In the traditional media industry, some outlets differentiate themselves through quality, but social media hasn’t gotten there yet — there is no “New York Times of social media.” The modern landscape for newspapers and books resulted from centuries of evolution, but “new media” hasn’t yet developed such strong brands and categories.
Social Media Platforms Can Be Built Around Quality, Not Scale
There is no “New York Times of social media.” But there are some social network companies seeking to stake out “high-quality” territory. The most common approaches are to specialize in either high-quality information, or to specialize in deep, emotional relationships. Although there’s surely a user-base for a high-quality social media platform — whether it’s a a “warmer” or “more vulnerable” platform, a “luxury” or “intellectual” platform, or the social equivalent of a trade publication — the challenge is not market demand. It’s the metrics and business model. Quality is always difficult to measure, and the few social firms who have tried to pursue it have struggled to scale. But perhaps scale, in this case, isn’t about creating a massive, Facebook-sized platform; perhaps it’s about a proliferation of smaller, niche platforms.