What are the ways social media has evolved in the past decades? In the early days of the internet, people spoke to each other anonymously via AOL chat rooms — one of the first ways that people connected with each other using this new technology. The internet, after all, was built as a way for people to connect with each other far and wide. The coming wave of online contact is going back to these roots, while applying everything we’ve learned along the way.
As early online chat rooms shifted out of the public view, social media sites like Myspace and Facebook cropped up to take their place. These sites initiated a sort of anti-social bend in online communication, as people were no longer directly speaking to each other most of the time. Most of the interaction on these social media sites, and even more modern sites like Instagram and Twitter revolves around posting pictures or messages, and then other users liking these messages or commenting on them.
While these sites have made online social connection popular to an unimagined degree, the current common format only allows for parasocial contact. These users aren’t directly connecting with each other, they are limited by the lack of immediacy these sites provide — they are connecting through a thick veil. Think about the ways people spoke to each other on early online chat rooms. They sat in front of the computer and typed messages to another person or a group of people that would immediately (or nearly immediately due to the technological infancy of the time) be seen and responded to. These internet-enabled discussions held nearly the immediacy of a real-world conversation.
Now there are nearly 4 billion people across the globe using modernized social media websites that don’t have nearly this level of closeness. Even though the internet has taken major leaps forward in the years since, and social media has arguably far improved, we’ve taken a step backwards in genuine human connection. Another problem is the disarray that the wide variety of social media apps has created. It’s estimated that the average social media user has 8 social media accounts across different apps. This forces the user to split their attention between multiple different conversations, multiple different parasocial relationships.
The answer to this problem seems simple — unify the features of these different apps into one experience, that way people have no need for so many different apps with different functions. We’ve already seen this sort of unification take place, or at least an attempt at it, by a lot of the most popular social media apps on the landscape. One of the most famous examples is Twitter and Instagram’s application of the ‘Stories’ feature which originated on Snapchat.
We’re even seeing a return to the immediacy of the chat room days, with audio chat functions. Clubhouse broke onto the scene with its audio chat-based messaging, but it has received much criticism for its seemingly elitist exclusivity. Twitter just recently took the audio chat idea and ran with it, with their ‘Spaces’ feature.
While we’re getting greater unification in the social media sphere, we’ve hardly reached the level seen in China, where WeChat reigns supreme. On WeChat, users can message each other, make social media posts, find a place to eat, even make doctor appointments all within the same app. The term ‘Super App’ has risen to describe these sorts of apps that combine many common features into one single app. This unification has made WeChat the most popular app in China, with over 1.2 billion users. There’s no similar example of an app like WeChat in America, but this is about to change, with group messaging apps like Relevnt starting to hit their stride.
Relevnt is a unique example of a super app. Winder Hughes, a veteran investor and social media mogul, set out to develop his own social media app after noticing the anti-social nature of common social media apps. “It’s an asynchronous past-tense thing. You post a picture, people will comment on it later on, but it’s not like right now, like we’re having a real-time conversation right now that feels like it’s real,” he said in a recent interview. He got a team together and started working on something new.
Relevnt hosts a variety of interest-based chat rooms called “Vibes.” Anyone can create a Vibe, and the topics of these chat rooms range from the New York Giants to Cryptozoology and everything in between. What makes these chat rooms unique is the amount of features they include. Users can message each other within the chat room, similar to the chat rooms of old, but there are also audio chat features where users can directly speak to each other as if they were having a real-world conversation.
Users can also use Vibes to share music — there’s a radio feature where users can listen to the same music or podcasts within the app. Relevnt is the first app to combine social media features with streaming features. Since 400 million people already use streaming services to listen to music and podcasts, there’s a considerable untapped market for the combination of social media and music. The combination of these varying features makes Relevnt a new sort of group messaging app, with a more unified experience than we’ve seen before.
Winder Hughes also understands that social media isn’t always fun and games. Especially in recent years, social media apps have become breeding grounds for social change, as over a third of social media users say they post about social causes that matter to them. Front and center on the Relevnt app are collections of Vibes that discuss social issues. For example, their recent Uplyft collection compiles a series of chat rooms that discusses various issues America’s Black community faces.
“We had this idea to make a collection of vibes for the Black community, to give the Black community a voice and an easier way for them to connect with each other, because not everyone knows each other. I think it’s a good way for that community to connect,” Hughes said about the Uplyft collection.
Relevnt is one of the first examples of a group messaging app that combines modern and futuristic features with the immediacy of early chat rooms. This immediacy allows people to form real connections, and real human connection is vital to the kind of social change people want to see. In a time when people are more separated than ever, this social connection may be just what we need.
