Alexis Ohanian calls for more social media authenticity

Alexis Ohanian calls for more social media authenticity

PanARMENIAN.Net - Reddit co-founder and executive chairman Alexis Ohanian says the next wave of social media will be driven by people’s need for more authentic connections, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Ohanian is of Armenian descent, and his father, Chris Ohanian, was an Armenian-American who whose ancestors were Armenian Genocide survivors. He has a German-born mother, Anke.

Often, he said, people use current social platforms to create highly filtered and curated versions of themselves. To illustrate the point he shared a photo of a bowl of soup with his audience at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Tuesday, October 3. Ohanian confessed that he spent about 10 minutes composing the shot of his meal, a bowl of the Vietnamese noodle soup, Pho.

He said it’s OK to construct and share such filtered versions of ourselves, but that the digital equivalent of bragging at a cocktail party isn’t enough to sustain social media or its users over the long run. “Social will move toward authenticity … we want conversation,” he told the audience.

The idea of authenticity is woven into his view of startups and innovation. He urged the audience not to worry about failure or less-than-perfect beginnings, sharing screenshots of early versions of Facebook and Twitter. “The first version of everything is going to be janky, and that’s okay. It will evolve,” he said.

The key is to create something that people want to use. Reddit wasn’t founded with a grand vision but with a desire to create something of value to users, he said.

 Top stories
Yerevan will host the 2024 edition of the World Congress On Information Technology (WCIT).
Rustam Badasyan said due to the lack of such regulation, the state budget is deprived of VAT revenues.
Krisp’s smart noise suppression tech silences ambient sounds and isolates your voice for calls.
Gurgen Khachatryan claimed that the "illegalities have been taking place in 2020."
Partner news
---