I recently read about a new social media website called “Unthink”. My immediate thoughts were that the name sounded like something right of “1984”, and “Great, another social media website.” I have been wondering what would be the new Facebook, since we had the Xanga-Myspace-Facebook progression in a short 6 or 8 years. But evidently those two thoughts were completely wrong! Number one, it’s quite different from the pattern of “1984”. Whereas the novel covers strict rules and limitations in decision making and even personal thinking, Unthink is about revolution and denying norms and standards. It’s based in the idea that “We can bring the change we wish to see in the world”. And, as the news article described, it’s quite opposed to Facebook and the way they run. Upthink creators strive for it to be “everything Facebook and Google are not.” A large component of this goal is privacy. “Facebook and Google both collect information about users to tailor advertising to them. Privacy concerns have cropped up over various features Facebook has rolled out -- from mobile check-ins to integration with other websites that can make a user's online behavior more public if settings aren't tweaked.” Unthink insists that the information stored on its website will be the property of the user, and not used for their own entrepreneurial or monetary incentives. They’ll even allow you to essentially transfer your Facebook account, photos and all, over to this website where privacy is not to be a question. This does however, come with a bit of a cost. As the article puts it, what is “[Unthink’s] business model for fighting the corporate social-media giants? Corporate sponsorships.” But in keeping with the revolution, they do allow you to choose an available business to support your website, or otherwise pay a $2 annual fee. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and if the website’s creators will have quite the revolution they’re looking for.
This is really interesting. I had not heard of it before. It is cool that they have listened to the complaints that have been made about other social media and actually decided to do something about it. Two dollars is quite cheap for the piece of mind that comes with privacy.
ReplyDelete