So much has happened with rival social media apps and services in the last fortnight that it felt time to evaluate, check in with everyone and suggest to Mark Zuckerberg that the soon to be defunct Stitcher podcast app and website would be a good domain purchase to go with his new Threads.
Let’s start there, shall we?
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Zuckerberg announced the new app rival to Twitter on Thursday July 6 (AEST time) and in the two days since already has more than 70 million sign ups (roughly a third of Twitter). Zuckerberg, who has a Twitter account, it of course owned by Elon Musk, tweeted for the first time in a decade after the launch of the similarities of the two using a Spiderman reference. Popcorn please.
— Mark Zuckerberg (@finkd) July 6, 2023
Implications:
More socials for all of us to maintain. The death of Twitter?
Also on Thursday July 6, TikTok launched their stand alone music steaming service, TikTok Music, to Indonesia and Brazil, presumably to iron out kinks before the rest of the world gets it.
TikTok have established a reputation for not just introduction to new music but also reviving old ones, like Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams.
@420doggface208♬ Dreams (2004 Remaster) – Fleetwood Mac
TikTok Music is licensed by and has access to the catalogues of Universal, Warner and the Sony Music Groups already, who have seen the benefit of the partnership.
We’ll see how long it takes to reach Australia and if any hurdles appears along the way.
Implications:
Serious rival to Spotify. Possibly less money directly to the music industry.
Speaking of Spotify, there is talk that they are considering adding full length music videos to their app. With Anchor becoming Spotify for Podcasters, the implications for vodcasters are the cool addition of a visual element to music incorporated into their content.
Two and a half years ago Spotify announced on their site that HiFi audio was on the way for premium subscribers. That still hasn’t happened so I’m also not expecting music videos either any time soon.
Implications:
Music videos on Spotify would be a threat to YouTube and TikTok audiences. Exciting new resource for vodcasters, but don’t think Spotify will do this first.
Finally, Canada’s Federal Government is pulling all advertising off Facebook and Instagram after a similar situation to what happened in Australia in Feb 2021, which I think we all forgot about.
To cut a long story short (oh the irony of saying that) Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-18, which would make tech firms like Meta have to pay media for news. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t like that and removed all news availability off Facebook and Instagram in the country. Google has said it will do the same when the Bill takes effect.
Canada is prepared to negotiate with Google, but not Meta, and say in this BBC article that they have been in discussions with other nations who plan to pass similar laws, which probably includes us.
Implications:
I’m already preparing for a news block out on Australian Meta social platforms and think Threads is partly designed as a sneaky way of circumventing the Canada situation.
On a positive note, the 2023 Digital News Report: Australia has shown that globally we are one of the most prepared nations to pay for a news subscription. We’ve had Meta take our news away before, we all know that we still have (paid) options to access it.
