Proximity

The one graph that Facebook didn’t present to investors and Wall Street last week proves it is dying

Graph shows the year-over-year change in user engagement, Daily Active Users/Monthly Active Users (DAU/MAU).

 

Facebook is dying. At the moment, it’s a slow death, but at some point, it will accelerate. That’s what social networks do. They grow engagement, until they don’t. Interestingly, Facebook blames the drop on engagement on the fact that they are trying to stop people from being able to do the thing people like to do most on Facebook . . . read fake news.

Source: The one graph that Facebook didn’t present to investors and Wall Street last week proves it is dying | Salon.com

Watch Me Play excerpt: What a workday is like for a professional Twitch streamer.

Game livestreaming has entered into popular culture in a big way. Twitch, a platform that boasts having millions of broadcasters producing programs for tens of millions of visitors each day, offers up all kinds of live content 24/7 to viewers around the world. The site hosts a range of shows, from “variety” streamers who broadcast different types of games to massive esports tournaments that pull in hundreds of thousands of viewers over the course of a weekend. You can also find live broadcasts of people making cosplay outfits, cooking, or just streaming everyday life. Livestreaming has become not just a part of game culture, but of our everyday media worlds more broadly. And while a tremendous amount of creative production is happening on the site, big issues remain regarding the governance, regulation, and monetization of user-generated content. While playing games for an enthusiastic audience may seem like a dream job, it can be incredibly hard work that requires a tremendous amount of self-training, skill-up, and hustle. Livestreamers are not only changing the face of gaming and giving us a glimpse into the future of media production, their one-person production studios—and businesses—operated out of their homes sync up all too well with broader trends around labor, online platforms, and the future of work.

Source: Watch Me Play excerpt: What a workday is like for a professional Twitch streamer.

Delete Your Account Now: A Conversation with Jaron Lanier 

JARON LANIER IS ONE of the leading philosophers of the digital age, as well as a computer scientist and avant-garde composer. His previous books include Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality, Who Owns the Future?, and the seminal You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto. His latest book bears a self-explanatory title: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.

Source: Delete Your Account Now: A Conversation with Jaron Lanier – Los Angeles Review of Books

Pandora, Snapchat Pair Up

Radio streaming service Pandora and popular photo sharing platform Snapchat recently unveiled an exciting new partnership where users of both platforms will be able to share their Pandora listening habits over Snapchat, all in hopes of increasing engagement.

Source: Pandora, Snapchat Pair Up – hypebot

How Connected Is Your Community to Everywhere Else in America?

America is often described as a place of great divides — between red and blue, big cities and rural towns, the coasts and the heartland. But our social lives are shaped by a much stronger force that ignores many of these lines: distance.

In the millions of ties on Facebook that connect relatives, co-workers, classmates and friends, Americans are far more likely to know people nearby than in distant communities that share their politics or mirror their demographics. The dominant picture in data analyzed by economists at Facebook, Harvard, Princeton and New York University is not that like-minded places are linked; rather, people in counties close to one another are.

Even in the age of the internet, distance matters immensely in determining whom — and, as a result, what — we know.

Source: How Connected Is Your Community to Everywhere Else in America? – The New York Times

iOS 12 makes your old iPhone feel new

Like most Apple events, last Wednesday’s big iPhone and Apple Watch reveal was a master class in manufacturing desire. For nearly two hours, Apple executives spoke of larger and more vibrant screens, faster processors, and better cameras, all in service of making your current iPhone or Apple Watch seem like stale bread.

So it was a bit jarring when Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy, and social initiatives, took the stage and subtly suggested that you might not need a new iPhone after all. During her five-minute presentation on Apple’s sustainability efforts, Jackson claimed that iPhones are built to last, thereby reducing the environmental impact of making new ones.“Because they last longer, you can keep using them,” Jackson said. “And keeping using them is the best thing for the planet.”

Source: iOS 12 makes your old iPhone feel new

Teens are hooked on social media. But how does it make them feel about themselves? 

Broadly, teens seem aware of the negative consequences of too much social media use:

  • Nearly three-quarters of teens believe that tech companies are manipulating users to spend more time glued to their devices.

  • More than half of social media users say it distracts them from doing homework or paying attention to the people they’re with.

  • Some 21 percent of teens say using social media makes them feel more popular, 20 percent said more confident, and 18 percent said it makes them feel better about themselves.

  • A quarter said it makes them feel less lonely, and 16 percent said it makes them feel less depressed.

  • Some 8 percent said it makes them feel more anxious, but 12 percent said less anxious.

Source: Teens are hooked on social media. But how does it make them feel about themselves? – Recode

Will we ever get tired of buying iPhones? 

On the one hand, especially after last year’s price increase for the flagship model, the iPhone is a luxury item. People save up to buy it, and they measure their social and economic standing through it. In a sea of smartphones that do roughly the same thing, Apple’s particular smartphone commands a prestige premium. This is a familiar description for fashion or jewelry brands and products, but it finds few parallels in the tech industry.

The other side of the iPhone coin is that we keep replacing it like it’s a basic consumption good. If I buy a luxury watch for $1,000, I’d expect to have it for a decade or longer, whereas Apple somehow keeps enticing people to buy a pricey new iPhone every two or three years. It’s like the company is selling sneakers but charging the price of dress shoes.

Source: Will we ever get tired of buying iPhones? – The Verge