Is Social Media dead? Unc and Phew take us through the paces of this dynamic and wide-ranging conversation about the current state of Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat and the other major social platforms that have consumed so many of us…

Show Notes

• It takes work to under-prepare and under-perform like we do week after week and show after show [1:02]
• Twitter was everything for Unc back in the day [2:43]
• In Unc’s first year on Twitter, he averaged 43 Tweets per day [2:43]
• Political misdeeds of Twitter [3:50]
• As reported in the Washington Post, Twitter getting rid of (maybe) alt-right people like Milo Yiannopoulos [4:45]
• As reported in the New York Times, Leslie Jones getting trolled for her role in Ghostbusters; Twitter started deleting Tweets surrounding the controversy surrounding this movie [5:45]
• Yahoo’s disastrous acquisition of Tumblr [7:56]
• The decline of Klout; Unc did a podcast about Klout six years ago [8:15]
• Foursquare dying and staying afloat by licensing its location technology [9:00]
• Phew used to me a MAJOR user of Foursquare [9:20]
• In October, Twitter announced it was closing Vine [11:00]
• Gary Vaynerchuk once made a Vine for Unc [11:50]
• Single source that sort of sums much of this up [13:03]

London-based data collection company SimilarWeb studied the habits of Android users across the world, to monitor the changing popularity of social media apps. The study looked at data from nine countries, comparing app data from the first three months of this year compared to the same time last year. ‘Across the board, people are spending less time on their Social Media apps,’ said Pavel Tuchinsky,a marketing analyst at SimilarWeb. In almost all countries, time spent on the four leading social media apps, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter had fallen. Most countries spent less time on Facebook compared to last year, with the exception of Germany where the time was roughly the same last year compared to this. In almost all countries, time spent on the four leading social media apps, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter had fallen.

• Snapchat’s own projections on Mashable [14:30]
• Final example: Google + [15:30]
• Unc once interviewed Brad Horowitz, the man who ran Google+; Unc had to Google himself interviewing Horowitz to even REMEMBER THE NAME OF GOOGLE PLUS [15:50]
• Social media becoming a burden? [17:20]
• About Unc’s background in social media [18:15]
  • Joined Twitter in 2009
  • Racked up 55K followers
  • Went on a national speaking tour talking about Social Media
  • Co-authored a book on the use of Social Media in real estate
  • Co-authored several other books that included social media as a key component of the publication
  • Started a Facebook group five years ago that is about to cross the 20,000 member mark
  • Was called a “Kingpin of Facebook Real Estate Groups” in a national media publication
  • Named to several “most influential in social media” lists
  • Endorsed by the New York Times for his work in social media
• Angst and vitriol surrounding the election cycle [20:15]
• Everyone is on social media all the time [20:50]
• Social media has become a chore [21:40]
• “My feed is full of nothing but bullshit” [23:05]
• One of the best decisions Unc made: blocking certain people [24:05]
• The drudgery factor of maintaining human relationships [25:50]
• The upside of social media: Sean Carpenter [26:40]
• Phew friends with Adam James [26:50]
• Nearly killing relationships with innocent posts [28:30]
• Hyper-sensitive social justice-ism [29:20]
• The impact of bots [32:30]
• Other reasons social media is dying [34:40]
• The rise of fake journalism [36:10]
• Is Snopes objective any longer? [37:10]
• The death of journalism; our podcast “RIP Journalism” has reached over 450,000 people [39:45]
• How is the average person to discern fact from fiction? [40:40]
• For the first time, Unc’s social experience feels like it’s declining [42:35]
• For the first time, there was NOT EVEN A DISCUSSION within our family about a Thanksgiving gathering [44:20]
• It’s so easy, when you’re not face to face, to NOT use the doctrine of charity [48:15]
• The podcast we did on what’s happening on what’s happening on college campuses today [52:15]
• This whole insane idea of “safe spaces” [53:15]
• What is a “safe space?” – I’m really asking 54:35]
• The KKK would be fine with that [59:30]
• The videos on our college campus podcast page [1:01:00]
• Are we heading toward a BREXIT experience in social media? [1:01:25]
• Maybe this too will pass? [1:04:20]

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