Sayches Social
Description: Sayches.com is an ephemeral microblogging social networking platform that prides itself on protecting user privacy giving them peace of mind when posting.
Strengths: Sayches merges two industry leading platforms and takes the strengths of both (Snapchat & Twitter). Sayches values the freedom to voice opinions and its vision is to design a space where people worldwide are able to express their thoughts and communicate freely without cause for concern. Sayches’ branding stretches from its design all the way to its vocabulary. Sayches values the freedom to voice opinions and its vision is to design a space where people worldwide are able to express their thoughts and communicate freely without cause for concern. The biggest issue with Twitter is the fact that Tweets stay forever (unless deleted) which has seen many public figures scrutinised for the opinions they have or once had.
Weaknesses: Sayches is a new platform and so it currently does not have a huge number of users.
Opportunities: There is opportunity for early adopters to jump on board. Potential for advertising as the platform grows and a new opportunity for people to express themselves without the backlash. It can become the go to platform where influential people come and post knowing they privacy is protected and so they feel safe. With bigger companies being exposed for using personal data, people are becoming more aware of privacy and security on the Internet. Sayches can fill this void.
Threats: Being the new platform, there is always the possibility that a bigger company can adopt the idea and do it themselves.
How does it work? Sayches merges Twitter and Snapchat together. Users can create 30-word posts which last 24 hours before being completely removed. Users can choose whether to post publicly on their feed or they can share content anonymously within the ‘Anonymous Pub’ section.
How do they make money? Sayches’ fundamental principle is to protect user privacy and therefore it will not use an intrusive sophisticated model to create a persona. It will simply provide a space for advertisers based on keywords. There will also be a small monthly charge for the premium service.
Mastodon Social
Description: Mastodon is a free open source microblogging social network platform that allows people to interact with each other. It puts the data in the hands of the user, not one single company.
Strengths: It has 1.5 million registered users. Its biggest strength is the fact that is part of a much wider Fediverse. This means that users can interact with other users from different open platforms like PeerTube (an alternative to YouTube). As it is open sourced, the community are able to take the code and create a Mastodon server. This means the owner of the server can make the rules about what can be spoken and what cannot. This is great for censorship as it is done by the community not the company.
Weaknesses: Having separate servers is great in concept but it also comes with flaws. When signing up to one instance (server), I register and create a username. However, every time I register with a new server, I have to reregister my username. This is a problem as they do not synchronise throughout. This can cause issues if someone takes your username in another instance that you want to join, as it means you will have to register a different username to another instance. This can cause issues when it comes to identifying someone. Different instances have different rules, some governed and some not. Also, they can decide whether they want to be open to everyone or just some instances.
Opportunities: It has a strong number of users and with a bit of work it may be able to become even bigger.
Threats: It has started to lose traction and with the surgency of other platforms like Minds and Gab, it may lose even more.
How does it work? It allows anyone to host their own server nodes in the network. This allows users to seamlessly interact with each other using various different servers. Users can make Toots (posts) up to 500 characters. You can follow and Boost (share) people you like.
How do they make money? There are no advertisements on Mastodon. In fact, it solely relies on donations from users to keep it going. It is not a platform for making money. It is just there to bring people together.
Gab Social
Description: Gab is a microblogging social media platform giving users free rein to express any thoughts they may have; however controversial they may be.
Strengths: Gab truly gives users the freedom to express their views, however controversial they may be. Gab does not censor any content but has 3 rules: 1. No threats or violence; 2. No revealing of other personal information; 3. No pornography.
Weaknesses: Does not have a phone app as not permitted by Apple or Android. There is no censorship and so there has been hate speech expressed on the platform. For this reason, both Apple and Android refuse to have Gab on their stores. Inevitably you may find Gab gives people free rein to write hate speech knowing there will be no repercussions. Do not pride themselves on user privacy.
Opportunities: They do not have advertisements- maybe an opportunity to adopt.
Threats: New and rare. Other platforms are ahead like Minds. As it has no app this may prevent people using it, meaning they may fall behind other platforms.
How does it work? It allows users to read and write unfiltered messages of up to 300 characters, called ‘Gabs’.
How do they make money? You can upgrade from a free account to a premium account which costs $5.99 per month. This gives you more characters to write with.
Minds Social
Description: is a free and open source social media platform that uses blockchain to reward its community with tokens. Users can use their tokens to promote their content or to crowdfund other users through monthly subscriptions to their exclusive content and services.
Strengths: The CEO has appeared on podcasts with Joe Rogan and has raised over 7 million in investment. He is now seeing a high number of users interacting with the platform.
Weaknesses: There seems to be a lot of hate speech with complaints of users expressing Neo-Nazi ideology. Minds design has come under scrutiny as its interface is not easy to look at. Also, features are hidden behind different menus and a lot of the site has stopped working.
Opportunities: They advertise, so as they get more users on board, they may be able to raise more money from marketing by charging higher fees. Could implement new features helped by their community.
Threats: Its lack of censorship is leading to a lot of hate speech which may drive people away from the platform.
How does it work? Minds focuses on protecting user privacy while giving them the freedom of speech. It uses a token system to keep people using the platform as a form of reward which can translate into money.
How do they make money? Users can use their tokens to promote their content, crowdfund or get other users to pay a monthly subscription for exclusive content and services.
How do they make money? Minds is free but also has a premium account which costs $5 a month. They also have advertisements called ‘Boosts’.
