In 2018, I wrote a TechCrunch article stating that 2018 was “the yr social networks have been now not social.” Reflecting on that article, I’m unsure that 2018 was the turning level. However the premise of the article nonetheless holds up nicely.
Sooner or later, social networks have been now not about connecting along with your closest pals, maintaining with long-distance relations and feeling a particular reference to individuals you’re keen on.
TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Fb, YouTube and X (previously Twitter) are all slowly evolving to change into the identical infinite scrollable feed of algorithm-optimized quick movies from high performers.
And it seems that I’m not the one one who has seen that social networks have been slowly drifting away from their authentic function. Amo, a small workforce based mostly in Paris, has been working for the higher a part of 2023 on a model new social app known as ID.
ID is a social app launching at this time on iOS that allows you to join with your folks in a inventive means. In some ways, it feels just like the early days of blogs, MySpace’s highly-personalized profile pages and the golden period of Tumblr.
However first, some context about Amo. There’s lots of hype and anticipation surrounding Amo’s launch as the corporate has been co-founded by Antoine Martin, who was the co-founder of Zenly with Alexis Bonillo. Zenly was a well-liked social app centered on location sharing that inspired you to spend extra time with your folks and uncover new locations.
Snap spent greater than $200 million to accumulate Zenly and saved the identical workforce to iterate on it, as a separate app. Beneath Snap’s possession, Zenly grew to become one in every of Europe’s largest social apps of all time. At its peak the corporate had 18 million totally different customers opening the app day-after-day.
After which… it disappeared.
As a part of Snap’s cost-cutting efforts, the corporate determined to shut down Zenly altogether. From what I’ve heard, this transfer even triggered discussions between French politicians on the highest stage and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel. Many key members of the Zenly workforce are actually working at Amo.
The second cause why Amo’s launch is extremely anticipated is that the startup closed an $18 million funding spherical in February or March at a valuation round $100 million with New Wave main the spherical, and Coatue and DST International additionally taking part. There are additionally 80 angel buyers on Amo’s cap desk.
This can be a extremely uncommon funding spherical because it occurred in 2023 (throughout a VC funding downturn), Amo is a cellular shopper startup (no income for now) and the startup didn’t have any product on the market.
An empty canvas
In 2010, Jürgen Schweizer from Cultured Code, the corporate behind private job administration app Issues, wrote a weblog put up shortly after Steve Jobs launched the unique iPad. In that put up, he in contrast the iPad to an empty canvas.
“If you wish to perceive what makes the iPad particular, you can not have a look at what it has, however what it doesn’t have. The iPad is so skinny and light-weight, it turns into the show, and the show turns into the appliance. No enter units. The system vanishes and turns into the appliance you’re utilizing. The know-how is clear,” Schweizer wrote.
And this analogy applies notably nicely to ID and Amo’s work as nicely. There are lots of issues that you are able to do with ID. There are additionally many issues that we take without any consideration in a social app that merely aren’t there.
ID is an empty canvas paired with inventive instruments that allow you to specific your self. You should use it to create a profile that completely describes your pursuits in a visible method. However there’s a social twist as you may each see your folks’ profiles and add issues to their very own profiles.
Picture Credit: Romain Dillet
While you first create your profile on ID, you get an empty whiteboard that’s ready for content material. You possibly can fill it your self in 4 other ways.
You possibly can add stickers out of your sticker library (extra on that later), you may seize content material out of your picture library, you may write textual content or you may draw. While you select a photograph, ID routinely creates a cut-out of the primary object or topic within the picture utilizing PhotoRoom’s know-how.
It will really feel instantly acquainted to Pinterest customers who like to construct temper boards or software program builders who cowl their model new laptop computer lid with stickers.
Each digital object will be moved, resized and rotated. After some time, your profile turns into this kind of spatial canvas. You may make issues so small that they kind of disappear… except you zoom in.
You possibly can create small islands that outline what’s in your thoughts proper now. As an illustration, you may have a Los Angeles nook with the favourite buildings you noticed throughout your trip, group pictures with your folks, the cup of your favourite espresso store there, and so on. It’s also possible to have a restaurant nook with pictures of meals from fancy eating places the place you’ve lately been.
Every thing feels clean and pure. You scroll, zoom in, zoom out, bounce from one profile to the opposite. There’s a way of depth and house that I’ve by no means seen in some other app. Images by no means really feel pixelated and also you don’t really feel such as you’re ready for one thing to load.
In the event you’ve been utilizing ID for some time, issues can change into messy — however so is life. “And it’s high quality. My character is chaotic — our personalities are chaotic. They’re multifaceted and so they’re not neatly organized in a 3×3 grid,” Amo CEO Antoine Martin mentioned.
Emergent gameplay
As you begin looking across the app and taking a look at what’s new in your pals’ profile web page, chances are you’ll wish to steal one thing on your personal wall. ID permits you to add content material from different profiles to your sticker library so as to both add it to your individual profile or put it on another person’s profile.
I’ve been utilizing the app for slightly bit greater than every week, and I can already see some tendencies spreading across the small neighborhood of beta customers. You possibly can see who initially created a sticker because it strikes round from one wall to a different. Some customers have put good cabinets to allow them to neatly categorize the whole lot that issues to them. A person created a guestbook part on her profile. “In the event you’re dropping by, please go away a word right here,” she wrote.
A number of video video games rely closely on the participant’s creativity to have enjoyable, similar to Minecraft or latest Zelda video games. In these video games, you may create your individual fortress or construct your individual car.
And that’s additionally the primary idea behind ID. Amo provides you the inventive instruments and a limitless Figma-like canvas. Now, it’s as much as the neighborhood to determine what they wish to do with it. And the most effective half is that it doesn’t seem like some other social app on the market.
Picture Credit: Romain Dillet
Possibly Amo will find yourself fostering a creator economic system with unique content material that may actually make your profile stand out. Possibly the corporate will add some premium options over time. For now, Amo needs to discover a hit.
“We’re prioritizing scale as a result of my purpose is to create an indestructible firm. And it’s Zenly’s founder who’s saying that! I used to suppose that 18 million [daily active users] could be sufficient to make an organization indestructible. However I used to be mistaken. I feel you want 100 million [daily active users],” Martin informed me.
Curing loneliness
When the Amo workforce began engaged on ID, they needed to discover a solution to remedy loneliness. It appears a bit counterintuitive to construct a social app as individuals spend a lot time on their cellphone already. However, in line with Antoine Martin, it’s simply that current social apps don’t have your greatest pursuits in thoughts.
“The [World Health Organization] now calls it the loneliness epidemic. And if they are saying that it’s an epidemic, it’s as a result of it’s really infectious. In different phrases, in case you’re remoted, your family members are too since you’re unreachable. So throughout the two hours you’re on TikTok, they’ve nobody to speak to,” Martin informed me.
“And on the identical time, the human wants that the social shopper house can fulfill are now not coated by these merchandise, whereas they was,” he added. “Within the early days of Fb, I don’t know in case you bear in mind, profiles have been kind of a mash-up. There have been drawings, video games, pictures, textual content. You’d write lengthy feedback, it may very well be a poem . . . And then again, it was a reminder that you just mattered to those individuals.”
In keeping with him, the present technology of social networks are very passive. You don’t must do a lot to spend two hours on TikTok or YouTube as a result of these corporations need you to spend as a lot time as doable in these apps. “We aspire to return to those earlier precepts and make them work,” Martin mentioned.
That’s additionally the rationale why Amo doesn’t need you to spend hours within the app. When you might have a couple of minutes, you may open the app to examine what’s new in your pals’ profiles by swiping up on the notification playing cards.
While you’ve reached the final card, ID reveals you a message that claims “get some contemporary air.” After which, the app closes itself. You’re again on the house display screen, you may put your cellphone again in your pocket.
Picture Credit: Romain Dillet
Amo & ID
ID is an opinionated tackle social apps, however is it going to work? Given the previous expertise of the workforce and Amo’s deep pockets, if there’s one workforce that has a shot at attempting one thing radically new within the house, it’s Amo.
“We’re intentionally transport one thing 8 or 9 months after the launch of the corporate as a result of we swore to ourselves that it wouldn’t take us a yr to get began, that we’d study extra by constructing in public,” Martin mentioned.
Whereas ID is Amo’s first thought, the corporate more than likely has different concepts within the shopper social house — Amo didn’t identify its app ‘Amo’ in spite of everything. So it’s going to be fascinating to observe the launch of this new app, but in addition Amo’s story as an organization.
Picture Credit: Amo
