of killing the current version of the social networking platform. This is all about the bottom line.
The change behind Instagram and Facebook is about saving the social networking platform from losing revenue.
TikTok on the other hand has been growing and attracting users at a faster rate and keeping them there.
Mark wants the same for Facebook and Instagram. He is also partly responding to a US national interest of keeping the platform that is considered Chinese, at bay.
At the end of the day we will not have the current version of social networks that are community driven.
Cal Newport explained it in this way: “The effectiveness of the TikTok experience is found in what it doesn’t require. Unlike Twitter, TikTok doesn’t need a critical mass of famous or influential people to use it for its content to prove engaging.
The short-video format grabs the user’s attention at a more primal level, relying on visual novelty or a clever interplay of music and action or direct emotional expression, to generate its appeal.
And, unlike Facebook, TikTok doesn’t require that your friends already use the service for you to find it useful.
Though there are some social features built into TikTok, they’re not the main draw of the app.
TikTok also doesn’t rely on its users to manually share content with friends or followers to surface compelling offerings.
It assigns this responsibility to its scary-good recommendation algorithm”. This is what makes TikTok different and Mark Zuckerberg would like to have the same.
He is prepared to change the current version of Facebook and Instagram to feel like TikTok to get the share of revenue.
Recent financial results have proved the advertising model that has worked for Facebook is no longer working, thanks to changes by Apple and other regulatory developments.
If you are still in doubt about the end of social networking as we know it, just pay attention to the newly found interest in the Metaverse.
This has inspired Zuckerberg to even change the company name from Facebook to Meta. The Metaverse is the next big thing for the founder of the social media giant.
We are now headed to social networking 3.0 where we will be avatars. We are now being moved from our current comfort zone to a different social order.
It will come with its own pitfalls and the road towards the Web 3.0 will be paved with dramatic changes.
The days of likes and friends online are coming to an end. Now we are slowly moving to Web 3.0-inspired social networking. In this world users will not just get likes they may have a potential to earn income from their existence in the virtual space.
* Wesley Diphoko is the editor-in-chief of FastCompany (SA) magazine. He hosts weekly TwitterSpaces about the impact of technology on society. You can follow him on Twitter via @WesleyDiphoko
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