Where does Post News come from?
On November 14, ironically on Twitter, Noam Bardin announced the launch in test (“beta”) mode of a brand new social network, Post News.
Little known to the general public, Noam Bardin, 51, was vice-president, products at Google from 2013 to 2021. During this mandate, from 2017, he was also big boss (“Chief Wazer”) of Waze, which has been owned by Google since 2013.
The undisclosed funding was provided by venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z. The paradox is that this fund also provided 400 million US for the purchase of Twitter by Musk. The a16z crypto fund is also a major investor in cryptocurrencies and web3, with fundraising totaling US$7.6 billion in nine years. Mr. Bardin denied being “a big fan” of cryptocurrencies.
“Post News, as we can see, is really anchored in a functional capitalist system, notes Laurence Grondin-Robillard, doctoral student in communication at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) and lecturer at the School of Media. I find it opportunistic. It’s not necessarily negative, but I would have waited a bit before the launch. »
What is the basic concept?
First, like Twitter, it’s a thread where you can post messages, subscribe to certain accounts whose posts you can forward to your own followers, approve them with a thumbs-up or start a discussion. But we quickly note two fundamental differences: we can give a “tip” (tip) to the author of a publication, and the latter may, upon publication, ask interested parties for a sum to be paid, in points, so that they can read it. These points can be obtained by paying by credit card or received from other users. One point is simply 1¢ US. When we have accumulated 5000, or US$50, we can cash them out through an intermediary, Stripe.
SCREENSHOT
Example of creating a paid publication
A scan of our Post feed didn’t find many paid posts, which still seem very rare. Reuters, in particular, asks for 5 or 3 points for certain news.
SCREENSHOT
A paid publication of Reuters
And that’s all ? Posts for redeemable points?
No way. That’s just the mechanics of Post. The philosophy of this new social network was summarized by one of its senior officials, Andrew Zalk. It is “a place for people to discover, watch, discuss and share quality news content without subscriptions or advertising”.
Although there is more innocuous content, such as health wishes for the holidays or jokes about pets, the majority of the posts relate to current events.
The other main principle, obviously in the context where Twitter allows formerly banned content, is to avoid publications deemed toxic. “Posters”, the name given to subscribers to this network, can signal their disagreement, but without denigrating their interlocutor or insulting them for their gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity.
For meme Grondin-Robillard, who was able to open his account this Thursday, all is not rosy. She flushed out after extensive research the platform’s data use policies, which seem suspicious to her. “There is a lot of data collection. They use as many as the others, but they don’t have ads. Who are they going to sell them to? »
And moderation is effective?
Founder Noam Bardin recognizes this in several publications, the challenge is daunting. “It’s a game of cat and mouse,” he wrote. Bad players in our space have had 15 years to hone their skills. He asks Posters to report any offensive posts, and not to encourage their authors. “If you come across a troll on the loose, report it and ignore it, don’t engage [dans un échange avec lui]. »
This is one of the reasons why we have deliberately restricted access to Post since its launch. As of December 21, the most recent report shows a waiting list of 610,000 people who have applied for an account, and 309,000 who have been accepted. 60 hours after his request, the author of these lines was finally able to obtain an account. Post News is still in its infancy and many features, including a mobile app and a premium content feed, are still in the works.
Is Post News really threatening Twitter?
We have 309,000 accepted subscribers on one side and 259.4 million daily users on the other, on Twitter, according to the latest report delivered by Elon Musk on November 22… A month after its birth, Post is no longer clearly not in the same league. But another rival, Mastodon, has had explosive growth, jumping from 300,000 users in October to 2.5 million on December 20, according to a post by its founder, Eugen Rochko. Another social network, Hive Social, also took advantage of the Twitter storm to reach one million users, it announced on November 21.
The verdict of Laurence Grondin-Robillard: “I will stay, but with reservations. I try to be careful. I wouldn’t tell people who want to leave Twitter to go to Post. She noted, for example, that Post has created empty shells, unused accounts for some outlets like the New Yorker where we invite the “Posters” to subscribe to convince these publishers to be active on the new social network. Without a single publication, the account of the New Yorker already has 22,410 subscribers. “I don’t like this aggressive technique to get media. »