Bugle 2/9: Murder clones and other tactics
Instagram grapples with BeReal. Everyone grapples with TikTok. Do Gen Z's really love long form video? And finally, you can edit that Tweet.
I don’t normally geek out on the latest twists and turns in social media, but a whole load of headlines came my way this week, and I just couldn’t resist..
TL; DR
Instagram is launching a ‘murder clone’ of BeReal
Copying features is the way of the world. We should ask about it in PM interviews.
The question is how you integrate new offers. YouTube Shorts good. Facebook gaming not so much.
Video essays are a thing, and they’re YouTube’s. But they’re not going to stop disruption by TikTok.
Why Twitter’s edit function is a good example of product management at scale.
There are lessons for the rest of us.
Talent imitates, Genius creates murder clones.
Of the many questions that product managers get asked in interviews, there’s one I’ve never seen crop up, but really should be in there if you’re going to reflect the reality of product life: ‘Tell me about a time when you’ve copied a competitor’s feature - what were the challenges? How did you try to make it look like it was your own?’
The thought was sparked this week by the news that no sooner has Instagram stumbled in its latest attempt to be more-TikTok, it’s having a go at trying to be more-BeReal, with ‘IG Candid’ or what The Verge eloquently labels ‘a murder clone’
If you haven’t seen BeReal - it has two main features. 1) You and your friends do a single update once a day; and 2) It takes pics using both cameras (something Instagram has already appropriated). And it’s been growing like mad for the last few months.
Meanwhile Twitter is now rolling out Circles - which is similar to some of the thinking behind Snap’s ‘Private Stories’ (although I’m sure they wouldn’t see it that way).
There’s nothing really wrong with pinching/ emulating/ copying features. First because most ideas are adaptations rather than true originals.
In his excellent book the Runaway Species, David Eagleman looks at how ‘ideas’ are often Bends, Breaks, or Blends of other ideas.
Sometimes too ‘clones’ just happen because similar people working at similar organisations read similar signals in a similar way.
For all the talk of strategic moats, so few features are really hard to copy. And social networks - even the biggest - are always at risk of stagnation or decline.
So ‘murder clones’ are the natural response of suitably paranoid players spotting a trend and saying to their users ‘you really need to know that they don’t need to go there for “x” - they can do it right here! Please!’
That said - there’s a point where those same users might see exactly what you’re doing and not like it..
Still it’s all about the execution (which is why I recommend it as an interview question) and what’s often harder though is when you’re copying something, the question is where do you put it. Which brings us to..
Facebook Gaming - dead, or just resting?
Facebook Gaming launched in 2018 as an ‘emulation’ of Twitch and it’s play along side YouTube gaming and Microsoft’s Mixer (which folded and merged with Facebook’s offering).
Anyway - this week Facebook announced they will be closing their gaming app in October - although the web offering is staying live, and you’ll now be able to find it in the main Facebook app. Just as you can find YouTube gaming in the main YouTube app.
For Twitch this was clearly less of a murder clone and at best a minor irritant. For the rest of us - it’s a lesson that spin off apps rarely work in the long term, best to go the hard yards of integrating with your core experience.
Which brings us to..
YouTube: Shorts and Longs
YouTube made a bit of noise a few weeks ago about the uptake of its own TikTok-ism: Google Shorts (1.5bn monthly viewers - or 3/4 of their total audience).
One one level that’s a great result - helped by them putting shorts very front and centre.
This was really a triumph of integration rather than innovation. Still impressive though.
The idea is 100% TikTok, but the hard work (and I can only imagine how hard it was) was making it fit within the main YT - include a space on the bottom nav, the second rail on the home page and sorting out the interactions between portrait and landscape video. They made it very hard to miss - which shows just how seriously they take the TikTok threat (and so they should).
I wonder if they can ever make it work visually on the web, because it’s not really lovely. Or if they’ve decided that’s a problem that’s just not worth solving. (Asking on behalf of a million media owners who have got into video only to realise they now have to work out how to do it in a portrait format..)
For all the achievement of YouTube Shorts, and despite the fact that YouTube remains one of the wonders of the digital world, it’s hard to argue anything other than the fact that they’re being totally disrupted by TikTok (in the true Clayton Christensen sense of disruption).
There are three teens in our house - and plenty passing through - and all have really left YouTube behind for TikTok for 90% of their (seemingly permanent) video guzzling time.
All except for one thing - video essays. And this week Google however put out a news story this week that actually long form video essay is a big thing among Gen Z. They say..
Video essays – typically running 25 minutes to an hour long – are also gaining in popularity. In video essays, creators talk at length about topics ranging from history and science to fashion and philosophy.
“We've seen a consistent rise over the last three years of people searching for video essays on YouTube,” said Nicolas Szmidt, a Google expert in YouTube culture. “The topic is surging now as people are clamouring for more in-depth information about subjects they are passionate about.”
It’s actually all part of a great big long survey on YouTube Culture and Trends done for YouTube by Ipsos: ‘Pop Culture just got Even More Personal’, which is one of those bits of research peppered with large percentage numbers that ad sales teams will be using for months. Anyway - a sample video essay, if you’re wondering..
Like I said there are three Gen-Zs in our house. One loves video essays, the other two think they are ‘only for neeks’. They’re a phenomenon, but it’s a bit like the growth of vinyl while the world is moving to streaming. You want it to be the mainstream story, but it’s at best a niche interest.
That Twitter Edit function is going live!
Obviously the main thing happening at Twitter is some trial or other, but for many - much bigger than that is the fact that the Edit function is now about to go live
Oh, and it seems they’re finally starting to roll out the starting to roll out the Edit function.
Ages ago I wrote about how this is a great example of large scale product management in practice
Exec level involvement
Simple idea - but needs intricate execution
Good judgement will have to do where there’s no data
Measurement of success will be ambiguous
People will complain about it on Twitter
Actually - I think the last point might not be true. As the mix of a limited time window and an edit history will save that. I think the biggest question everyone will now ask is why didn’t we do it sooner. Sometimes, the obvious stuff is also right.
So what?
It’s easy to see the above as a series of moves in some game of giant Big Tech chess. But there’s plenty of lessons here about product strategy for the rest of us.
A lot of what’s written about product strategy implies a relatively clean and tidy world where you get to speak to your customers and make your own decisions about what’s right.
In reality, as the saying goes, the enemy too has a vote and being able to react rapidly to the competitive environment, and especially shifts in user/ customer expectation is critical.
The first challenge is to accept there’s a problem.
The next is to commit to acting on it.
The final challenge is to execute in a way that you’re making as much as possible of whatever strengths you’ve got (which is why integration with a core product is often such a big part of it).
And sometimes - as with Twitter’s edit function - you just have to accept that that thing that customers have been asking for for ages, and you had really good reasons for not delivering. Well, it’s never too late to change your mind..