<story><title>Instagram Is Facebook Now</title><url>https://embedded.substack.com/p/instagram-is-facebook-now</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>theshrike79</author><text>The rest of the world seems to use Twitter for this. Despite all its faults it seems to be better for this kind of stuff.&lt;p&gt;Facebook&amp;#x27;s algorithms limit the way posts can be found way too much.</text></item><item><author>k_bx</author><text>Ukraine is of course no major market for Facebook, but it&amp;#x27;s a good example that doesn&amp;#x27;t match what you describe at all. In Ukraine, Facebook is the place where you follow top journalists, anti-corruption people, activists, and other public figures. It&amp;#x27;s basically an extremely valuable addition to the media, where anyone can be lifted in popularity in a matter of hours if their content is truly important. Facebook has been an invaluable tool during the Maidan revolution in 2014 combining its social and video-streaming capabilities. It works in times where media is breaking down, being bought by oligarchs, and isn&amp;#x27;t to be relied upon.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see any alternative that would replace it, in terms of being social, everyone being present on it, and allowing long text+image+video content to be posted and spread easily.</text></item><item><author>randomsearch</author><text>I think Facebook (meta)‘s key asset is now WhatsApp.&lt;p&gt;Facebook is practically dead. It’s just a stream of awful content that isn’t from your friends. It’s hyper advertising and desperate attempts to clone other platforms as it slowly dies. It’ll continue for a long time, eventually becoming yahoo like, but young people do not care about it at all.&lt;p&gt;Instagram has similarly been over monetised but in an earlier stage. It has been roundly defeated by TikTok, utterly destroyed by TikTok, in the battle for teens’ attention.&lt;p&gt;Oculus was a great buy but the gap (in terms of years) between instagram’s peak and oculus really coming online is just too wide to “save” the company.&lt;p&gt;In contrast, WhatsApp is still used across the generations. It’s the one platform where grandparents and grandkids are both active users.&lt;p&gt;If I were Zuck then I’d focus on turning WhatsApp into an Asian-style chat platform with integrated services. That I can’t wire money on WhatsApp in the U.K. is I think a very very big strategic error on his part.&lt;p&gt;It seems clear Facebook (meta) can’t build anything truly new, but they can certainly extend platforms - they should focus on WhatsApp. It has longevity, strong network effects, and huge potential. Just don’t use ads and destroy it.&lt;p&gt;Otoh Facebook deserves to die so I hope he continues to think oculus will save them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>shmel</author><text>Twitter literally limits the length of your tweets. What can you say in a couple of phrases in the context of activism and politics? Just link another platform? Don&amp;#x27;t get me started on twitter threads, this is abomination. My patience usually runs out after the third tweet in a thread.&lt;p&gt;Another day Twitter CEO resigned and he posted a screenshot of his mail. Why couldn&amp;#x27;t he post it in a proper text format so people can reflow text and read it on different screens? Because Twitter sucks.</text></comment>
<story><title>Instagram Is Facebook Now</title><url>https://embedded.substack.com/p/instagram-is-facebook-now</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>theshrike79</author><text>The rest of the world seems to use Twitter for this. Despite all its faults it seems to be better for this kind of stuff.&lt;p&gt;Facebook&amp;#x27;s algorithms limit the way posts can be found way too much.</text></item><item><author>k_bx</author><text>Ukraine is of course no major market for Facebook, but it&amp;#x27;s a good example that doesn&amp;#x27;t match what you describe at all. In Ukraine, Facebook is the place where you follow top journalists, anti-corruption people, activists, and other public figures. It&amp;#x27;s basically an extremely valuable addition to the media, where anyone can be lifted in popularity in a matter of hours if their content is truly important. Facebook has been an invaluable tool during the Maidan revolution in 2014 combining its social and video-streaming capabilities. It works in times where media is breaking down, being bought by oligarchs, and isn&amp;#x27;t to be relied upon.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see any alternative that would replace it, in terms of being social, everyone being present on it, and allowing long text+image+video content to be posted and spread easily.</text></item><item><author>randomsearch</author><text>I think Facebook (meta)‘s key asset is now WhatsApp.&lt;p&gt;Facebook is practically dead. It’s just a stream of awful content that isn’t from your friends. It’s hyper advertising and desperate attempts to clone other platforms as it slowly dies. It’ll continue for a long time, eventually becoming yahoo like, but young people do not care about it at all.&lt;p&gt;Instagram has similarly been over monetised but in an earlier stage. It has been roundly defeated by TikTok, utterly destroyed by TikTok, in the battle for teens’ attention.&lt;p&gt;Oculus was a great buy but the gap (in terms of years) between instagram’s peak and oculus really coming online is just too wide to “save” the company.&lt;p&gt;In contrast, WhatsApp is still used across the generations. It’s the one platform where grandparents and grandkids are both active users.&lt;p&gt;If I were Zuck then I’d focus on turning WhatsApp into an Asian-style chat platform with integrated services. That I can’t wire money on WhatsApp in the U.K. is I think a very very big strategic error on his part.&lt;p&gt;It seems clear Facebook (meta) can’t build anything truly new, but they can certainly extend platforms - they should focus on WhatsApp. It has longevity, strong network effects, and huge potential. Just don’t use ads and destroy it.&lt;p&gt;Otoh Facebook deserves to die so I hope he continues to think oculus will save them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jakub_g</author><text>I prefer Twitter personally, but in Poland it&amp;#x27;s also FB where everyone is, + Messenger and FB groups.&lt;p&gt;Twitter is only really used by journalists and politicians in Poland.</text></comment>