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 undecided that 2018 was the turning level. However the premise of the article nonetheless holds up nicely.
In some unspecified time in the future, social networks have been now not about connecting along with your closest buddies, maintaining with long-distance relations and feeling a particular reference to individuals you like.
TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Fb, YouTube and X (previously Twitter) are all slowly evolving to develop into the identical infinite scrollable feed of algorithm-optimized brief movies from prime performers.
And it seems that I’m not the one one who has observed that social networks have been slowly drifting away from their authentic goal. Amo, a small crew based mostly in Paris, has been working for the higher a part of 2023 on a model new social app referred to as ID.
ID is a social app launching right now on iOS that permits you to join with your mates in a inventive approach. 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 preferred social app centered on location sharing that inspired you to spend extra time with your mates and uncover new locations.
Snap spent greater than $200 million to accumulate Zenly and saved the identical crew to iterate on it, as a separate app. Underneath Snap’s possession, Zenly grew to become one in every of Europe’s greatest social apps of all time. At its peak the corporate had 18 million totally different customers opening the app on daily basis.
After which… it disappeared.
As a part of Snap’s cost-cutting efforts, the corporate determined to close 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 crew are actually working at Amo. In reality, there are 10 co-founders. Along with Martin, Corentin Kerisit, Michael Goldenstein, Claire Pluvinage, Charly Delaroche, Julien Martin, Quentin Perez, Nicolas Fallourd, Alexis Druon and Jean-Baptiste Dalido are all Amo co-founders and all former Zenly individuals.
The second purpose why Amo’s launch is very 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 World additionally collaborating. 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 submit shortly after Steve Jobs launched the unique iPad. In that submit, 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 lightweight, it turns into the show, and the show turns into the applying. No enter units. The gadget vanishes and turns into the applying you might be utilizing. The expertise is clear,” Schweizer wrote.
And this analogy applies notably nicely to ID and Amo’s work as nicely. There are various 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 make it easier to categorical your self. You should utilize it to create a profile that completely describes your pursuits in a visible method. However there’s a social twist as you possibly can each see your mates’ profiles and add issues to their very own profiles.
Picture Credit: Romain Dillet
If you first create your profile on ID, you get an empty whiteboard that’s ready for content material. You may fill it your self in 4 other ways.
You may add stickers out of your sticker library (extra on that later), you possibly can seize content material out of your picture library, you possibly can write textual content or you possibly can draw. If you select a photograph, ID mechanically creates a cut-out of the principle object or topic within the picture utilizing PhotoRoom’s expertise.
This may 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 might 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 may create small islands that outline what’s in your thoughts proper now. As an illustration, you possibly can have a Los Angeles nook with the favourite buildings you noticed throughout your trip, group images with your mates, the cup of your favourite espresso store there, and so forth. You can even have a restaurant nook with images of meals from fancy eating places the place you’ve just lately been.
Every thing feels easy and pure. You scroll, zoom in, zoom out, leap from one profile to the opposite. There’s a way of depth and area that I’ve by no means seen in every other app. Photographs by no means really feel pixelated and also you don’t really feel such as you’re ready for one thing to load.
Should you’ve been utilizing ID for some time, issues can develop into messy — however so is life. “And it’s superb. My persona is chaotic — our personalities are chaotic. They’re multifaceted they usually’re not neatly organized in a 3×3 grid,” Amo CEO Antoine Martin stated.
Emergent gameplay
As you begin looking across the app and taking a look at what’s new in your buddies’ profile web page, it’s possible you’ll need to steal one thing to your personal wall. ID enables you to add content material from different profiles to your sticker library as a way to both add it to your personal profile or put it on another person’s profile.
I’ve been utilizing the app for a little bit bit greater than every week, and I can already see some developments spreading across the small neighborhood of beta customers. You may 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. “Should you’re dropping by, please depart a notice right here,” she wrote.
A couple of video video games rely closely on the participant’s creativity to have enjoyable, resembling Minecraft or latest Zelda video games. In these video games, you possibly can create your personal fortress or construct your personal car.
And that’s additionally the principle idea behind ID. Amo offers you the inventive instruments and a limitless Figma-like canvas. Now, it’s as much as the neighborhood to determine what they need to do with it. And the perfect half is that it doesn’t seem like every other social app on the market.
Picture Credit: Romain Dillet
Perhaps Amo will find yourself fostering a creator economic system with unique content material that may actually make your profile stand out. Perhaps the corporate will add some premium options over time. For now, Amo desires to discover a hit.
“We’re prioritizing scale as a result of my aim 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] can be sufficient to make an organization indestructible. However I used to be fallacious. I believe you want 100 million [daily active users],” Martin advised me.
Curing loneliness
When the Amo crew began engaged on ID, they needed to discover a method to treatment loneliness. It appears a bit counterintuitive to construct a social app as individuals spend a lot time on their cellphone already. However, in keeping with Antoine Martin, it’s simply that present 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 truly infectious. In different phrases, when 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 advised me.
“And on the identical time, the human wants that the social shopper area can fulfill are now not coated by these merchandise, whereas they was,” he added. “Within the early days of Fb, I don’t know when you keep in mind, profiles have been kind of a mash-up. There have been drawings, video games, images, textual content. You’d write lengthy feedback, it might be a poem . . . And alternatively, it was a reminder that you just mattered to those individuals.”
In response to him, the present era of social networks are very passive. You don’t need to do a lot to spend two hours on TikTok or YouTube as a result of these firms need you to spend as a lot time as potential in these apps. “We aspire to return to those earlier precepts and make them work,” Martin stated.
That’s additionally the rationale why Amo doesn’t need you to spend hours within the app. When you will have a couple of minutes, you possibly can open the app to test what’s new in your buddies’ profiles by swiping up on the notification playing cards.
If you’ve reached the final card, ID exhibits you a message that claims “get some recent air.” After which, the app closes itself. You’re again on the house display screen, you possibly can 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 crew and Amo’s deep pockets, if there’s one crew that has a shot at making an attempt one thing radically new within the area, it’s Amo.
“We’re intentionally delivery 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 stated.
Whereas ID is Amo’s first concept, the corporate almost certainly has different concepts within the shopper social area — 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