SMOF News, volume 2, issue 9

Social media switching costs, and news in brief.

Elon Musk Owns Your Favorite Convention’s Publicity Department Now

Twitter in its present form is indispensible to the modern fan convention. It’s a way to get announcements out where the entire world can see them, unencumbered by Instagram’s requirement for people to log in to see posts, the vagaries of Facebook’s feed algorithm, or the ever-shifting terrain of email spam filters.

But Twitter is now owned by a mercurial billionaire who, in under a week since the sale closed, has: fired its entire board, fired or driven off a considerable swath of its upper management, threatened to fire its entire user verification team, brought in car experts to determine which other social media developers to fire, promised that it would not become a “hellscape”, boosted a right-wing conspiracy, accused the New York Times of being a fake news site, and gotten into a public spat with Stephen King.

It is those last few items which have advertisers, who are currently Twitter’s paying customers, nervously eyeing the door, according to multiple news sources including the NYT:

IPG, one of the world’s largest advertising companies, issued a recommendation on Monday through its media agencies for clients to temporarily pause their spending on Twitter because of moderation concerns, three people with knowledge of the communication said. The Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a coalition of platforms, advertisers and industry groups that is fighting harmful content on social media, also said this week that it was monitoring how Twitter planned to deal with content moderation.

…

Katie Klumper, the chief executive of Black Glass, a consulting firm owned by IPG, said the company had surveyed many of its clients, which include Walmart, Pepsi and Cadillac. Most of them said they were planning to pause their spending on Twitter until they had more confidence and clarity on the platform’s direction, she said.

“They’re just opting out of the drama,” she said. “They’re actively watching this unfold, watching Elon and his comments hourly, saying, ‘Let me see how this all plays out before I decide to attach my brand and business to this.’”

If the advertisers can be persuaded to keep giving Twitter money, the next question for conventions is whether the audience they’re trying to reach is going to stay on Twitter or move somewhere else.

A useful guide to the factors involved is the paper “Moving Across Lands: Online Platform Migration in Fandom Communities” from the May 2020 Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. It traces the migration of fan fiction communities all the way from Usenet to AO3 and modern social media.

The Atlantic summarizes the paper here, with comments about the current Twitter situation from the authors. They emphasize, as does the paper, that it isn’t enough for people to be dissatisfied with a platform. There has to be a credible alternative which can be easily switched to. The switching costs are partially social— the community has to be present in the new place— but also partially reliant on the design and learning curve of the prospective new platform.

There does happen to be another major social media network which shares Twitters advantages of showing members everything posted by the accounts they’re following, and making public posts visible to non-members: TikTok. But the difference between an app full of highly limited text content and one built for narrative videos, is still a huge one, so switching costs are high.

For that reason, even if Twitter becomes significantly more unpleasant, most of its users are likely to stick around for a while. As the paper above notes about one major migration:

As shown in Figure 2, the primary reason that survey participants reported leaving LiveJournal was because of policy. However, these policy changes took place mostly in 2007–and Figure 1 shows that LiveJournal use does not begin to noticeably drop off until 2010/2011. If policy change was the catalyst, why did they not stop using LiveJournal sooner? There is a constellation of answers to this question (including, for example, that some may have been cross-posting to LiveJournal or reduced their activity gradually over time), but the overall patterns and our qualitative data support the conclusion that a significant problem was the lack of viable alternatives.

So Twitter probably has a few years, even if TikTok is still on a trajectory to eat the entire internet eventually.

In Brief

• The Guest of Honor for Corflu Pangloss (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, October 21-23), selected at random in accordance with Corflu tradition, was Garth Spencer. Claire Brialey was elected Past President of FWA.

• Pemmi-con, the 2023 North American Science Fiction Convention (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, July 20-23), has announced the First Nations Travel Fund to provide assistance to indigenous fans wishing to attend. Recipients will be selected by indigenous organizations.

Event Calendar

Weekend of November 4-6

• Astronomicon 13, Rochester, New York, USA

• Or-E-Con 2, online

• GeekGirlCon, Seattle, Washington, USA

• ArmadaCon 2022, Plymouth, UK

• World Fantasy Convention 2022, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

• ZodiaCon 2022 (anthropomorphic), Horní Bradlo, Czechia

• PAWCon 2022: Visit Pawston Paradise (anthropomorphic), San Jose, California, USA

• Carnage XXV: Silver Anniversary (gaming), Dover, Vermont, USA

• Spellen Spektakel (gaming), Utrecht, Netherlands

• Rock-Con (gaming), Rockford, Illinois, USA

• AcadeCon (gaming), Dayton, Ohio, USA

• BottosCon 2022 (gaming), New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada

• Phantasm 32nd (RPGs), Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

• AmberCon NW (diceless RPGs), Troutdale, Oregon, USA

• Good Game Fest (video games), Westminster, Maryland, USA

• Warfaire Weekend (wargaming), St. Louis, Missouri, USA

• Fall In! (miniatures gaming), King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, USA

• NekoCon 24 (anime), Hampton, Virginia, USA

• Destination Tokyo (anime), Monthey, Switzerland

• HotaruCon (anime), Milton Keynes, UK

• Nishi Fest (anime), Arlington, Texas, USA

• Youmacon 2022 (anime), Detroit, Michigan, USA

• Tiger Con 2022 (anime), Valdosta, Georgia, USA

• Unicon (media), Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

• Coosacon! (media), Rome, Georgia, USA

• Comic Con Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden

• Akron Comiccon, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, USA

• CONjuration (Harry Potter), Atlanta, Georgia, USA

• Pony Friends Forever (My Little Pony), San Antonio, Texas, USA

Weekend of November 11-13

• Novacon 51, Nottingham, UK

• TusCon 49, Tucson, Arizona, USA

• Windycon 48, Lombard, Illinois, USA

• SFW XIII, Great Yarmouth, UK

• OmegaFall 2022, Siren, Wisconsin, USA

• New England Crime Bake 2022: History is Mystery (mysteries), Dedham, Massachusetts, USA

• Dragonsteel 2022 (Brandon Sanderson works), Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

• Flüüfff: Tropical Trouble (anthropomorphic), Brussels, Belgium

• TeslaCon (steampunk), Middleton, Wisconsin, USA

• Steampunk November, Mansfield, Texas, USA

• Kee Con V (gaming), Cherokee, Iowa, USA

• JeffCon: The Final MACE (gaming), Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

• MEPACon (gaming), Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA

• Hexcon (gaming), Trondheim, Norway

• BGG.CON (gaming), Dallas, Texas, USA

• Tampa Nerd Con (gaming), Clearwater, Florida, USA

• Compass Games Expo 2022, Meridien, Connecticut, USA

• Gridcon 3 (boardgames), Taunton, UK

• Spielewelt in Bielefeld (boardgames), Bielefeld, Germany

• EuroQuest 2022 (Eurogames), Annapolis, Maryland, USA

• The Long Con (RPGs), Longview, Texas, USA

• MillenniumCon (miniatures gaming), Round Rock, Texas, USA

• Arcade Expo, Houston, Texas, USA

• KeyForge Celebration (KeyForge CCG), Roseville, Minnesota, USA

• Oni-Con XIX (anime), Galveston, Texas, USA

• Kumoricon (anime), Portland, Oregon, USA

• anime expo chibi, Ontario, California, USA

• Anime Destiny 2022, Berkeley, California, USA

• Animaine 2022 (anime), South Portland, Maine, USA

• Thought Bubble (comics), Harrogate, UK

• Grand Rapids Comic Con, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA

• Fanboy Expo Indianapolis (media), Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

• Twin Cities Con (media), Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

• Fanboy Expo Indianapolis (media), Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

• FanQuest 2022 (media), Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

• Monster-Mania 52 (horror media), Oaks, Pennsylvania, USA

• Philip K. Dick Film Festival, New York City, New York, USA

• The Great Con-Junction (The Dark Crystal), Los Angeles, California, USA

Weekend of November 18-20

• Philcon 2022, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, USA

• Consequences O: Otherworldly Consequences (gaming), Christchurch, UK

• Free Play Florida (video games), Orlando, Florida, USA

• DreamHack Atlanta 2022 (video games), Atlanta, Georgia, USA

• Colossalcon North (anime), Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, USA

• Kaiga Anime Convention, Perth, Australia

• Anime NYC, New York City, New York, USA

• Anime Austin, Austin, Texas, USA

• Anime Pasadena, Pasadena, California, USA

• Sin City Anime, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

• Con Nichiwa 2022 (anime), Tucson, Arizona, USA

• Memphis Comic and Fantasy Convention #12, Memphis, Tennessee, USA

• Naiccon 2022 (media), Nairobi, Kenya

• Heroes Dutch Comic Con, Utrecht, Netherlands

• Comic Con Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

• CharlestonCon (media), North Charleston, South Carolina, USA

• Meglos 2022 (Doctor Who), Holtsville, New York, USA

• Nakamacon (One Piece), Panama City Beach, Florida, USA

• Pokécon Memphis (Pokémon), Memphis, Tennessee, USA

Weekend of November 25-27

• Loscon 48, Los Angeles, California, USA

• Chessiecon 2022, Hunt Valley, Maryland, USA

• Chambanacon 51 (relaxacon), Normal, Illinois, USA

• GobbleCon (gaming), Burlingame, California, USA

• LFG Canberra: Essen Unplugged (boardgames), Griffith, Australia

• De Bello Ludico (wargaming), Bracciano, Italy

• FG Con 2022 (RPGs), online

• Anime Festival Asia, Singapore

• Anime Dallas, DFW Airport, Texas, USA

• Akimatsuri (anime), Richmond, British Columbia, Canada

• Comic Con Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany

• Stars of Time Comic Con, Weston-super-Mare, UK

• Fan Expo San Francisco (media), San Francisco, California, USA

• Chicago TARDIS 2022 (Doctor Who), Lombard, Illinois, USA

• Starbase Indy 2022: Imagine Anew (Star Trek), Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

Weekend of December 2-4

• Smofcon 38 (con-running), Montréal, Québec, Canada

• Midwest Furfest: Heroes (anthropomorphic), Rosemont, Illinois, USA

• Dragonmeet (gaming), London, UK

• Midwest GameFest, Independence, Missouri, USA

• PAX Unplugged (tabletop gaming), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

• Shorehammer (miniatures gaming), Ocean City, Maryland, USA

• Winter’s Tide (video games), Asheville, North Carolina, USA

• Anime Frontier, Fort Worth, Texas, USA

• Columbia Anime & Video Game Expo, Columbia, South Carolina, USA

• Anime Town: Pensacola 2022, Pensacola, Florida, USA

• Geek Days Lille (media), Lille, France

• Abilene Comic Con, Abilene, Texas, USA

• GalaxyCon Columbus (media), Columbus, Ohio, USA

• Comic Con Okinawa, Camp Foster, Okinawa, Japan

• For the Love of Sci-Fi 2022 (media), Manchester, UK

• L.A. Comic Con 2022, Los Angeles, California, USA

Coda

• Actual snake on a plane (Reuters)

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