The changing social media landscape
The social media space is flooded with content vehicles and it appears that more are popping up each day. Stalwarts like Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter are well established in the space and are ingrained in users’ everyday routines, and newer sites like Pinterest and Instagram have fared well in the space as they are meeting niche needs that other sites had yet to solely drill into. Pheed is a new entrant to the space, attempting to be an all-encompassing site that’s touted to be a threat to Twitter. But does it really have a shot at doing well in this market or will it be swallowed up by one of the heavy weights?
Pheed’s selling points are that it allows users to create their own channel in which there are no restrictions to the type of content they can post, including videos, pictures, text, live broadcasts and audio. Users can then share their content with friends and invite them to subscribe to their channel in order to receive updates when new content is posted. The service is free, channel creators can also monetize this medium by charging users for a monthly subscription in order to gain access to exclusive content regarding new product launches, content or giveaways.
Why Pheed? About that…
In my opinion, I can’t see a clearly defined need for Pheed. It sounds like a personal YouTube channel that’s interspersed with my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter timeline. Having the ability to merge all of this content in one space is ideal, but that need is already met by social media aggregators like the Friend Stream app on my Android. Why go through the effort of persuading friends and followers to a new site when the individual entities are working just fine?
The site could pan out well for musicians and high-profile celebrities who create their own channels and provide new content for free or at a small charge to followers; in this way they can focus on creating quality material and providing it to their most dedicated fans – for example, Miley Cyrus created her own Pheed channel that drew in 10,000 visitors almost instantaneously. But followers would have to be extremely dedicated to shell out a fee each month to access this content. In that regard, I don’t think Twitter will be usurped by Pheed and it will continue to hold its own in the social media space.
