Snap introduced ephemeral messages to the world. Every social company copied/adapted to this model.
But did anybody ask – Should every story expire in 24hrs? We did at Markk – & this seemingly trivial product tweak is bringing in 1000s of users.
The idea behind disappearing stories was to ensure
1) its fun (& not stressful) to share every moment of life ‘with friends’
2) you dont worry much about things staying on internet forever (especially relevant in today cancel culture world)
This works beautifully for Snap which is primarily a closed group friend network.
The other UX that everybody discovered was the great full screen auto play experience of stories. A chronological way to share life moments. Great story telling. This for me is one of the key defining UX changes in social that Snap enabled.
As Instagram, Linkedin, Whatsapp etc introduced this – there was massive adoption. BUT People now shared everything in stories – Many aspects which could very well stay & benefit their network.
Why did this happen?
- Great viewing experience (story telling)
- Easy UX to post
- Higher chances of getting noticed (beat the feed clutter & algorithms of social media)
But this means a lot of useful information gets lost in 24hrs. You thinking why not do a post (which stays forever)?
The Instagram post (that you see in your feed) is probably one of the worst UX!
- No full screen (seriously!?)
- Does not auto play – Carousel in todays world!?
- Only one caption for all pics – Which apart from getting lost in feed, completely discourages story telling
I trust my network the most & always pick places they recommend. I see friends daily sharing so many amazing places but never find them when I need them. Even if they do add to post (on Instagram), or tweet it, it is impossible to find among all the clutter of selfies, family pics, cats, bdays, etc.
This key insight led us to do two things at Markk
- Let the story view be the primary form of consumption.
- Which in turn is the best story telling experience for creators
- Place only focus removes the pressure of these stories not disappearing
And our Markker’s love it!
Not only does our life revolve around places but we also have opinions on places we visit.
Markk beautifully enables this emotion. Come join me & 1000s of others and discover the beautiful way of sharing your place stories