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The Houses of Social Media 📲

What creators need to know to win.

July 11, 2023

Happy Tuesday everyone! 

Did you miss us??

Well we definitely missed you, and we’re so excited to share our first bi-weekly newsletter! You’ll notice it’s a little different from our usual newsletter - we’re still breaking down the latest topics in web3 but we’ve added a couple other sections. 👀 

This week, we’ll feature:

  • New & emerging social media platforms + their value to creators

  • A company highlight

  • Job opportunities in web3

Are you ready? Follow the thread below (pun 100% intended because yeah, we’re going to get into that).

The Sorting Hat of Short-Form Social Media 🎩

In April last year, we talked about DeSo, short for Decentralized Social Media, a future of social networks powered by social tokens where users are rewarded for their engagement and middlemen are no longer necessary. And a little over a year later, this topic is as important as ever as we progress through the layers of social media from the centralized to the decentralized, because even in the past few weeks we’ve seen that things are changing. 

As a creator, these changes can seem scary, and it’s becoming harder to pick the network that will lead to profitability while building a following and staying true to your voice. Not to fear - to break this down, we’re going to rely on some Harry Potter magic to help us figure out who is who.

Introducing the Sorting Hat and the 4 Harry Potter houses of text-form social media. Let’s get into it!

House of Slytherin: Twitter 🐍

If you know anything about Harry Potter, you’ve probably heard about Slytherin. The mysterious, lowkey sneaky house that is known to ruffle some feathers among the other houses. People in this house are ambitious and will do whatever it takes to achieve greatness and gain recognition, for better or for worse.

Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter, there have been a lot of conversations around the platform’s longevity and if it will remain the go-to destination for people to get their thoughts off. From laying off a majority of the workforce (re: whatever it takes :/), to basically letting everybody and their mama get a blue check if you pay, to now limiting the number of tweets users can read per day, the changes have been stark. 

But if there’s one thing we know, it’s that Elon Musk always has something up his sleeves, in true Slytherin fashion. When he first took over Twitter, there was mention that Elon (who is pro-web3, pro-crypto, etc) was going to make it a web3 platform by exploring the implementation of  NFT verification and enabling crypto-micropayments to creators, just to name a few. If Elon wants to keep Twitter relevant, he’ll have to maintain (and in some cases, buy back) public trust and give people an incentive to keep creating on the platform, especially with all of these new ones popping up. 

House of Gryffindor: Spill 🦁

Oh, Gryffindor. The people’s favorite. The house known for doing what’s right and sticking bravely in their decisions. Also, the rival of Slytherin… oop. 

You may not have heard of Spill yet, but you’ve probably heard of Black Twitter – known for the jokes, memes, and hot takes that keep Twitter a destination for the latest and greatest news in the culture. With Elon Musk implementing changes left and right on Twitter, two Black ex-Twitter employees, Alphonzo “Phonz” Terrell and DeVaris Brown, created a platform that is seen as a safe space alternative for Black social media users.  

In true Gryffindor fashion, Terrell shared with NBC that “We are here to build a place that centers Black folks, queer folks and other marginalized groups. We’re not tolerating any hate.” Even though they just recently launched in mid-June and are still in beta, the app has had over 100,000 sign ups since launch. According to The Grio, “Their team is also creating a vast language artificial intelligence model trained by Black LGBTQ persons to recognize discriminatory content.” We love to see it! 

House of Ravenclaw: Threads 🦅

Good old Ravenclaw—the house which is often recognized for its brilliance and originality. And while Threads, Instagram’s text-sharing application, may not seem that original, its successful launch merits it being in this house.

In the battle for text-form content, Threads makes life easy for creators. Creators can bring their following over from Instagram, its functionality is similar to Twitter, and it has the powerhouse Meta behind them. But is this the right platform? It’s still unclear how Threads will be monetized differently from Instagram, and for creators who are used to visual content like video and pictures, Threads text-focus may be a challenge.

While Threads may walk like a Twitter and talk like a Twitter, it’s not Twitter. It’s mobile-only, not in reverse chronological order, and there are no hashtags, keyword searches, and DMs to slide into. Differences aside, many people have hopped on the Threads train real quick, with over 100M users in just 5 days of launching. FYI, ChatGPT held the record by hitting 100M users in 2 months. And if Threads can bring 18% of Instagram’s users to the platform (~360M users), it will be bigger than Twitter.  

Well played, Meta, well played.

House of Hufflepuff: BlueSky 🦡 

Hard work, patience, loyalty, and fair play. Nothing screams Hufflepuff to us like BlueSky. We know some of you are saying, “WHO?!?” But this is far from something worth ignoring. 

Founded in 2019 by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and led by Jay Graber, BlueSky is a decentralized social media company that created the Authenticated Transfer Protocol. It gives users more control over their data and how it is used, and companies can build their own decentralized social media platforms on it. 

Think it’s all hype? Well, they just raised a $8M seed round led by Andersen Horowitz, and surpassed 1M users a few days ago riding on the coattails of the Threads adoption wave.

Sure, 1M is far from 70M or even ~2B, but it’s not worth turning a blind eye to. If you’re a creator, BlueSky means more control over your data, more freedom of expression, and more opportunities to monetize your content. Bluesky is still in its early stages of development, but the potential benefits are clear, and it is worth watching Bluesky's progress closely.

We love a noble Web3 cause, BlueSky! 

So creators, which house are you picking? 👀

Company Highlight: Lens Protocol 👥

Introducing our highlight section! 🎉 Every week, we’re going to feature a company or person building the future of web3 because we want y’all to be up to date and it may even inspire you to start building too. 👀

This week, on the topic of social media, we want to re-introduce you to Lens Protocol – a permissionless, non-custodial social media profile. “With Lens, you have complete ownership of your profile, connections, posts and data. Unlike traditional social media, you can easily switch to a new platform, taking your valuable content and followers with you.”

Job Opportunities in Web3 💸

You know what we love? That so many of you are curious about web3. But you know what we love more? That so many of you want to start working in the space!! To help with that, in every newsletter we’re going to share some web3 roles and opportunities that have caught our eye. 

We hope this has been helpful for you! At the end of the day, our goal is to provide you with content, our thoughts, and opportunities to engage with web3. We’re still in a bear market, and that can be scary, but now is the time to educate yourself and explore how you can get involved in the space in whatever capacity makes the most sense for you right now. Let us know if there’s anything else you’d like to see from us. :) 

See ya in two short weeks, fam!

– Chad & Kendall