Trustworthiness & depreciation
Trustworthiness of a social media platform is in inverse proportion to time and size. The bigger & older it gets, less trust worthy it becomes. Twitter is continuing down the path paved by MySpace and Facebook.
Trustworthiness of a social media platform is in inverse proportion to time and size. The bigger & older it gets, less trust worthy it becomes. Twitter is continuing down the path paved by MySpace and Facebook.
August 1st, 2012 at 7:04 am ★ ↓
With all the rage being to use these platforms as venues for promoting products through sly interaction with other members, is it any wonder the trust factor goes down? Who’s motives are real, sincere?
August 1st, 2012 at 1:57 pm ★ ↓
I think the problem here – most of these platforms don’t quite think about their roles and their ability to make money from the earliest stages and as a result often take actions that leave their members disillusioned.
July 31st, 2012 at 7:33 pm ★ ↓
No matter whether it’s social media or soup, a brand is nothing but a pact. Once that pact is betrayed, and one party’s motives are suspect, trust begins to crumble, soon enough blowin’ on the wind. At least that’s how I imagine Dylan might have said to Jonah Lehrer.
July 31st, 2012 at 12:39 pm ★ ↓
@Om you are onto something here but I would say the biggest factor is *size* and sense of non-exclusivity. You join a social organization to interact with friends and like minded people or at least people you aspire to get to know. Once the doors are wide open, being inside is the same as being outside and it starts to feel chaotic, noisy and hard to get value out of.
FB is starting to feel a bit this to me now. Google+ is a world with masses of strangers now unfortunately. Twitter is different. I find it more of a broadcasting channel than an actual social network. I don’t “hang out” with friends on Twitter…
July 31st, 2012 at 1:52 pm ★ ↓
Monica
Good points. I have seen this happen on other social platforms as well. I think Instagram has retained its intimacy but the Facebook-ownership is going to cause some basic changes in the service.
The funny thing is that there isn’t a clear science behind it or when do companies lose their trustworthiness.
July 31st, 2012 at 7:17 am ★ ↓
Google+ is really forming out to be a more structured networking platform with most of its users being well aware of the consequences of joining a social network. I cannot say the same for Facebook or Twitter. It’s literally filled with idiots who blindly upload anything they want and care about. Now, this is a tough choice to make since you have to trust at least one of them. I’ve pledged my ‘life’ to Google since I’ve been using their services for a very long time now and I don’t see myself going away from them. Facebook or Twitter would be a very dangerous choice because technically speaking popularity is always directly proportional to vulnerability.
July 31st, 2012 at 7:08 am ★ ↓
Not just Social Networks, this applies to pretty much anything.
July 30th, 2012 at 8:40 pm ★ ↓
I’m not sure the masses feel the same way. For example: People may not ‘love’ Facebook but they’re certainly ignorant enough to trust them with personal data so effortlessly. Trust in the traditional sense becomes moot here.
Twitter might eventually become like FB, but for the moment they haven’t done anything to be mistrusted. They have a strong brand and it seems to me (someone who doesn’t live/work in the Valley) that their influence is only growing.