#network platforms

We all (read marketers, brands, so-called influencers) want our audiences to share more.

The challenge is the more they share, the more difficult it becomes to find the stuff that matters. Hijacked by the open graph, drowned out by the sponsored posts and lost amidst autoplay videos, signals become increasingly hard to decipher from the noise.

In short, network news feeds start becoming an anonymous junkyard of everything online.

To mitigate this and to cater to different demographics, network platforms seek refuge in classic unbundling.  It keeps the audience engaged and creates more advertising nodes for brands to target.

• Interested in instant messaging - use our messenger service
  
• Interested in pictures - here is our camera app
  

and so it goes….

Sharing is crucial for growth when it is within the context of interpersonal influence. Ironically though, an integrated platform approach makes this untenable, since the influence factor weakens tremendously.

Why?

Because, 

• Influence needs sharing
  
• sharing needs interpersonal context
  
• an integrated platform often loses interpersonal context
  

So after watching five cat videos on autoplay, followed by the best memes of the game last night, and the ad on how to earn $10,000 a month from home doing nothing- interpersonal signals can be difficult to harness.

For sharing to drive signals (and thereby influence), network platforms need disintegration, unlike SaaS platforms where sometimes an integrated approach can drive better customer lock-ins with higher aggregated LTV.

Which then brings us to the literal billion dollar question - 

Will the Snapchat redesign work?

Evan Spiegel wants to split social from media, which is tricky, because the media (investment dollars) is based on the stickiness of social on the same platform (UX)/newsfeed.