Text chatrooms and instant messengers were upgraded into audio conferences with (mind-numbing) presentations, and then swiftly moved into virtual meetings with video and the tools needed to manage large-scale participant interaction. These collaborative platforms, once reserved for serious business, have now found their place among many more occasions outside of the corporate boardrooms. Virtual tours, philosophical discussions, town meetings, and even just groups of pandemic socially starved friends have found the new platforms easy enough to use for more casual occasions. Is it time they got a social media makeover?
Longstanding wisdom about the utility of video conferencing never saw the pandemic coming, and they were caught flatfooted when the overnight demand threw the established platforms into disarray. Long designed for corporate use, with a premium price tag to go with it, video conference platforms like Webex, Skype, GotoMeeting, and so many others thought they had the market locked up in neat company sized packages. Little did they know, public schools, town councils, and social action groups would need the same kind of features, but were not willing to pay those enterprise prices. Of course, the free services were the first to get the eyes, and Zoom literally became the standard by popular acclamation.
Now that the format has become familiar to an entire generation of students, and adopted by their parents who had to become overnight experts, the mass meeting craze is ready to take it's place in the more casual social scene. Event hosting could potentially turn into a live version of interactive forums attended by strangers that stumbled upon something mildly interesting. To be honest, the media types should all be familiar. Audio and Video events will continue to be the main platforms. However, the intent, interactivity, and method of invitation is about to be transformed.
YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram are all social media companies, and all have some form of the live feed feature. It is mostly a novelty and currently used for random video footage of something interesting to the poster. In the days to come, expect these to morph into something more specialized, curated, and ratings measured. Political debates, concerts, and even silly games will become much more common. More importantly, provider lock will start to dissolve. It won't just be a Facebook feed, it will be a generic feed accessible via Facebook, Instagram, or Zoom, for example.
Twitch is a platform that was just a little ahead of it's time, but the features it embraced are poised to be readily available for larger audiences. It is the foremost streaming platform for gamers. It is subdivided into specific interest groups (games), easy to find live streams, top ranked streamers prominently featured, easy interaction among viewers, excellent reporting and sentiment analysis, and simple joins and exits keep the audience entertained without too much overhead. Imagine the power of this platform when social justice activists start hosting their grassroots organizing events, sunday funday groups brunching together, and hobbyists discussing the latest products find their place among the masses in a social media universe where spelling and grammar no longer matters. (Gulp)