Despite the title, this post is not about the clubhouse app :) The term, product, either gives you a new habit or exploits one you already have. Service is usually seeked when the need for the service emerges. In the digital social environments, there is a mix-up going on about being a service or a product. These applications are evolving or creating new opportunities for others one way or another when human nature gets involved in the habit and the needs duo. But what about getting better or doctors? Let's begin.
I have been born and raised in a time where i can consciously witness how the digital world has developed. Humankind is using technology for communication purposes these days already. And the concept of digital socializing arises from this communication style. This concept emerged as a product and became a habit and now people actually need it. Because somehow most of us are buried in this digital world and started living a part of our life there. Now i want to analyse some of the social environments emerged throughout this process.
Back in the day, there were chat rooms as far as i can remember. This was a product that satisfies the need of communication. These were the environments that everyone was cross-firing their words. These were the medium that people first discovered to talk without any responsibility. Also, humans psychological need to be able to communicate with like minded people is rised in these chat rooms. And then, because there were a lot more people in the world than our dumb phones can reach, Facebook came around by taking advantage of the urge to discover the unknown. Even though the story of its foundation is told another way, they knew very well that it would be a profitable business to meet this hunger of people.
Let me mention something here. Social media and social networking are different concepts. For example Linkedin is a platform for mostly networking and the social aspects are less used. That is why you wouldn't here a viral event emerged in these kinds of environments. I can say the medicine for humans need for connection with each other in this digital age is social networking.
All right, back to Facebook. It has continued exploitation of the need and bringing new habits into our lives for a long time since there were no alternatives and it had financial support for advertisement. This habit is called socializing over the internet. The computer games are also following this trend as i have mentioned in my post about gaming world. This way, Facebook started turning into a product and had to prove that it has something to give in order to be able to compete, because some other alternatives have started emerging.
Let me put it this way: When you get sick for example, the treatment you get from the doctor is the service. The doctor or the hospital is the product. You may need a specific treatment but unless the doctor has some unique skills, you may not need a specific doctor. When the number of doctors or hospitals rise, people start shifting towards choices from needs. And these candidates create some sort of market over time. If you don't want to wait in line for treatment in the hospitals, you may hire a private doctor for special care. A process like this is happening in the digital social environments these days.
Then probably with the help of financial advertisement support again, we have started hearing twitter frequently. Since it was the era of the race of the products, i think it has sold the idea of reaching to masses with a couple of words. I will separate the applications like Whatsapp or Foursquare again. I am investigating the applications with 2 different aspects that i have explained in another post, to bill or not to bill. Social properties and a media, in other words, gathering in a social environment and sharing visual or auditory data with each other mostly describes the big platforms of nowadays.
Twitter has also given the opportunity to disseminate false information or hate speech without taking any responsibility. A product gave a new habit. The ability to do or say things without consequences was already a dangerous situation. You can probably see the power of troll accounts and what retweet armies can cause. We were already unable to trust the media and now everyone became a media instrument. Unreliable human made the media even more unreliable.
On the other hand, Instagram exploded for different reasons. Some people used it for a photo album back in the beginning. Then some started using it because they wanted to show off or satisfy themselves or they just didn't have anything to say and they were just able to post pictures. They have added the story logic (i guess from snapchat) that promotes temporariness along the way. It is normal for a product to snatch a feature from another one. But i feel like this logic is going to the wrong direction if you ask me. People were already sharing their artificial or superficial moments or memories or enjoyments, now they have started to prefer the ones that are not even qualified for this, must just disappear in this temporary area. Nowadays, you may already know that it has turned into a product placement medium and an advertisement frenzy.
And then snapchat and tiktok is added to these social environments and they are also one of the most used applications these days. I am not using either of them but since we have moved from the service world to product world, we are getting more applications that tries reach the young people easily. These are also bringing new risks, as big as a generation growing without common sense or a purpose. I don't think it is necessary to write about this and analyze it too much. The responsibility to be a guide is in the adults hands. Since there is not much control over who can reach what, wellcome to flood of unsupervised content running all over. Now of course there might be other social media apps with high influential power or popularity around the world. It is way above me to use and analyze all of them :)
It looks like people have taken an interest in clubhouse because of reasons like the examples i have given above, plus the pandemic. This application is like whatsapp with voice chat with a group. But instead of the people from your phonebook, it is the online people and groups that you can connect. I think you can't just jump into conversations because there is some sort of invitation mechanism. This kind of prevents the problems like fake accounts or people. Since it is an audio chat app, it is hard to talk nonsense with nothing to back it up for trolls for now :)
As far as i can understand, people are looking for connections who they can properly talk or trust. Media and journalism has already become untrustworthy these days. Therefore there are people who wants to listen to other people with some sort of proper knowledge or seeking proper information. In other words, there are sicknesses of the habits that the products have introduced us. Some people are not using any social media because either there are too much politics or hate speech or discrimination or the presentation of the awful situtation of the world. Thus, using these apps for just sharing a photo or a video doesn't appeal to these people. Also, because there are lots of fake news or trolls inside the environments where they would like to follow the news from, people tend to chose a more elitist approach.
What i mean by elitist is an application that is designed for people who can talk. It looks like instead of dealing with trolls or a mass misinformation, people prefer finding and connecting with others who they can talk a thing or two, even if they are on opposites sides of opinions in these social environments. Media was already unreliable, now social media started being unreliable and dangerous. This has started causing harm to the concept of social and made the interaction harder while turning then into an advertisement or politics oriented tools. The final nail in the coffin was the mandatory legal regulations which are being operated by humans.
I think it is a logical move to make the signup process only by invitation. It makes the people a little bit transparent. It is also sounds logical to bring people who can actually talk respectfully and exchange ideas with each other in a common ground for productivity. If you have a subject and things to say about it and you don't have a blog like me and you can respectfully listen to people who don't share your own values and ideas, you may benefit from Clubhouse. I am guessing my point is taken here :)
There is also a very weird situation about this app. It says iOS 13.0 or later is required, which means it kinda requires relatively new phones. They have noted "we are adding new features and fixing bugs" in every update. Their website says we are developing new functions as of now. I think it is about the signup mechanism to be able to lure more people in. Because there is no android app and it is already hard to find an invitation, people are in line to use this app. They wouldn't want to miss this. Right know apple store says 300K ratings but it doesn't mention how many downloads, i guess it is more than a million. The developer company has only 1 IOS app. The app is getting updates since October 2020 regularly. There is only 1 screenshot available but i remember at least 3 was mandatory. I don't understand how did they pass it. You can download the app here.
The title must seem strange to you. Briefly what i am saying is the deficiency or surplus of these products creates another one. I am not even talking about the sensitivity about the hate speech or their regard for users privacy of these companies. At the end of the day, here is what catches my attention. We are mostly talking about what the product provides to the people, instead of providing a service for a need. In other words, we are promoting doctors and hospitals instead of working on cures of diseases. Isn't that strange? Because in the medical world, the product makes money but the service cures people. I mean maybe we must be doing some X in some Y application. If the startups which are racing to create new products from the deficits of other products continues to do so, are we going to get better by receiving better services doctor? See you at the next post :)
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