I remember asked my dad once why he quit his job at the city newspaper. Both my parents had been journalists there before social media took off. He’d left to become a documentary director instead.
His answer was simple: “The future of information isn’t going to come from authority agencies anymore. People will get information directly from other people. There won’t be one center of information—everyone on the internet becomes a center. And it’s instant. Newspapers are too slow to keep up with digital media.”
He was right. Years later, the building that used to be the headquarters of that major newspaper group in downtown Shenzhen got sold off piece by piece. New tech and internet companies moved in replaced the old mainstream.
The Shift
What my dad was talking about is definition of
social media from Harjeet Gulati:
The content ownership in traditional media continued to be with the “publishers” of content—the production houses, newspapers, TV channels, and radio stations. Content Owners/Publishers, the Channel, and the Consumers were clearly differentiated. As the Web continued to evolve, the term “Social Media” has come to dominate the discussion.
What This Means for Design
The dot-com bust forced companies to take usability seriously. And I think the decentralized nature of social media will pushing things to user-centered design eventually.
Social media and community products don’t revolve around the operators. They revolve around the users. They have to, or people leave.
I believe this trend will continue. Future design should be more inclusive, incorporating users’ diversity and agency instead of just deciding things for them.