Lady X said: Web Diva said:

Has Social Media reached it's Peak? Is the end near and we are about to witness a massive transformation away from the attachment to the major social media networks?

We're witnessing the end of social media.

It’s over. Facebook is in decline, Twitter in chaos. Mark Zuckerberg’s empire has lost hundreds of billions of dollars in value and laid off 11,000 people, with its ad business in peril and its metaverse fantasy in irons. Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has caused advertisers to pull spending and power users to shun the platform (or at least to tweet a lot about doing so). It’s never felt more plausible that the age of social media might end—and soon. Hmm, that's interesting. You never really think of these kind of platforms going away, but it makes sense people would slowly taper off as society changes. I feel like it's most likely because the newer generation finds different ways to communicate rather then the most common social medias. Like for example, I mostly use discord, but I almost never find myself on Facebook when it comes to communicating with friends of my same age group. All good points and it's always good to know what sources of media or platforms people like to use the most, as you like discord a lot. What is it about discord that attracts you the most about it? Is it the features, the design, emoji's, or ease of navigation?

I'm not so sure Twitter (aka X) is in decline, it is definitely changing.

Prior to Musk takeover it was very similar to Facebook and Google, all censoring the same subjects, he appears to slowly be transforming it into a media platform with live video broadcasts.

Must admit I am not into blue ticks, subscriptions and paying for extended messages but find it preferable that I am allowed to be grown up enough for me to decide what I wish to view rather than Twitter, Facebook and Youtube deciding on my behalf.

As for advertisers pulling ads, strange old world, when you think of the colossal sums paid during world wide cup final events in order to gain exposure and ultimately customers it is most odd that nowadays companies seem quite happy to often alienate a large portion of their customer base to state something which they really have no need to mention.

Youtube I think is safe for the foreseeable future as they have so much interesting archive video, facebook I am not so sure, Friends Reunited springs to mind for me.

Geffers

Geffers G said: I'm not so sure Twitter (aka X) is in decline, it is definitely changing. Prior to Musk takeover it was very similar to Facebook and Google, all censoring the same subjects, he appears to slowly be transforming it into a media platform with live video broadcasts. Must admit I am not into blue ticks, subscriptions and paying for extended messages but find it preferable that I am allowed to be grown up enough for me to decide what I wish to view rather than Twitter, Facebook and Youtube deciding on my behalf. As for advertisers pulling ads, strange old world, when you think of the colossal sums paid during world wide cup final events in order to gain exposure and ultimately customers it is most odd that nowadays companies seem quite happy to often alienate a large portion of their customer base to state something which they really have no need to mention. Youtube I think is safe for the foreseeable future as they have so much interesting archive video, facebook I am not so sure, Friends Reunited springs to mind for me. Geffers




I agree, X has made huge changes in the way they moderate too. I didn't realize that's how the blue checks work? That's nice that you can be selective of what you want to view, rather then AI prompting you or dangling suggestions to you. I haven't been back to X in awhile. I've been really liking Youtube as of this summer. My husband and I usually have a YouTube hour on Saturday and Sunday and watch what interests us which may vary from finance, comedy, news and travel.



I really don't understand why large companies take sides on issues either which will either elate some people or like you said, alienate some people as they will wish to boycott the website/business for their strong stance on a polarizing issue. I've always much preferred the "not knowing" rather than the "knowing" of a companies politics for example. If I'm a watching sports, give me the sports experience without the agenda. People watch certain programming to escape and take a break from reality, not to be bombarded with current issues in the world.

100% agree, YouTube has some great stuff, plus some rubbish too. The adverts are becoming intrusive but guess they have to make money otherwise why bother to offer the service.

Some creators are brilliant at presentation, definitely some talented private presenters.

Geffers

Geffers G said: 100% agree, YouTube has some great stuff, plus some rubbish too. The adverts are becoming intrusive but guess they have to make money otherwise why bother to offer the service. Some creators are brilliant at presentation, definitely some talented private presenters. Geffers


Agreed. I really appreciate the effort that goes into the presentation of some videos by youtuber's. There are some financial videos we watch that are professionally well done with graphs, visuals, and power point's that are displayed to view while they are talking. Makes it less boring than to watch someone just talk, plus more memorable to associate the visual data with the verbal information. All of that takes so much time and especially time consuming if you don't have a team to do it for you.

Geffers G said: I'm not so sure Twitter (aka X) is in decline, it is definitely changing. Prior to Musk takeover it was very similar to Facebook and Google, all censoring the same subjects, he appears to slowly be transforming it into a media platform with live video broadcasts. Must admit I am not into blue ticks, subscriptions and paying for extended messages but find it preferable that I am allowed to be grown up enough for me to decide what I wish to view rather than Twitter, Facebook and Youtube deciding on my behalf. As for advertisers pulling ads, strange old world, when you think of the colossal sums paid during world wide cup final events in order to gain exposure and ultimately customers it is most odd that nowadays companies seem quite happy to often alienate a large portion of their customer base to state something which they really have no need to mention. Youtube I think is safe for the foreseeable future as they have so much interesting archive video, facebook I am not so sure, Friends Reunited springs to mind for me. Geffers
Seeing the evolution of Twitter, now X, is definitely interesting. There are pros and cons to the change, certainly, though I am glad X has less censorship then Facebook and its corresponding competitors. Some of their actions regarding the topic of censorship in the last few years, has certainly shown them to overstep their control over what we can see and even write.

Geffers G said: 100% agree, YouTube has some great stuff, plus some rubbish too. The adverts are becoming intrusive but guess they have to make money otherwise why bother to offer the service. Some creators are brilliant at presentation, definitely some talented private presenters. Geffers
I really enjoy watching YouTube, and watch it more then I should :p I totally understand YouTube having ads, and at one point it was at what I feel is a reasonable level. Though it seems nowadays the ads are continually getting more intrusive overtime, with YouTube certainly abusing the ad frequency per certain videos. They're clever as well. Sometimes they'll give you two videos, with the first skippable after 5 seconds, though the ad was four seconds. Then the second ad plays. 30 second un-skippable. I get tired of companies taking advantage in any and everyway possible to make money, always at the expense of the consumer. Some users engaged the use of various ad-blocks to counter the escalating ads, but YouTube recently went on a crusade to end adblocking on their platform. They found a way to bypass the usages of popular plugins like AdBlock, uBlock, etc., but they didn't do it well. Some people have reported even when their adblock is disabled for YouTube, YouTube will still block the video from playing, just because they have the adblock, not even that it is being used. It seems rather intense, considering I overhead (but have not double checked), that less then I think either 6% or 0.6% of their users have even used adblockers. I understand why YouTube doesn't want people using adblockers on their website, however, if you're going to employ these methods, at least do it right, instead of writing poor code that doesn't always work as intended at the expense of the watcher.

Individual blocked videos might be able to be played using the following site.

https://www.croxyproxy.com

Advert breaks in UK are used completely differently, the adverts occur during a natural break in the program sequence, at an end of a scene. The break is generally 4 or 5 minutes.

When I've visited US, and of course with US streaming services, I find adverts can occur mid sentence.

Geffers

Lady X said: Seeing the evolution of Twitter, now X, is definitely interesting. There are pros and cons to the change, certainly, though I am glad X has less censorship then Facebook and its corresponding competitors. Some of their actions regarding the topic of censorship in the last few years, has certainly shown them to overstep their control over what we can see and even write.

Geffers said: Agree totally, big tech ( not Twitter) are certainly in lockstep over what users can post about covid, politics, gender opinions and climate change. Twitter appears more open but personally I am a wee bit suspicious of Linda Yaccarino, her comment about freedom of speech is not freedom of reach, is of concern, that is deceitful censorship. Many users do complain of shadow banning, not 100% sure what that is but think it may be connected with how much exposure a message gets.

Had a problem formatting this message, my reply kept showing as quoted text, not completely sure how I resolved it in the end.

Geffers