This is a truly fantastic and well-written article that perfectly paints the business - and human/social model - of creating successful digital platforms.
"Streaming, on the other hand, upends that formula. To put it in television terms, every streamer is a channel. But the more important thing is that every streamer is also the nexus of their own social network — the community they’re working to cultivate. That secondary social network is powered by the larger, primary one: the site the streamer is using to broadcast. And then there are the other broadcasters that the streamer interacts with, which itself makes up a third, distributed network of potential community and audience members. Each platform, too, has its own language and culture, which are esoteric at first but eventually come to symbolize in-group belonging."
I'd argue that there is greater ambiguity about a creator's community than the author lets on, though. While a creator should do everything they can to make sure their audiences walk a moral path, life is not binary. There is tremendous accountability on the platforms themselves to create the correct incentives for healthy communities to thrive. Like ReadUp!
This is a truly fantastic and well-written article that perfectly paints the business - and human/social model - of creating successful digital platforms.
"Streaming, on the other hand, upends that formula. To put it in television terms, every streamer is a channel. But the more important thing is that every streamer is also the nexus of their own social network — the community they’re working to cultivate. That secondary social network is powered by the larger, primary one: the site the streamer is using to broadcast. And then there are the other broadcasters that the streamer interacts with, which itself makes up a third, distributed network of potential community and audience members. Each platform, too, has its own language and culture, which are esoteric at first but eventually come to symbolize in-group belonging."
I'd argue that there is greater ambiguity about a creator's community than the author lets on, though. While a creator should do everything they can to make sure their audiences walk a moral path, life is not binary. There is tremendous accountability on the platforms themselves to create the correct incentives for healthy communities to thrive. Like ReadUp!