Pheed(ing) time at the social zoo.

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You do not have enough social log-ins yet, I promise. You need one more. No, really. It’s called Pheed. I can’t tell you the number of times we get asked, “What’s the next big thing in social?” by clients. I’m not saying Pheed will definitely be it, but it’s one to watch for sure.

Pheed soft launched just last week, has just submitted it’s iPhone app to Apple for approval and already has over 1 million registered users including a decent sprinkling of celebrity (Miley Cyrus, Paris Hilton, David Guetta, Chris Brown to name a few). So why should we pay attention when Google+ is still pawing at facebook’s front door and myspace just doesn’t seem to have quite hacked it’s re-entry into the “social ecosystem”?

Pheed is being heralded as the “ultimate mash-up” of social networks. Founder and CEO O.B. Kobo recently said of the social giants:

"In the past five years I haven’t seen anyone do anything as masterful as them, but after two years I kept thinking, Why can’t I do more? Why didn’t they introduce video? Why can’t I upload an album? Wouldn't it be interesting if Instagram offered text? Would Twitter have been shaking in their boots a little bit? Maybe it was necessary for other platforms to come about."

At first glance, it looks a lot like Facebook/ G+ with a simple timeline and easy to use uploads. But it also has trending topics (like twitter) and adding audio, photos and video is a dreamy UX. You can do a live broadcast on your channel – so no more unweildy “webinars” for brands! Yes *airpunch*! You can also share your “pheeds” back to Facebook, Twitter or any other blog.

But even more interesting than the attention to detail, slick functionality and the exceptional UX is the business model behind Pheed. As social marketers we are constantly having to prove the value of social and work out how we can measure ROI. How can we monetize social? Ok, so Pinterest have come some way to helping drive purchase through social, but no one has cracked it yet. Maybe Pheed has... Forbes magazine have already called Pheed “Twitter with a business model” - in essence, “Pheeders” can set a month subscription fee ($1.99 to $34.99 per month) to their “streams” (posts/ content) - but it’s not compulsory. All of your content can be free if you want it to be. You can also adopt a pay-per-view model ($1.99 to $34.99). As you’d expect, Pheed takes 50% the content’s revenue.

If that hasn’t caught your attention, you might also like to hear that you can set a rating for your channel – PG13 is the default. Which is interesting for alcohol & adult content. Will this be the first time that we start to see porn become part of mainstream social? Surely if you can charge and you can age gate easily, which to date has been a challenge in social, this is an actual possibility!

What I also really like about Pheed is that you can easily copyright your content – text updates include a copyright mark, photos & video can include a watermark at the click of a tick box! Celebrities, photographers, comedians, bloggers – content creators will love this. You can like, or dislike content (oh em gee haven’t we all been begging facebook for a dislike button since 2008?!). You can effortlessly filter content by type and use hashtags to curate content or topics. It’s just beautifully done.

I am pleasantly delighted with Pheed. Sure, I’m the only person I know there, and yes almost all of my last 5 years are stored on facebook in photos and videos and comments and messages, but this one might just be the one that finally makes me move. Consumers won’t necessarily move from facebook to Pheed right away just because it is new (Google+ proved that), but you better believe that those who are tired of facebook privacy issues and who are looking for a clean start in social that doesn’t include people you knew at preschool may do. Younger generations will very much enjoy a network that their parents aren’t signed up to (I heard my niece recently say that facebook is for “fuddy duddies”!!!) & where their favourite celebrities are sharing exclusive content that they aren’t sharing anywhere else in social.

I will definitely be looking for brands that might be brave enough to give Pheed a go – there is a limited window of opportunity to be the first in your category to do it. You’ve got the hang of social with stabilizers on facebook and twitter, now let’s try something a bit different (but same, same)!

By Michaela MacIntyre @mich_maci

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