Follow the Behavior

Sometimes, I feel like “futurists” bully people into accepting that some technology or another is going to change everything. A lot of times, what’s a lot more true is that some technology will have an impact on some people in some ways. Because what I see more often is that technology that changes everything just feels like “one day, I noticed it everywhere.”

I forget who was talking about this on here. Could’ve been Marcus or Joe or Ron or.. you? But the idea was basically: “follow the teen.”

Follow the Behavior

Do you know why YouTube and TikTok are great? Because you can make stuff that only your friends find funny. Or you can make mashes of weird things. You can make it fit your interests, instead of try to emulate the real world. My 17 year old makes little bits that NO ONE would likely think are funny, but that make me laugh. Example. His friends find that the pinnacle of funny.

The behavior here is: inside jokes. It’s so old and tribal that it’s easy to understand. We love a platform that lets us share things in a very personable way.

The problem is this: the people who employ all kinds of humans and have to show a profit and all that have to operate a completely different model. YouTube sells ads. All the big media platforms make their money that way. What’s good for the platform is rarely what’s good for the people who are bringing the traffic.

With any technology, the best way to start to figure out if it will take off is to answer the question: “What behavior does this facilitate?”

Increasingly Inside

Many many many humans are lamenting the fact that the younger generation (in general) doesn’t seem to stay outside for very long. Their friends are on their device. If you go outside to ride your bike, you’re solo and out of the loop of your friends until you stop and pull out your little rectangle of glass. If they’re online gaming or streaming, you’re out without any way to be part of that.

And when they’re inside, they’re looking for fun interactions. That’s why a lot of the larger intentions of Metaverse are lost on younger folk in general. They already had Roblox and it worked just fine. Minecraft was good enough. If you want it a bit more fancy, Fortnite. VR Chat. Etc. But beyond that, just randomly floating around a world where there’s not much to do hasn’t quite caught on.

Nor is it likely that YOU like it a whole lot, because “walking around” isn’t all that interesting. (I’m still holding out hope that Mitch Jackson and team make it more fun somehow.)

Is “outside” less fun? That’s the wrong question: “How do I interact with my friends?”

Another reason adults aren’t all that super into Metaverse normally is that we’ve just gone through a few years of intense Zoom fatigue. A Metaverse I can use as a way to augment Zoom would be fun. (Disclosure: I’m an investor in such a product.)

Shorter Form, More Intimate

I started this post pointing to the fact that my son loves to post very brief videos. That’s what TikTok excels at, also. That’s YouTube shorts. That’s Reels. And Stories. All those other things. We like short form because we don’t need the whole “meal” to be entertained. We can be happy with just a bite.

Similarly, even though we get some happiness from the big platforms, a lot of people are sneaking over to small communities.

I’m a giant fan of mini social networks. Have you seen what Gina Bianchini’s Mighty Networks did the other day? You can launch a community using AI in just a few seconds. Little bitty places like that might end up being where people go.

Does the “Next Big Thing” Matter Much?

For a lot of us, we don’t really have to follow the next big thing. We should probably know some of the larger trends. But a lot of what people try to drag you towards won’t really impact you all that much.

AI? Yes. But most of the hype right now will boil away. So even that, kinda.

Follow the behavior. Pay the least attention you can to people who stand to benefit from a trend. Instead, ask yourself, “Will the people I need to interact with see themselves using this?” I feel like that gets you to the places you want to go faster than listening to the hype lords.

Gotta run. I’m burning through all my AI credits drawing using space robots.

Chris…