Social media geeks are always on the lookout for the next Twitter, Facebook, etc., and it’s been almost a year since a new social app has really gained a lot of attention for its potential (Meerkat and Periscope were the last ones I can think of, released in March 2015). This week, Peach has gained a lot of attention.
Peach was created by the founder of Vine, and appears to be a dumbed down version of Facebook. It’s currently only available for iOS. Users friend one another, giving them access to each others’ posts, which can be either a video, photo, or text. Unlike Facebook, there’s no newsfeed that combines your friends posts into a chronological list, nor is there any way to share across other social media.
I’ve used it for the last few days, and it’s been a rather disappointing experience… especially given all of the hype on Twitter and techy blogs.
The app’s capabilities are extremely basic and the user interface (UI) has some issues – including the fact that adding friends is not an immediately intuitive experience (which is critical for any social media app). There are “magic words” for adding content, which is novel, but not enough to make this app a game changer.
You’ll probably continue to hear more hype for the next few weeks, especially as the more mainstream media start to pick it up. You’ll see a ton of people download it over the next two weeks. For social media geeks with long memories, I predict it’ll be the next Oink, an app launched by another well-known Silicon Valley founder (Kevin Rose who founded Digg) and fueled by well-funded backers and lots of tech blogger hype. It died after just five months. More recently, it reminds me of the Ello app, which also had a terrible UI, but a huge amount of hype around it.
When Meerkat took off last year, I was optimistic about it and thought it had a lot of potential. The UI was pretty easy and intuitive and it hooked into Twitter. Even with all that, and very successful buzz/adoption at SXSW last year, its use has gradually faded to almost nothing since then. I even thought apps like Gowalla offered potential in something no other app did, and failed within a year or two. Given the right timing, hype, and backing, any app can attract social media geeks and bloggers for a couple weeks. Just don’t let their desire to be the one who introduced you to the next big thing fool you into wasting your time on an app like Peach.
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