Recently a I wrote a less than flattering post about Pheed, a new(ish) social network that gives users the ability to charge for access to their content, called Pheeds. It was this, rather than the netwrk itself, that raised my ire. At the time, Pheed wasn’t accepting new sign ups so it was really the only feature I could write about.
I saw it as another way for celebrities to squeeze a penny or two more out of their loyal fans…and I still do. The likes of Paris Hilton and Miley Cyrus use Pheed and more are sure to follow. I doubt it will be long until social media savvy popsters Rihanna and Lady Gaga jump on the Pheed bandwagon, for example. Will they charge for access to their Pheeds? Time will tell…the point is they can and as a business model for Pheed I don’t get it. Social networks thrive on numbers and this feels like a barrier to that.
Ultimately, I stand by my conclusions in the last article on this feature alone. However, my opinions did ruffle the feathers of one Pheed user (see the comments) who urged me to try Pheed for myself once sign ups were allowed again. Yesterday they were, so I took it for a spin.
The first thing you notice is that Pheed, despite being relatively young in the social network family, looks and acts very grown up. The sign up process is smooth, you can use email, Facebook or Twitter. A few steps later and you’re off.
This is where it becomes very obvious that Pheed is attempting to take the very best features of several social networks and mash them together into the ultimate network. You’re looking at features from Twitter (short updates, similar interface when posting), Instagram (hashtags, hearts and really good image support), Tumblr (the interface again) and even Facebook (the header and commenting ).
Does it succeed? Yes and no. There’s no doubting that Pheed is easy to use. It’s nowhere near as polished as those it’s trying to emulate and improve on, there are rough edges in the design and it feels like the focus has been on functionality and usability than aesthetics. This is not a bad thing, not at all, but it’s something the team will have to confront at some point.
As with any social network these days you can subscribe to other users, which will populate your main news feed, you can then filter by Pheed type (text, image etc) and search for other users and topics (via hash tags).
I’m thinking freelance photographers, videographers, advice givers, industry sector experts…with Pheed they can all get paid a small amount by charging for access to their best work. Indeed, for the likes of industry experts, they could host live Broadcasts on a regular basis, charge a nominal $1.99 for access and get paid that way.
I’m sure people more creative than me can come up with better ideas here but the potential of Pheed to provide hard working individuals with a source of income is there.
As a standalone social network – and this will annoy my previous commenter – it does nothing different to the more established networks, it doesn’t do it in an as aesthetically pleasing way and, while it’s ease of use is unquestionable, it will not draw enough people away from Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to survive. As a niche product offering a unique ‘get paid’; platform though, it could do well. It just has to keep those money grabbing celebrities away from it.
