Post by @_elena@mastodon.social

I'm pleased to see that my deep dive on #WSocial is still making the rounds. ICYMI:

🔗 : https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/

The biggest latest development since publication is that its CEO Anna Zeiter was caught misrepresenting their user numbers during a high profile interview with the German TV channel SWR.

On May 28th Zeiter said they've been onboarding about 100-200 new users a day. Except: the whole PDS has 293 users TOTAL according to https://clearsky.app

Their tagline is "Trust your feed"!

2 media

a screenshot of the transcript of Zeiter's interview for SWR where she says (at 10:40): "We’re already letting users onto the platform—about 100 to 200 per day. And we’re going to scale that up a bit now. That was a deliberate decision on our part. We don’t want to let 50,000 people in on June 17, when the beta version is officially launched in Brussels with a press conference, and have the servers crash—instead, we want to do this all deliberately and step by step, because we also want to learn."

source: https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/swr1-leute/prof-anna-zeiter-oder-w-social-neue-social-media-plattform-aus-europa/swr/Y3JpZDovL3N3ci5kZS9hZXgvbzIzMjQ0MjE — a screenshot of the transcript of Zeiter's interview for SWR where she says (at 10:40): "We’re already letting users onto the platform—about 100 to 200 per day. And we’re going to scale that up a bit now. That was a deliberate decision on our part. We don’t want to let 50,000 people in on June 17, when the beta version is officially launched in Brussels with a press conference, and have the servers crash—instead, we want to do this all deliberately and step by step, because we also want to learn." source: https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/swr1-leute/prof-anna-zeiter-oder-w-social-neue-social-media-plattform-aus-europa/swr/Y3JpZDovL3N3ci5kZS9hZXgvbzIzMjQ0MjE

ClearSky

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Elena Rossini

The Untold Story About W Social: Unconventional Beginnings, Strategic Pitches and Conflicting Signals

A deep dive into the origin story of W Social, an analysis of the strategic arguments they have been using to appeal to government officials, media companies and advertisers... and the discussion of conflicting signals they have been sending

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Elena Rossini

#wsocial

Fish Id Wardrobe

@[email protected] · 1 hour ago

@_elena
1. insert the standard rant against the stupid idea "wouldn't $network be great if everyone had to use their real name" 🤬

2. i'm no expert but i rather thought that atproto (and certainly interopabiltity with bluesky) was really hard and required a LOT of complex moving parts? the blacksky people were working on it for a *long* time before they got somewhere

Claudius Link

@[email protected] · 6 hours ago

@_elena
Do you have another source of the video?
It is "removed by the uploaded" for me 🥴

Elena Rossini 🌈

@[email protected] · 6 hours ago

@realn2s I can see it here: https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/swr1-leute/prof-anna-zeiter-oder-w-social-neue-social-media-plattform-aus-europa/swr/Y3JpZDovL3N3ci5kZS9hZXgvbzIzMjQ0MjE (just tried from a different computer)

SWR1 Leute: Prof. Anna Zeiter | W Social: Neue Social Media-Plattform aus Europa - hier anschauen

Michael Newton

@mavnn · 9 hours ago

@[email protected] Well, if weren't being all cynical and pedantic and assuming that 'a day' meant more than one day you'd see how easily the statement could be true.

Elena Rossini 🌈

@[email protected] · 9 hours ago

@mavnn haha yes one or two a day would be a more accurate statement 😆

Bruno Girin

@[email protected] · 9 hours ago

@_elena Telling easily verifiable lies on TV? Surely not!?! I'm totally listening to their "trust your feed" line by staying in the fediverse.

Elena Rossini 🌈

@[email protected] · 9 hours ago

@brunogirin I think she may not understand the implication of open networks and the fact that all the data is out there, ready to be double-checked 🙊

my biggest finding was that the founders weren't even using ATproto when they picked it as a protocol... they only signed up for an account WEEKS after their Davos launch. So odd...

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SWR1 Leute: Prof. Anna Zeiter | W Social: Neue Social Media-Plattform aus Europa - hier anschauen