Tagsocial networks

Why social networks that pay you may be a bad idea

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One of the most common questions I get asked, while talking about platforms, relates to the issue of labor on platforms. Facebook and Twitter, among others, get a lot of value from their users and make billions of dollars, but the users don’t see much kickback. The economics of free-labor platforms Social networks like Facebook and Twitter leverage free labor from a global talent pool to...

The network effect playbook: Social products win with utility, not invites

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The proverbial chicken and egg problem of building a new social product is well understood among tech startups, and it’s been commonplace to follow two contrasting mechanisms for getting traction. Traditionally, startups have solved this problem by racing to connect users with each other, essentially providing them the pipes to interact with each other. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have grown...