This is not new. Itās actually old; really old. Almost as old as humanity. We need people. We need people to hear to us; to see us ā to give us attention (yeah, exactly, the whole attention economy stuff again).
If youāre arguing against that, Iād like to direct you to your room, facing your pillow and talking to that. See how it feelsā¦
And Iām not being mean at all. Right now, Iām not talking about an active or fake or worthy audience; Iām just talking about the attention you want to receive when creating [hopefully valuable] content ā you want the attention, otherwise, whatās the point?
Itās the same on the internet, and specifically, on social media. If you donāt want to have an audience, I think, on some level, you donāt believe in what youāre selling/saying/creating. And Iām conscious about using the word āaudienceā and not follower ācoz theyāre not the same.
Hereās a short piece I wrote a while back, and it still makes me laugh. The platforms change, but people donāt. When I wrote it, it was all about Twitter and Instagram; now, the same thingās happening on Clubhouse.
People are doing everything they can to amass more followers, without thinking about the deeper question: would they turn up for my event? With 20k followers, if I create a room, would 10,000 people be there?
I understand why though, and itās not complicated. Itās simply because weāre humans, and we make snap judgments; weāre lazy as a species and we make snap judgements. We see someone has a bigger followers count and we automatically think theyāre more valuableā¦ Itās less often that we dig deeper and see if that number really means something, and thatās why we have to deal with low-quality content and misinformationā¦ something Iām very much against.
btw, sorry about last week; sometimes things outside your control happen, especially, when youāre a team of one!
News
Database containing 1.3M Clubhouse profiles was posted to a hacker forum; Clubhouse says it hasn't been breached, and the data is public info from its app [link]
Hereās whatās included in the leaked database:
User ID, Name, Photo URL, Username, Twitter handle, Instagram handle, Number of followers, Number of followings, Account creation date, Invited by user profile name
and these are all available publicly from users profileā¦ not really a hack, but scrapped dataā¦ and it doesnāt even include the userās bioā¦ so hereās mine; iāll leak it myself
enjoy! the hacking bar is low these days!
Amazonās workersā union, App Storeās defence, and $2.75B fine for monopolistic behaviours [link]
Watch Elon Muskās Neuralink device on a monkey playing pong, and iMessage on Android [link]
Facebookās big not-hack, Twitterās unsuccessful acquisition, and Adidasā latest collab [link]
Clubhouseās latest valuation, Coinbaseās record quarter, and Signal's entrance to cryptoverse [link]
Google wins, Clubhouse adds payment, and Appleās tvOS update [link]
šā ļøšŗ a gift for you.
Worth Your Attention
The plan for day 100 [by Seth Godin on his Blog]
simple and short, but important
Will Clubhouse be a habit or a has-been? [by Nir Eyal on OneZero]
part of Nirās series on āThe Hooked Model in Actionā
The wannabe food influencer wanted by the FBI [The Guardian]
a story that has everything ā well, almost everything.
Godzilla vs. King Kong: Whose poops would be bigger? [Mental Floss]
almost worth your attention lol
Chart of the Week
Global App Revenue Grew 31% YoY in 1Q21 to ~$32B
Overall consumer spending in apps grew 31% year-over-year from $24.3 billion, outpacing the growth experienced in the first half of 2020 when compared to the same period in 2019. Consumer spending on in-app purchases, premium apps, and subscriptions climbed 28% to $20.4 billion globally on Appleās App Store from nearly $16 billion in the first quarter of 2020. This was outpaced by the growth experienced by Google Play, which saw consumer spending grow 36% YoY to $11.4 billion from $8.4 billion.
Read more on SensorTower.
& more stats
A majority of Americans say they use YouTube and Facebook, while the use of Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok is especially common among adults under 30 [link]
Freewheelās US video marketplace report (H2 2020) [PDF]
7% of Americans donāt use the internet. Who are they? [link]
Consumers spent $32B on apps in Q1 2021, the biggest quarter on record [link]
Average smartphone storage capacity crossed 100GB in 2020 [link]
US iPhone users spent an average of $138 on apps in 2020, will grow to $180 in 2021 [link]
Zero-click Google searches rose to nearly 65% in 2020 [link]
UK high street lost 11,000 shops in 2020 [link]
Tools & Apps
BitClout: a new crypto social network that lets you bet on people's reputations
BitClout Pulse: Bloomberg for BitClout.
BitClout is one of the best things iāve seen since clubhouse :]
Improve YouTube: change the layout and interface, block ads and recommended videosā¦ [Chrome/Brave extension]
one of those things that you donāt know you need, but you do.
Easy Form Builder (for WordPress): create professional multistep forms in minutes.
if you have a WordPress website, youāll love this.
Spotted
Twitter Spaces has a new introductory screen [link]
Instagram keeps working on the āReshareā sticker [link]
Instagram is working on a new entry point to the Discovery People section [link]
Instagram is working on a small change to #Reelsā layout [link]
Instagram is working on āIncentivesā [link]
Instagram is working on a toggle to enable the Vanish Mode from the chat details [link]
Facebook is working on a āCaptionsā sticker [link]
Microsoft is working on adding new cool features to Authenticator [link]
Figma working closer to launching FigJam, their collaborative whiteboard space [link]
Spotted the Week Before
Twitter Space preview cards for web also works on the mobile web app [link]
Twitter is working on improving the audience picker for Twitter Spaces [link]
Twitter continues to work on the scheduled Twitter Spaces [link]
Twitter is working on adding custom background to a Fleet via gallery picker [link]
Twitter is prepping in-app purchase in the Android app [link]
Instagram is working on a new sticker: Reshare [link]
Instagram is working on the possibility of searching for audio [link]
Instagram keeps working on the new summary of the audio used in a reel [link]
Instagram is working on a new option to filter comments: Hide more comments [link]
Facebook keeps working on the Live Audio rooms feature by adding the ability to send reactions [link]
Facebookās live audio invites (from hosts for you to speak) look like this [link]
š¦ Tweets of the Week
Fun Stuff
and yāall be feelinā somethinā soon!
sorry about last week again ā this is how the easter break went :/
and now weāre done for this week
What did you think of this issue? Your feedback matters ā more than you think!