Imitation and Flattery

Back in November, I wrote down my initial impressions of Post.News and ended with this:

So here’s a bold (and probably reckless) prediction: If Twitter is to thrive (or even just survive), it will have to become a Post-clone.

This gradually seems to be happening.

One genuinely transformative feature on Post is the micropayments system build on its internal currency. This allows media organizations (and anyone else for that matter) to sell individual articles, and reach a much broader audience than their subscriber base. It turns out that the micropayments feature will soon be coming to Twitter:

As I noted five months ago, relatively small media organizations may be the biggest beneficiaries of such a system:

Post’s creation of a convertible internal currency opens up certain opportunities for others. Most obviously, major media companies can offer individual articles for sale instead of (or in additional to) charging a much narrower subscriber base for full access… This may be especially useful for smaller, local news operations. Imagine a breaking news story that is covered primarily by local reporters at the scene. Regular updates distributed on Post at nominal cost could breathe life into local outlets that have seen dwindling revenues over recent years, as people have gravitated towards the major media sources offering a broad range of coverage. It seems possible that this trend towards centralization and concentration in the media industry could be reversed, or at least decelerated, through the use of Post as a medium for distribution.

I don’t think that Post has really taken off as a Twitter alternative, perhaps because there are so many other platforms competing for attention. It is possible that Twitter may be able to hold off these new entrants for long enough to find its footing again, and survive based on its initial size advantage, network effects, and the adoption of the most appealing features it sees emerging elsewhere.

Oscar Wilde is reported to have said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness. But if the imitation is successful, and done without acknowledgement, eventually nobody will remember who was mediocre and who was great.