An ILLUMINATING Opinion Piece — What is the Deal with Tik Tok Anyway?
Oracle has entered the bidding race.
Is this really about politics or economics?
What could be our takeaways from this apparent war over social media platforms?
If Social Media is all about social elements, then what is the fuss? Naturally that would not be the way to think about it. If Social Media platforms are all about creating entertainment on the fly and connecting furiously with mindless people just to amass a high follower count — We are missing the point.
Now, I have to stress that this is an opinion piece so time will tell if this opinion is a right one.
New Social Media platforms wouldn’t have appeared after Facebook and Instagram if it is all about establishing connections with accounts, making friends we never met and swiping right. Those 2 blue chips would suffice. Yet there has been an explosion in platform population. Linkedin, Snapchat, Twitter, Quora, YouTube, together with many more today and probably a lot more to come.
There must be underlying economic fundamentals behind this phenomenon.
Afterall, why would technology start-ups and giants invest huge amounts of money into Social Media platforms if there is no commercial intrinsic value?
Not possible.
And with the benefit of hindsight and research, we now know that FaceBook’s market capital is now USD $744.998 billion, $261.14 per share and Mark Zuckerberg is ranked the 3rd richest person standing at a Net Worth of $96 billion (all information dated as of 18th August, 2020).
There is enormous commercial value out there.
The intrinsic value of these Social Media platforms does not come from the platform itself. To understand that we have to understand what open-source systems really means. Open-source, as opposed to Closed-source, refers to public contribution. Wikipedia is built-to-mature on this premise and that it grew exponentially as everyone started to contribute that nugget of knowledge that they carry with them.
This model is carried over to the Social Media platforms.
There is virtually nothing on these platforms. The posts we read, the videos we view, the article we consume, those we jeer and those we cheer? We are the contributors to the robustness and explosive growth of these platforms.
A mobile application that has no downloads and mass participation gets nowhere.
Just check Apple Appstore and Google Play and we can see tons of mobile applications sitting there waiting for downloads.
Not Social Media.
People are interested in people and that has allowed for the vast majority of these platforms to rise and thrive.
Through our participation and constant engagement, we — not the Technology companies — built these mammoth Social Media platforms today.
Let’s not forget one important and valuable piece of the entire equation.
Our Personal Data.
It is true that the sign-ups for virtually all Social Media platforms are free.
Except.
They want to know who they are dealing with.
Do you remember that we give them our name, profession, location, preferences, race, language and other Personal Data required to set up that account?
They will report that users voluntarily provide them, so there is no breach on Personal Data Protection.
It is true, there is no doubt about it.
The buck doesn’t stop there. Through our posts / images / articles / videos — They know a lot about us over time. In fact, they might know us more than we know ourselves. Humans tend to forget, whereas software performs routine backup.
The value of these platforms is justified and elevated as downloads and users increase. Our data brings them value.
And when enough information is created within these Social Media platforms — the true prowess of Social Media can be asserted.
Once again, it has nothing to do with “Social”. Instead, it has everything to do with “Media”.
Think about our post feeds.
Our post feed is routinely fine-tuned based on our engagement and content contribution preferences. If Sheryl loves Joe’s content every time she gets onto that platform, she will be flooded with Joe’s contents every time she taps on that mobile application.
Seemingly innocuous, I know.
Then again, what isn’t?
The way I see it (as again, I stress this is an Opinion-piece and I have nothing against Social Media), it becomes possible for us to see only what we want to based on our engagement. When the Social Media algorithms are powerful enough to do that, it will symbolise a true departure from “Mainstream media”.
While “Mainstream media” ought to report everything under the Sun to provide scope and coverage, “Social Media” could potentially cocoon us with the contents we want to see and nothing extra will be brought to our attention.
Our Worldview could be vastly different from our neighbour’s.
There is immense power within these Social Media applications.
Once again, maybe it is about the platform and the operations?
Nope.
It is about the millions of user data and 15 million lines of Artificial Intelligence codes.
That is probably why President Donald J. Trump commented that the U.S. Treasury should get a cut of this deal. In my words — I think being a shrewd businessman, he sees that immense value of a Social Media platform which allows for freedom of expression.
National Security is a natural consideration.
I don’t doubt that.
However, there is always that little commercial value out there that raises eyebrows.
Don’t you think so?
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About the Author:
As a Consultant by training, I believe in making the complex simple.
Because simplicity adds value.
Simplicity helps us gain clarity, and clarity helps us to grow.
And if we are not growing, then what’s the point of anything else?
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