The decline of Snapchat and the secret joy of internet ghost towns

Copycat: How Facebook Tried to Squash Snapchat

In an excerpt from a new book on Snapchat, Billy Gallagher explains how Facebook fought back against a tiny rival's challenge.

The year we wanted the internet to be smaller

Why tiny, weird online communities made a comeback in 2017

Learn from Facebook’s Informal Motto of “Don’t be too proud to copy” - Tekedia

This is a Short Note. Facebook is making sure no one has a chance to challenge its dominance in social media. Any social media app or ecosystem that shows any element of competitive capability must be nipped at the bud. So, it copes Snapchat and it does it so cleverly that you cannot mistake the […]

Gchat Was the Future of Messaging, But Google Didn’t Know What It Had

Everyone has been talking about Slack lately. The chat app, which is primarily aimed at offices and productivity, is simple, well designed, fun to use,...

Shifts in U.S. Social Media Use, 2020–2024: Decline, Fragmentation, and Enduring Polarization

The social media ecosystem appears to be in flux. Twitter’s rebranding to X has come to symbolize a broader reorganization of online publics – political reshuffling, user attrition, and uncertainty over the role of legacy platforms. Simultaneously, the shift from text-based, networked feeds toward algorithmically curated, short-form video has accelerated, with TikTok setting the pace for the wider ecosystem [18, 14, 16]. At the same time, everyday communication increasingly migrates from large, open networks to semi-private spaces such as group chats and messaging apps. Commentators describe a digital public sphere in transition: smaller, more fragmented, less dominated by traditional social networking sites, and rise of more broadcast-oriented forms of media – with some even suggesting that we are seeing the beginning of the end of the social media era.

Facebook and the Cost of Monopoly

Facebook gave one of the worst keynotes in a long time: there was no vision, just the adoption of Snap’s. It’s the inevitable outcome of a monopoly.

Social Media Experiences Across Nearly 2 Years Since Launching the Social Media Index

With new data through January 2025, we find that social media use is decreasing, bad experiences are mostly holding steady, and positive experiences are increasing on some platforms

The fall... and rise and rise and rise of chat networks

From CompuServe to Telegram, chat has come a long way—and it's just getting started.

Project 'Ghostbusters': Facebook secretly spied on Snapchat data, docs allege

New docs from a monopoly lawsuit shed light on Facebook's "Ghostbusters" project.

Blue Skies Ahead: Social Media's Quiet User Revolution

In a digital landscape increasingly defined by user concerns over privacy and control, a quiet revolution is taking shape.

Minimum Viable Infrastructure

Minimum Viable Infrastructure Innovation often emerges not solely from brilliant ideas but from the infrastructure readiness that makes those ideas viable. Consider the progression of mobile consumer internet applications over the past two decades: Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok. Their lau...

How The Enshittification Of Social Media Is Decreasing The Switching Costs And Enabling Something New

In the last few weeks I’ve written about how Elon Musk’s “changes” to how Twitter is running have done an amazing job convincing people to join Mastodon. And I’ve also…

What happened when this tech company stopped using Slack on Fridays - Fast Company

The social media platform wanted to see if they can be more focused and productive when there aren't endless Slack notifications.

Freedom of movement in digital Europe

Leaving a platform should not mean losing your network. Builders' joint position paper on opening the social internet up to competition. Read it and sign on.

Logged off: meet the teens who refuse to use social media

Generation Z has grown up online – so why are a surprising number suddenly turning their backs on Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat?