Social media is dead. Long live social media!

This article from The Atlantic does a great job telling the history of how the web and platforms evolved from standalone sites to networks to whatever you call this algorithm-fuelled, infotainment, “social media” soup. It’s also a good reminder that, eventually, change comes to everyone and everything and I believe the current form of social media is about to undergo its next evolutionary change.

I’m confident I’ll get a lot of this wrong but, all the same, I’m willing to risk making some predictions about what people will want in their experience on a social platform:

• More choice/control over who can see and comment on what you share
• Less tolerance for abuse, especially from bots and anonymous accounts
• A return to focus on the core offering of a platform instead of diluting it by tacking on trendy features (Stories on LinkedIn, anyone?)

Again, I fully expect to be wrong about my specific predictions but, in light of layoffs in tech over the past year and growing revenue challenges for social platforms, I’m confident that change is going to come.

Image credit: Getty; The Atlantic