I've been thinking about Mastodon vs Twitter and positioning. It's a neat case study on understanding value vs features.
Mastodon has many differentiated features - federated servers, content moderation, no ads, etc. But the opportunity for them is to clearly position the value those features enable. Example - users should understand the value of decentralization (no company owns your data) vs. seeing this as simply something different from Twitter and kind of a pain. #positioning #marketing
@aprildunford You're right, (as usual) it is really interesting and may get more interesting over time.
If Mastodon continues to grow, even slowly, one thing that may help amplify that unique positioning is further feature differentiation. Mastodon is a relatively small population spread across a modest number of federated servers that differentiate largely based on content policies today. But what if the servers start to differentiate in other ways?
For instance, what if membership in a server is based on completing a KYC (know your customer) style identity verification to prove who you are? Or what if it is based on regular membership dues to cover costs and add new features to the platform? What if a community wanted to use their collective buying power to support journalism and license access to third party content based on a negotiated group license? Those servers, and mastodon as a whole, would be positioned in a completely new way than where they are today, all because of the core positioning they started with.
@aprildunford I am seeing these servers as simpler, digital versions of the city-states that Neal Stephenson wrote about in The Diamond Age.
Today what we call being in a media “bubble” may actually evolve into more complex self-organizing communities based on a shared sets of values. Those shared values are the foundation for new society / culture to emerge.
It’s already happening. It has profound implications for brands.
April Dunford
Grant Wood