Welcome to Smirk (formerly Social Studies), a newsletter about social apps—how to make them, and which ones will work 🙏
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Many of these frameworks were developed in conversation with Kyle and other founders in the social space, so I can’t take credit for all of them. But, I do find myself repeating them to friends and considering them when looking at new apps. They should be helpful in building new socials.
All socials have to start mobile.
Low end, not high end. Give access to every one.
Every social media starts with a vertical, but there are no vertical social medias.
New networks need content that can travel on existing networks.
Creating a network-effect app is like forming a city.
If your metrics aren’t exploding (even if it looks good) it’s not working.
Existing mediums with a novel social dynamic can’t work.
New socials can’t be for intimate friends or family.
All socials have to start mobile
Since Twitter launched in 2006, every major social networking company first launched on mobile. The reason is obvious, but often ignored.
Mobile is casual. Mobile is portable. If you want to create a new social, you need to create a new daily habit and the only way to do that is be in your user's pocket at all times.
As told by the CEO and founder of Twitch…
No one wants to log on to a computer to "connect." It feels desperate. The AOL days are over. Desktop is for work, mobile is for play.
Low end, not high end. Give access to everyone.
Most think the future of gaming is 3D immersive worlds like Fortnite and Rocket League. In reality, they're more like Minecraft or Roblox—or even dumber.
Blocky, probably 2d, "sketchy" graphics. Not the type that feel like the future, but ones anyone can make, upload, and use in buildable worlds.
Just like Instagram lowered the barrier for "good" photos. Were the photos actually good? Nope, not compared to proper DSLR captured images. But that didn't matter, anyone could make photos now.
It turned would-be bystanders into active photographers. No technical training, just interest-driven exploration. Whatever you're building, do this.
Every social media starts with a vertical, but there are no vertical social medias.
Every social media started with the cohort most in need of their particular medium.
Musically was teens, lip-syncing and dancing. Clubhouse was tech vcs, talking shop. Instagram was artists and designers, sharing lifestyle photos.
Teens seemed most in need of a music x video app, and dancing was the most obvious use case for that app and medium. I'm not sure comedy or stock trading or cooking could have worked first, but were obvious add ons.
You need the right vertical to start with, not just any vertical.
But to become a major social app, the medium has to apply to all verticals, all groups, and all types of content. Photo and video aren't tied to a specific vertical. You can make photo content about lifestyle, painting, parenting, or home-making. You can make videos about skiing, singing, or cooking.
If the medium has reached scaled (as TikTok has), there’s no way to slice it with a vertical because TikTok already has all that content, and other content you’ll like.
Once the single first vertical takes off, other verticals are rapidly added until every conceivable vertical is featured on the network. It's hard to think of a topic you can't find on Twitter, Instagram or TikTok.
New networks need content that can travel on existing networks.
Every new social media apps gains traction via the existing primary network. For Instagram, this was Twitter and Facebook. Instagram famously nailed distribution by allowing instant posting to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at once.
As an early IG user, I specifically remember using the app for this purpose. Getting likes from three platforms at once was thrilling.
For Vine, this was Instagram and Twitter. For Musically and TikTok, this was Instagram.
For Clubhouse, this was Twitter.
For gaming, this is a challenge, because games can't be natively played on exisiting platforms like photos on Twitter or videos on Instagram. So games naturally flow back to video so they can thrive on video networks like TikTok and Snap.
Creating a network-effect app is like forming a city.
There's no use in planning every road and block, just create a vibrant main street and new roads will form. But, creating a vibrant main street is the hard part. You need buy-in from funders, builders, and vendors.
This all needs to be coordinated so that the hotel opens at the same time as the restaurant and corner store. There needs to be housing nearby. Every city has had a land rush caused by some critical mass in the center.
The same phenomenon happens in technology. It starts with new mobile medium and acquiring a critical number of users—probably a few thousand.
If you can't do this, almost nothing else matters. You don't need a remix feature, safety features, a community Discord, or custom app icons.
These are like planning for business districts, community parks, and social services before anyone has moved in.
Atlanta started as a train depot connecting the Savannah and the Midwest. As people stayed over, a general store opened and homes were built. Within 24 years, Atlanta grew from six buildings and 30 residents to 9,554 residents.
An initial economy is the driver of every city like the initial medium is the driver of every network-effect app.
If your metrics aren’t exploding (even if it looks good) it’s not working.
Social apps are not something you can steadily grow for a decade. Networks form all at once or never.
People use social apps to get at other people. If no one's there, who can use it? If you steadily increase users week over week, they'll churn out before the next cohort makes it in, burning through possible network amplifiers, instead of compounding them.
I say this in contrast to consumer software like Cash App or B2B Saas companies that are broadly useful despite a small user base overtime. Notion is just as useful with 10 total users as 10 million.
The target is like 1M users within 2 months of launch and 50%+ retention.
Existing mediums with a novel social dynamic can’t work
Social media is winner takes all, per medium, forever.
Twitter is the last broadcast text app.
Instagram is the last photo app.
TikTok is the last video app.
The value is in the content library, the social graph, the creator network, and consumer habit. A better user experience or a better social hook (wait until tomorrow to see your photo, a la Dispo) is not enough to unseat these perpetual advantages.
Instagram is a clunky, blase’ photo app with a maniacal focus on constructed image and shopping(?) but it doesn't matter. Instagram is the last photo app. (Sigh)
We've moved on to video, but not just any video. "Video Communities" a la Byte can't work. It’s about performance now, and TikTok owns that forever.
It's hard to believe it now, but the next generation will tire of video. In fact, they already are on Roblox.
New socials can’t be for intimate friends or family
Messaging, "For Friends," apps straddle the line between wide-open social media apps and native messaging services in the native OS.
I will never get my family off iMessage and on to some new app. And why would I? iMessage does the job. I can text, call, Facetime, and send photos from a single interface. I can search texts and names through the OS level search. This is the default that will never change.
You can see the same thing in China with WeChat and Europe with Whatsapp. Android is highly fragmented so a native messaging service is not viable, but WeChat and Whatsapp quickly and sufficiently filled that need. It goes without saying that they will never be unseated.
So what's left? Messaging apps that introduce me to new people. Dating and friend-finder apps like Hinge, Monet, Yubo, and Honk.
Additionally, online friends or like Riff guy says "Modern Friends." People with shared interests that you haven't hit the text with yet. You're stuck in the Twitter DMs, or did a Zoom and that was fine. Or they're a friend of friend.
How do you talk to them? You probably need something to talk about. Snap lets you talk by photo. Riff by video. It starts with the subject matter. The tweet, the afternoon activity.
Social apps are the most fun things I’ve ever worked on. Hope this helps!
Cheers 🍻