Althouse: Snapchat loses $1.3 billion in market value after Kylie Jenner tweets that she doesn't open up the app anymore.

February 22, 2018

Snapchat loses $1.3 billion in market value after Kylie Jenner tweets that she doesn't open up the app anymore.

Bloomberg reports.

Here's all it took: "sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me... ugh this is so sad."

We think of these social media companies as so successful, but they could collapse in an instant, if people just stopped going there.

Related: I've stopped using Facebook.

106 comments:

Michael K said...: Google and facebook are also ephemeral ware.; 2/22/18, 1:23 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Haven't been on Twitter in a month and I feel so much better. I do Instagram some cat photos, but they're not political. The photos, I mean. My cats are VERY political.; 2/22/18, 1:25 PM
Big Mike said...: I never started using Facebook.; 2/22/18, 1:27 PM
Anonymous said...: Prof. A: I really wish you had told me beforehand that you were no longer doing FB. I could have shorted the stock bigly. I'm guessing your announcement has taken out 20% of the market cap...; 2/22/18, 1:27 PM
Original Mike said...: Something about the world’s smallest violin.; 2/22/18, 1:30 PM
Ralph L said...: One with Nineveh and MySpace.; 2/22/18, 1:31 PM
Nonapod said...: Yea Verily... Kylie Jenner has turned her omnipotent gaze away from Snapchat, causing it to wither and slowly die like a shrub cast into darkness far away from the warm light of the sun.; 2/22/18, 1:34 PM
rhhardin said...: I don't know anything about Snapchat or Kylie Jenner.; 2/22/18, 1:38 PM
Peter said...: I've stopped using Facebook.

Good for you. Leaving aside the highly questionable value of their products, companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter and that other one that begins with A and offers portals to righteous bloggers wanting to support their virtuous endeavours can bring out the inner socialist in the most dogmatic conservative. They would make the Robber Barons blush. The amazing thing is how they have combined predatory monopoly capitalism with Dem-friendly political correctness. They'll fire their employees summarily for a politically incorrect tweet and rip off the taxman for billions in several countries, but they'll happily change their bathroom policies between courses at Davos.; 2/22/18, 1:39 PM
Jaq said...: Once a friend started posting political images on Instagram, I was done.; 2/22/18, 1:39 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: The funny things about the Kardashian chicks:

1. Barbara Streisand could SING
2. Ginger Rogers could DANCE
3. Marilyn Monroe could ACT (at least in Some Like it Hot).

These Kardashian chicks can't sing, dance or act!

They are stupid and uninteresting.; 2/22/18, 1:41 PM
tcrosse said...: These Kardashian chicks can't sing, dance or act!

Famous for being famous. Good publicists don't grow on trees, you know.; 2/22/18, 1:42 PM
Henry said...: she tweets

LOL.; 2/22/18, 1:47 PM
bagoh20 said...: This is all great news and I congratulate you.; 2/22/18, 1:48 PM
Henry said...: What would be most awesome is if, on snapchat, Kylie Jenner simultaneously snapchatted "sooo does anyone else not tweet anymore? Or is it just me... ugh this is so sad."; 2/22/18, 1:48 PM
Henry said...: If Kylie told you ahead of time she was going to tweet against snapchat and you shorted snapchat, is that insider trading?; 2/22/18, 1:49 PM
langford peel said...: The Kardashians exist to promote the "urban" lifestyle. They are what is promoted as "cool" to unsuspecting stupid teenagers along with hippty hop music and abortion.

They are so toxic that they induced a former American Olympic hero to want to cut his balls off and become a broad.

Basically the Kardashians are what is wrong with the world today wrapped up in one disgusting clan.; 2/22/18, 1:50 PM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: My best guess is this all has something to do with Kylie Jenner's talent for infinitely subtle manipulations.; 2/22/18, 1:58 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Are all you people talking about Kylie Jenner in fact talking about Caitlyn Jenner? Because I have never heard of Kylie Jenner, and I find it difficult to believe that one person neither I nor, I think, anyone else has actually heard of could cost Snapchat $1.6B.; 2/22/18, 2:02 PM
MacMacConnell said...: What are Snap-chat and Facebook?; 2/22/18, 2:02 PM
MacMacConnell said...: 1. Barbara Streisand could SING
2. Ginger Rogers could DANCE
3. Marilyn Monroe could ACT (at least in Some Like it Hot).

two of the three were mattress backs.; 2/22/18, 2:05 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Oops, sorry, she does exist. Memo to self: Google before posting.; 2/22/18, 2:05 PM
JohnAnnArbor said...: My cats are VERY political.

Yours too?; 2/22/18, 2:09 PM
Marty Keller said...: Welcome to the wide world of no FB, Ms. A. Been away from it (except for birthdays, mind you) since President Trump's victory and have seen my intolerance level drop substantially. That's because I am no longer subjecting myself to the daily lunacies of friends and relatives with little actual historical awareness or appreciation for the dynamics of logic.

It's the same reason I skip over Comrade LLR, Toothless, ARM, Inga, and other very unhappy people seeking something or other here; much like FB screeders these dear souls offer nothing of value other than the limited efficacy of Alinsky's urging his "radicals" to loudly and repetitively proclaim their feelz.

{This would be true even if it turns out they're all Russian bots.); 2/22/18, 2:11 PM
Paddy O said...: Facebook is up .28% today. Not that there's a correlation.

Snapchat was the big thing for teens and college students. The same folks who follow Kylie Jenner. From what I heard, it has been falling for a while. So, it was more of a nudge that pushed it over the cliff.

For old people, think of it like how JFK changed the trend of men wearing hats. Or how Zsa Zsa did something and people cared about it.

Every generation has their vacuous trendsetters.; 2/22/18, 2:13 PM
Triangle Man said...: Gosh Althouse, how about a little advanced notice for the regulars before you drop your short-sell play on Facebook?; 2/22/18, 2:15 PM
Unknown said...: I have stopped using facebook but it is still active. I guess the proof is when you uninstall, a weird verb in itself really; 2/22/18, 2:16 PM
Etienne said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/22/18, 2:19 PM
Etienne said...: Mac McConnell said...What are Snap-chat and Facebook?

Coloring books for adults. Move along, there's nothing for you to see...; 2/22/18, 2:22 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: I actually like FB. Yes, it's ditzy and superficial. But I get to share photos of my strikingly beautiful kids and I get to see how poorly ex-girlfriends have aged without me.

Lotta miles on those tires, babe......; 2/22/18, 2:26 PM
Infinite Monkeys said...: Mike said...
Haven't been on Twitter in a month and I feel so much better. I do Instagram some cat photos, but they're not political. The photos, I mean. My cats are VERY political.

2/22/18, 1:25 PM

I saw a car with a bumper sticker that said, "My cat is a Democrat". I don't discuss politics with my cats, but they seem like libertarians to me. Maybe other cats are different.; 2/22/18, 2:29 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: This is why Uber was so paranoid. It's position was not very secure.

But nor was Borders and Barnes & Noble. The market is a harsh mistress.; 2/22/18, 2:29 PM
Infinite Monkeys said...: Is Trump pulling everyone towards Twitter?; 2/22/18, 2:30 PM
LilyBart said...: I think its sad that such a silly, vapid person has so much influence in our culture. That said - I don't use snapchat either.; 2/22/18, 2:31 PM
Mark said...: Peter, you are questioning the value of Google on a platform owned by Google.

Be careful who you broad brush as you might paint yourself into a corner.; 2/22/18, 2:31 PM
langford peel said...: I have a question about your cats. Since they are so political.

Do they wear pussy hats?

Or is any hat they wear by definition a pussy hat?

Asking for my friend Morris.; 2/22/18, 2:36 PM
David53 said...: I predict another great year for Amazon.; 2/22/18, 2:37 PM
Bob Boyd said...: Look what happened right after Althouse announced she'd stopped using Facebook:

https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/fb/real-time; 2/22/18, 2:55 PM
Martin said...: Congratulations on getting off Facebook!!; 2/22/18, 2:56 PM
wwww said...: In the managerial econ class I taught at Stony Brook, I'd explain network effects by asking the class two questions.

"Who likes Facebook?"

No hands raised.

"Who's ON Facebook?"

All hands raised.

twitter, Noah Smith; 2/22/18, 2:58 PM
Martin said...: Blogger Henry said...
If Kylie told you ahead of time she was going to tweet against snapchat and you shorted snapchat, is that insider trading?
2/22/18, 1:49 PM
***************************
What if Kylie, herself, shorted Snapchat and then tweeted against it? She's manipulating the price but from the market side, she is not an insider.; 2/22/18, 3:01 PM
Gahrie said...: Are all you people talking about Kylie Jenner in fact talking about Caitlyn Jenner?

Kylie Jenner is Bruce Jenner's daughter with Kris Kardashian Jenner. She is a half sister to the Kardashian girls.

Caitlyn is Bruce's delusion.

I denounce myself for knowing this.; 2/22/18, 3:02 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: I agree with the libertarians that FB and others should stay out of the business of censoring news. That someone's insane post about the Florida students being actors was the number one trending post yesterday is a valuable data point for tracking the decline of our civilization.; 2/22/18, 3:02 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Gahrie said...
I denounce myself for knowing this.

No need. We all read the Daily Mail here. Only some pretend not to.; 2/22/18, 3:03 PM
Sam L. said...: Cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!; 2/22/18, 3:05 PM
Lipperman said...: I stopped using Facebook 5 days ago, and it dropped 1.41 points on NASDAQ since then.

Take THAT, Suckerberg!; 2/22/18, 3:07 PM
Earnest Prole said...: Facebook is a fantastic tool so long as you don't use it passively. Your feeds are entirely customizable; if something offends you, throttle it back using the app's settings.; 2/22/18, 3:12 PM
Wince said...: "Snapchat loses $1.3 billion in market value..."

Did they check under the sofa cushions?; 2/22/18, 3:13 PM
wwww said...: Are all you people talking about Kylie Jenner in fact talking about Caitlyn Jenner? Because I have never heard of Kylie Jenner, and I find it difficult to believe that one person neither I nor, I think, anyone else has actually heard of could cost Snapchat $1.6B.

There's gotta be a term for this -- confirmation bias?

She sells makeup and is on a reality TV show. just had a baby. A lot of teenager girls know of her.

If a Kardashian says they don't use a type of social media platform, I can see why it crashes.; 2/22/18, 3:23 PM
Earnest Prole said...: I find it difficult to believe that one person neither I nor, I think, anyone else has actually heard of could cost Snapchat $1.6B.

You're like Pauline Kael, who was certain the 1972 Presidential election was a coup because she didn't know a single Nixon voter.; 2/22/18, 3:28 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: The cats have their own social order and political leanings, none of it really comparable to human politics. There is a leader (Tigger) who can be rather fascist about controlling the others. Then there are Dudgeon and Casper, who are very apolitical. The girls vary, depending on the day and the mood.; 2/22/18, 3:32 PM
langford peel said...: You really have that many cats?

Seriously?

So you really are Amanda Marcotte?; 2/22/18, 3:39 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/22/18, 3:41 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Dang it. I just discovered snapchat. I don't use it for anything but silly photos. I'm not even sure how the "chat " part works.

A friend of mine has 2 teenage daughters we were all sitting at lunch a few months ago and the daughters introduced me snapchat. Bulging googlie eyes, youthful skin with flowers and freckles, day-glow and dog ears applied like magic to the human face. I was hooked.
We sat there and snapped photos and laughed and laughed... Like a bunch of teenagers. Since then, I only manage to irritate others with it as I attempt to re-capture the joy we found that day.

On balance, snapchat +. I cannot stand facebook and zuckerberg.; 2/22/18, 3:42 PM
langford peel said...: You see this is all a marketing ploy.

Kylie is marketing a new app called Snatchchat where they text you photo's of the Kardashian's vaginas.; 2/22/18, 3:43 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Yes we had a small herd (and a beagle to herd them) and then my granddaughter moved in with her two cats. There is a definite dynamic to a cat herd. They are fun. Look me up on Instagram @mjbwolf and you'll see. Almost 100% cats and grandkids. The occasional funny photo.; 2/22/18, 3:45 PM
langford peel said...: Wow that's amazing. I will check it out.

Doesn't it get messy with so many cats in one house?; 2/22/18, 3:46 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: https://www.instagram.com/mjbwolf/

For the link or typing impaired.; 2/22/18, 3:48 PM
Howard said...: Kylie left to start her own social media platform with Pops Caitlin : Snatchchat; 2/22/18, 3:50 PM
Howard said...: Touche, langford; 2/22/18, 3:52 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: The Kardashians are over-rated, boring and I find it sad for snap-chat that Kardashians have so much influence and power.

Up with Snapchap!; 2/22/18, 3:56 PM
whitney said...: Congrats on quitting facebook; 2/22/18, 3:58 PM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: "My cats are VERY political."

Orange is the new black?; 2/22/18, 3:58 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: The orange striper is the political one. Always agitating and organizing the gray and the white cats.; 2/22/18, 4:01 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Mr. D (a/k/a Dudgeon) is our largest Maine Coon cat at 18.2 lbs. He's also a gentle soul who likes to hold hands sometimes.; 2/22/18, 4:12 PM
eddie willers said...: The first I heard of Snapchat was when they turned down a $3 Billion offer from Facebook.

Who turns down THREE BILLION DOLLARS?!; 2/22/18, 4:15 PM
The Godfather said...: Like so many senior citizens I've been using Facebook primarily for the cat stuff posted by my elderly friends. I now see that I can get the same material from the Althouse comments page. I expect to see a big drop in Facebook at tomorow's open and a big rise in Google.

This is not insider information. Past experience is not a guarantee of future results. Your mileage may vary.; 2/22/18, 4:20 PM
Fabi said...: "Who turns down THREE BILLION DOLLARS?!"

Someone who wants FOUR BILLION DOLLARS!; 2/22/18, 4:22 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: No wonder she hasn't answered my dick pics.; 2/22/18, 4:31 PM
madAsHell said...: Did she short the stock?? Is that insider trading?; 2/22/18, 4:36 PM
Fred Drinkwater said...: In my experience, someone who turns down three billion dollars because they want four billion dollars usually ends up with three million dollars instead. Before the lawsuits commence...; 2/22/18, 4:37 PM
Mark said...: These Internet companies were never truly all that wealthy. Their money was all virtual. That's fine so long as everyone else is still playing the game, still playing the sucker. But that wealth can evaporate quickly because it was never really there.; 2/22/18, 4:38 PM
Kevin said...: "Who turns down THREE BILLION DOLLARS?!"

Todays $1.3 billion drop was 6.1% of market value.; 2/22/18, 4:39 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: We've only the two cats, Lili and Charlie. Lili looks and sounds like a Maine Coon (tufted ears, semi-long-hair, big bushy tail, voice full of soft trills), but at 11.5 lbs she's tiny; Mike's Mr. D is more the usual size, though they get a lot bigger even than that. Charlie's a ginger shorthair who tops 15 lbs by now. Lili came from the Marin (CA) Humane Society, and Charlie was born in a feral cat colony in MD. Both are very sweet.

I should say that these are our only two physical, in-the-flesh cats. I've been on a run of cat art-buying lately, and the walls are filling up. Just today I got, in the mail, a package from FatCatArt.ru (OMG! Collusion with RUSSIANS!). If you don't know the site, basically it's run by a woman in St. Petersburg who takes famous artworks and inserts her seriously fat cat, Zarathustra, into them. This one is a Rosso Fiorentino lute-playing cherub, replaced by Zarathustra (complete with little cherub wings). I've got the ladder up and a mallet and a picture-hanger, but I'm not going up there until my husband gets home to spot me; it's too high ... The lady threw in a set of 20 FatCatArt postcards, and they're terrific: Botticelli, Vermeer, Van Gogh, the Mona Lisa ...; 2/22/18, 4:48 PM
William said...: Who's the bigger Dutch Tulip Bulb--the Kardashians or Snapchat?....Remember when AOL merged with Time Life. That was like a vampire sucking life out of a zombie.......Even so, my bet is that the Kardashians come out of this richer. You won't find people like the Kardashians in a planned economy.; 2/22/18, 5:15 PM
langford peel said...: Great trolls think alike Howie!; 2/22/18, 5:16 PM
Fabi said...: "You won't find people like the Kardashians in a planned economy."

I had no idea I could embrace central planning!; 2/22/18, 5:23 PM
buwaya said...: Our cats are royalists.
We are their courtiers. And servants.

"Amuse me, human!"; 2/22/18, 5:45 PM
buwaya said...: IIRC the Kardashians original talent was their bottoms.
They had very talented bottoms.

Beyond that I dont know.; 2/22/18, 5:47 PM
langford peel said...: You see that's the problem right there.

America used to be know for their talented bottoms.

Now we have to depend on dirty Armenians.

It is also why we are losing in ice skating at the Olympics.

There is a real dearth of talented bottoms.; 2/22/18, 6:02 PM
eddie willers said...: IIRC the Kardashians original talent was their bottoms.
They had very talented bottoms.

Rubenesque must have come back in style because when I look at them, all I see are huge asses.; 2/22/18, 6:40 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: Facebook is up $3 billion today, so Althouse is a contrary indicator.; 2/22/18, 7:10 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: I’ve stopped commenting on Althouse, best thing I’ve done all month. Makes me feel free of the nuttery that goes on here daily.

And yes I know I just commented, but this was serendipitous.

Maybe I’ll drop by next month, or not.; 2/22/18, 7:14 PM
Marc in Eugene said...: I actually like Twitter. "Revolutionary opinions are the only career, in contemporary society, which assures a respectable, lucrative, and peaceful position." Happy with my decision to be done with Facebook.; 2/22/18, 7:21 PM
Temujin said...: I guess natural selection in a free market works. If a company can lose $1.3 Billion in value after some random human with nothing to offer but her good looks name makes a casual statement about a company's product, maybe that said company is not worthy of existing? The market will cull the herd in due time. If that's all it takes, they're done.; 2/22/18, 7:35 PM
Seeing Red said...: I asked my daughter and she Said Snapchat is pushing articles and ads and it’s harder to use so she’s not using it as much.0; 2/22/18, 7:35 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Inga doing her best Michael K impression. Soon you will be repeating stories we've all heard a dozen times before.; 2/22/18, 7:35 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/22/18, 7:51 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: “Inga doing her best Michael K impression. Soon you will be repeating stories we've all heard a dozen times before.”

Nooooo!😬; 2/22/18, 7:52 PM
Heartless Aztec said...: FB is creepy.; 2/22/18, 7:56 PM
MaxedOutMama said...: So Snapchat has CATS? My G-d, buy the dip!

Facebook is about people, isn't it? Not as cute. Sell.

Now something called Deerbook might be a surefire buy. Moosesnap not so much.

Snatchchat, which would consist solely of dorsal portions of nude celebrity selfies hijacked off the cloud would only be a hold. I bet they all look alike, really, but guys would provide a steady customer base.; 2/22/18, 8:04 PM
Mark said...: Who turns down THREE BILLION DOLLARS?!

Three billion in cash? Or in funny money stock in Facebook? Until it is converted to cash, it all just paper, or worse, just some intangible memory file in the cloud that is just one glitch away from vanishing.; 2/22/18, 8:11 PM
Mark said...: For anyone who thinks that these Internet companies are, in and of themselves, going to retain any real wealth, I have just three letters for you: A, O and L. (Actually, AOL suckered other companies into letting it buy them, so AOL classic is worth about three dollars, but at one point Time-Warner and a lot of other companies.; 2/22/18, 8:15 PM
MadisonMan said...: The latest Snapchat upgrade really sucks. I have cut back on it. Besides, you can put up vanishing things on Instagram now.; 2/22/18, 9:15 PM
Aussie Pundit said...: Reddit.
I discovered that about half the things that I was seeing on facebook, originated on reddit a few months earlier. Cut out the middle man.; 2/22/18, 10:34 PM
n.n said...: you can put up vanishing things on Instagram

Vanished, but not forgotten. A minor inconvenience, but a progressive risk.; 2/23/18, 12:12 AM
eddie willers said...: Three billion in cash? Or in funny money stock in Facebook?

I should have been clear. That was a CASH offer!

750 million clear to the two owners.; 2/23/18, 12:26 AM
chickelit said...: Michael K said...
Google and facebook are also e-femeral ware.

FTFY, first comment...; 2/23/18, 12:38 AM
Bob Loblaw said...: Google and facebook are also ephemeral ware.

Google and Facebook rake in 63% of online ad dollars, between them, and they're both fantastically profitable. They're not going anywhere.

Though you could make the argument some of the smaller networks that have never made money will face a reckoning at some point.; 2/23/18, 1:35 AM
Yancey Ward said...: I have a Facebook account, but no idea who set it up. I only use it today to comment on sites that have FB comments pages. I don't even visit family pages any longer.; 2/23/18, 1:36 AM
Gospace said...: Snapchat and Twitter rely on celebrities and their followers.

Facebook is for the hoi polloi to congregate and share and communicate.My family is far flung; facebook is easier than weekly calls to everyone, and includes pictures.

Haven't figured yet how any of them are profitable. Any of them is simply programming,and could be replaced tomorrow by someone with better programming. I I could transfer my facebook profile tomorrow to a site that promised no political censorship, I'd be gone. The alternative, gab.ai, exists for Twitter. But hasn't achieved critical mass yet. As more Twitter accounts get censored, the better gab.ai looks.; 2/23/18, 2:41 AM
Ron Winkleheimer said...: Any of them is simply programming,and could be replaced tomorrow by someone with better programming.

They were first and everyone uses them. Replacing them would mean getting everyone to switch to another platform, which would be inconvenient for the current users, so there would have to be a big payoff to reward them for doing so. Facebook probably will be replaced some day, but not by an application that replicates what it already does. Facebook's replacement will be decentralized and open source. It won't depend on massive amounts of infrastructure.

Fun, related fact. Before the Internet became ubiquitous, computer nerds would congregate on what were called bulletin board systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system

These were privately ran hobby platforms for people who were really, really into computing. In addition to these there were commercial versions, such as Compuserve

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/CARLSON/history/compuserve.htm

And AOL

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/CARLSON/history/compuserve.htm

And others. The thing is, when you joined these online service providers you entered a restricted environment where communicating with people who used another provider was impossible. None of the providers saw any reason to cooperate with each other because the goal was to get people to join there service. That's were the revenue came from. So, if you were on Compuserve and wanted to communicate with someone on Prodigy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_(online_service)) you had to join Prodigy. Even after the advent of the Internet, with its SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Mail_Transfer_Protocol) they were reluctant to enable communication to other services. Eventually they had to as users began to leave them for services that did allow them to communicate with people not on their platforms. Before the Internet these services were viable because the computers people had at home were very limited, you connected using a modem and most of the processing was done on the mainframe servers you were connecting to. As home computers became more advanced and online connections became faster there was less need for that model, which is where AOL came in. You loaded the software on your PC and most of the processing was local. In addition, it gave you access to various services unique to itself, and it organized everything. In the days before search engines, where finding things on the Internet often involved getting on Usenet and searching out lists of ftp sites, that wasn't an inconsequential feature.

But then everything shifted. Home computers became even faster, broadband access to the Internet became available, tools for navigating the Internet became available, and the Internet matured. So, while AOL and Compuserve still exist, they no longer function as gateways to the Internet. There aren't any gateways to the Internet any longer. Not sure if this is true any longer, but at one time the primary access to the Internet in Japan was via smart phones. No need for a tcp/ip connection. Just a data plan.

So, the point of this is that at some point things are going to shift again and Facebook will be replaced and people will look back and be astounded that anyone could have thought that it was going to last.; 2/23/18, 5:17 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Kylie is a new mother.

Just going on this, I’m enthusiastically predicting she’s going to be a great mom.; 2/23/18, 6:50 AM
Ron Winkleheimer said...: Having thought about it for a bit, I think that Facebook's functionality could be replicated with a peer-to-peer interface. With the now ubiquitous fast network connections to the Internet, increasingly common cloud computing, and Web Services, putting together an interface that allows people to share their cat videos and kid's photos with each other should not require going through a centralized service that makes money by mining your info and selling it to marketers. The advantage would be no ads.

It would allow individual computers to be nodes, in effect you would serve your information up yourself. You wouldn't need to put it on Facebook so that Facebook could serve it up. But, it would also allow larger nodes to be a part of the network. Say the NYT wants to join, they lease some Web Services (maybe from AWS, it doesn't matter) and serve up ads along with the "news" that's fine. Nobody has to peruse your sight if they don't want to. We are talking more of a protocol than a particular program. And, in fact there are protocols/programs that do pretty much that already.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer

It just that nobody has used them to create a social media environment, to my knowledge.; 2/23/18, 7:06 AM
F said...: I've definitely stopped using Twitter.; 2/23/18, 8:54 AM
Qwinn said...: Inga posts that she is no longer commenting on the Althouse blog.

Althouse blog traffic spikes to previously unknown levels.; 2/23/18, 5:30 PM