RRSS Pasado y ¿futuro? | Social Media: Past and Future?
Estar en las redes sociales es un mandato desde hace ya unos cuantos años.
Mis inicios fueron en Hi5 en el año 2003. Todavía estábamos tratando de entender para qué servía aquello y habíamos descubierto que era, al menos, una buena forma de comunicarse en tiempo real con amigos y familiares que estuvieran en otros países.
English version below!
Era un sistema muy básico, pero permitía comunicarse y compartir imágenes (no estoy seguro de si videos también).
Antes de caer y perder a la mayoría de sus usuarios, nació una nueva opción que, para los que, como yo, tenían sus proyectos musicales, se convirtió en la ventana ideal: MySpace. Allí fue donde conocí por primera vez lo que era la “fiebre” de las redes sociales.
Allí logré construir una comunidad gigantesca en torno a mi proyecto musical Los Cañoneros y llegué a creer que, en realidad, eso movería a la gente, pues así se vendían las redes.
Recuerdo una ocasión en que teníamos un concierto en el Centro de Arte La Estancia y yo estuve trabajando la promoción por MySpace. Llegué a tener cinco mil confirmaciones de asistencia al evento. Afortunadamente, el concierto estuvo lleno por la promoción de PDVSA en otros entornos, pues de MySpace asistió solo uno de los 5000.
En esos días alguien me hizo ver que eso había sido producto de que la nueva red social era Facebook y que MySpace ya era cosa del pasado.
Por supuesto, con todo y que había perdido la fe, en gran medida, en las redes, me mudé. Así empecé de nuevo ese trabajo de hormiga que hay que hacer en cada sitio al que uno llega. Allí logramos un grupo de seguidores “reales” de más de nueve mil. Pero un día te enteras de que, por más seguidores que tengas, hay un algoritmo que privilegia a algunos sobre otros.
En mis tiempos en MySpace recuerdo haber gastado hasta 14 horas diarias posicionando a Los Cañoneros, mientras que en Facebook me dijeron que no había que dedicarle tanto tiempo a la red, sino a aprender de mercadeo.
Por supuesto, allí no invertía el tiempo que le había dedicado antes, pues estaba visto que esto no era tan sencillo como lo pintaban algunos.
El antiguo Twitter, ahora X, no entra en esta reflexión porque nunca me he entendido muy bien con esta plataforma. Aunque tengo mis cuentas allí, prácticamente nunca las he usado, excepto para algunas cosas de Hive. Y debo confesar que lo hice siguiendo los lineamientos de esta, mi blockchain.
Años después apareció Instagram como la nueva alternativa. Yo no tenía intenciones de meterme allí, pero el mismo Facebook se encargó de crear todas las condiciones para que terminara también con mi cuenta allí.
Pero el nuevo descubrimiento fue que, cada vez más, lo que rige es el algoritmo y, si no lo entiendes y te adaptas a él, no hay esfuerzo que valga.
Reconozco que empecé estudios de marketing, tanto los serios de Platzi como los informales que abundan en otros lados. Pero este trabajo requiere un tiempo y una dedicación que se contraponen con la necesidad de dedicarle suficientes horas al estudio del canto, del instrumento, de música, de escuchar los nuevos trabajos, de componer, hacer arreglos, ensayar, grabar y todas esas tareas que son el centro de actividad de uno.
Ahora se plantean como alternativas nuevas las redes sociales 3.0, que tienen la enorme ventaja de no tener algoritmos discriminatorios. ¿Pero podrán convertirse en alternativas reales a las necesidades de comunicación que se plantean hoy en día?
Being on social media has been a mandate for quite a few years now.
My beginnings were on Hi5 in 2003. We were still trying to understand what it was for and had discovered that it was, at the very least, a good way to communicate in real time with friends and family who were in other countries.
It was a very basic system, but it allowed communication and sharing of images (I’m not sure if videos as well).
Before it fell and lost most of its users, a new option was born that, for those like me who had musical projects, became the ideal platform: MySpace. That’s where I first experienced the “fever” of social media.
There, I managed to build a huge community around my musical project Los Cañoneros, and I came to believe that it would truly move people, as that’s how social networks were marketed.
I remember one occasion when we had a concert at the Centro de Arte La Estancia, and I was promoting it through MySpace. I managed to get five thousand confirmations of attendance for the event. Fortunately, the concert was packed thanks to PDVSA’s promotion in other spaces, because only one of the 5000 confirmed attendees from MySpace actually showed up.
Around that time, someone pointed out to me that this was because the new social network was Facebook, and MySpace was already a thing of the past.
Of course, even though I had largely lost faith in social media, I moved on. That’s how I started again with the painstaking work that must be done on every platform you join. There, we managed to gather a group of “real” followers of more than nine thousand. But one day, you find out that, no matter how many followers you have, there’s an algorithm that favors some over others.
During my time on MySpace, I remember spending up to 14 hours a day promoting Los Cañoneros, while on Facebook, I was told that it wasn’t necessary to dedicate so much time to the platform but rather to learn about marketing.
Of course, I didn’t invest the same amount of time as before, as it was clear that this wasn’t as simple as some made it out to be.
The former Twitter, now X, is not part of this reflection because I have never really gotten along well with this platform. Although I have accounts there, I have practically never used them, except for a few things related to Hive. And I must confess that I did so following the guidelines of this, my blockchain.
Years later, Instagram emerged as the new alternative. I had no intention of joining it, but Facebook itself created all the conditions for me to end up with an account there as well.
But the new discovery was that, more and more, what rules is the algorithm, and if you don’t understand it and adapt to it, no effort will be enough.
I admit that I started studying marketing, both the serious courses on Platzi and the informal ones that abound elsewhere. But this work requires time and dedication, which conflict with the need to devote enough hours to studying singing, instruments, music, listening to new works, composing, arranging, rehearsing, recording, and all those tasks that are the core of one’s activity.
Now, new alternatives are being proposed: social networks 3.0, which have the great advantage of not having discriminatory algorithms. But will they be able to become real alternatives to the communication needs we face today?
 Vote la-colmena for witness By @Ylich |
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Interesante historia la que nos comparte, por acá no conocimos la mayoría de las que menciona su artículo, creo que llegamos algo tarde a la internet, aún estamos muchos en pañales en esta temática de redes sociales, personalmente no me motivan ni Facebook, Instagram, a veces Twitter ( le seguiré llamando así ) desde que descubrí Hive todo cambió, una gran familia en la web3 me esperaba.
Sí, estos es definitivamente otra cosa. Lo que pasa es que, como dice el dicho, aún falta mucha tela por cortar!
¡Gracias por comentar!
Great and informative post, I liked your journey and I even learned a thing when you said about your "experience with Myspace and 5000 confirmed attendees" which tells me we can't count on some of these platforms or maybe most of them, I remember the old Hi5 and Myspace social media though (I was not using them a lot), and then we joined and used the new ones too (FB,Insta), though they kept changing from time to time or even some of them abandoned. and later we could understand that politics also affect most of these platforms, to let governments/systems/parties lead or affect people through these new media instead of TV Programs and TV News.
And you cleverly pointed at the most important part of those platforms which is "Algorithm". even the content is not important, only the system's algorithm choose who should be at the top. and a lot of wasting contents also comes up, and a lot of great contents buried under those meaningless videos like a guy who can dance like a chicken is more valuable than Joe Satriani's new single track :D
(I don't know if it is ok to write this here or not, I don't wanna change the topic but I tested something on Youtube's short videos, I always uploaded my high quality music productions and songwriting until, one night I started playing Metallica drums for their song's One, with my fingers on my computer desk, and it simply reached 3000 views which I didn't have for my other short video contents, haha (That's when I understood how can Algorithm work))
platforms like Instagram and Facebook or even Tik Tok, Twitter/X might have their own benefits for people but they also have a lot of negativity, for example platforms like Instagram which created a kind of system that users are in a never ending conflict, or a kind of race, they run and run to reach something that they can never reach, and hardly they can beat the algorithm to reach a point. (some people even use hatered as a way to become famous and to make their business, I remember that it was also working as part of the algorithm, there was even a singer who was insulting his fans or even other people who were not his fans, so the more he got haters he becomes more famous)
I think those systems work mostly with one fuel, people's conflicts.
on Instagram, TikTok, etc, anything that users are doing heavily affect other users, though people are not knowing this and they think everything is happening normally. as FB and Instagram primarily based on Psychologics of people, the things that I mentioned are happening undoubtedly, (conflicts, hate, addiction, etc)
and things like Story also become so important to users in a point that they feel bad if someone they know is not watching them or liking them. and these social media also make people more sensitive to anything.
and the number of contents that user should keep scrolling and sweeping is like never ending, like a TV that never has an ending program, so it keeps brains awake from morning till late night. (usually with meaningless or cheap contents)
I would like to write even more about what is happening with addicted people to these platforms, think I was playing a movie and asked one of my friends to watch it with me, he couldn't stop looking at his phone, It was like he is somewhere else, and then he took a photo of the movie and made a story about it, like: look I am watching this movie :D later when the movie finished, he said: what a bad movie, why did you play this? (he didn't even watch it). (Think if you go to a concert with people who only look at their social media feeds, and miss the live concert that they are just standing in it and recording it to post it as a story)
I really hate that random scrolling system, which is also addictive and every 30 seconds (less or more) people go from one content to another content, it is a great practice to lose your focus and be like a person who cant stay on one thing and keep jumping from one idea to another idea, it is like being in a Metalica concert and suddenly when Kirk is playing solo, you jump to a Comedy show by Jim Carrey and suddenly while Jim is doing his best act you jump to a scene that shows a car crash that 10 people died. think what will happen to one's brain with all these random data that comes from anywhere without your will.
I actually left them and deleted them from my phone, and I only use Insta and Facebook chat boxes on my desktop(laptop) to contact some friends who are using those platforms.
I also have to add that it is clear as day that someone like Zuckerburg is not looking for creating something new or updating or upgrading the apps like insta and facebook, we keep seeing same old tools in these platforms, I recently heard that he wants to add dislike button to Instagram for Test, while Reddit already had it for a long time. (I should say Instagram is an old trash but they could make billions of people addicted to use it daily)
also, Mark is well known for selling people's information and data to organizations, I saw people keep posting their locations for every moment, even if they wanted to drink a glass of water, and I said damn, he knew what he built and he knew how to get all information without asking people to give their info to him.
so he have access to information about any region on this planet, for example if US wants to know what is going on in some people's minds in a state, province, city or even small villages. they have access to everything! I can open this more but I don't wanna write an article here.
The future of social media, with the ones that are powerful and has a lot of money is really dark, but if people leave those platforms and join platforms like Hive (though decentralized world is also not perfect but it is way better than those famous social media), and keep building it (Hive for example) to something powerful, separated from all those data sellers, people can have their own space and social media, and it will be great.
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Wow, that was an awesome feedback! Yes, I have to agree with you on almost all your points.
Thank you for your wonderful comment!
Thank you, my friend, It is your kindness, I like your content and it made me motivated to write the things that I had in my mind about its topic :)
No soy experta ni muy conocedora de redes sociales, pero veo con preocupación cómo se ha convertido en la prioridad de muchas personas dejando de lado aspectos importantes en la vida humana (salud mental, salud física, familia, trabajo, etc).
Es difícil entender, cómo se enaltecen algunas contenidos que no aportan valor pero es una realidad de esta era digital, porque la pauta la marca el algoritmo.
Creo que la alternativa 3.0 es una opción viable siempre y cuando la intención sea llegar a grupos sociales más selectivos que valoran la calidad y no cantidad.
Me dejo reflexiva tu post, saludos @ylich
Sí, este es un tema en el cual solo puse el dedo encima. El punto que mencionas es sumamente preocupante, porque es el que está formando a las nuevas generaciones y, la verdad, es que deja mucho que desear.
¡Muchas gracias por tu comentario!
@ylich, you're rewarding 3 replies from this discussion thread.