Three reasons why Trump's new social network could fail (Opinion)

Trump's website hacked 0:41

(CNN) -

Donald Trump will finally enter the social media game.

After a series of stumbles, Trump announced Wednesday night the creation of TRUTH Social, an effort, he insisted, to "confront the tyranny of Big Tech."

The posts will be called TRUTHs and Trump said he is "excited to soon start sharing my thoughts on TRUTH Social and fighting Big Tech."

This is a singularly terrible idea that will almost certainly fail.

And there are many reasons for this!

1. Twitter already exists.

Do you know the axiom of not having to reinvent the wheel? Well, Twitter already exists, and it has more than 200 million users. There doesn't seem to be a significant clamor in the general population for another microblogging website, even though Twitter is far from perfect. Also, consider the following: Trump sent his first tweet on May 4, 2009. ("Be sure to tune in and watch Donald Trump on 'Late Night with David Letterman' as he presents the top ten list tonight." He said). Which means he had 6 years to build his presence on the social media platform before he started using it, aggressively, to run for president in 2015/2016. It was a well-known product with a huge following. He was not starting from scratch. With TRUTH social, you will.

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2. Conservative social space is crowded (and not for the better):

Remember that Parler was the new Twitter for conservatives? Well, after a very brief surge in downloads in the wake of the January 6 riots in the US Capitol (and Twitter's decision to block Trump), the app basically disappeared in terms of relevance. "According to Sensor Tower data, Parler's downloads went from 517,000 in December [2020] to 11,000 in June [2021]," The Verge reported in July. Then there's Gettr, a Twitter clone launched by Jason Miller, a Trump partner. Within days of its release, hackers were able to grab (and publish) the email addresses of 85,000 of its users. "Gettr, the latest pro-Trump social network, is already a disaster",stated TechCrunch.

Although TRUTH Social has something that neither Parler nor Gettr had or have: Donald Trump, it is still not clear that the universe of conservative social networks is large enough to support one of these products, much less 3.

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3. Donald Trump is no longer president.

Make no mistake: Trump remains the most prominent and powerful actor in Republican politics.

But, since he was banned from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, his ability to direct coverage has been significantly reduced.

As Philip Bump of The Washington Post noted in April:

"Interest from Google searches [on Trump] was lower than at any time since June 2015, as was the amount of time he was on cable TV. The networks covered him much less, to the point reached last year when the pandemic overtook Trump in national attention. On top of that, the average Trump mentions in March returned to levels seen in November 2015. "

• Trump closes his blog after less than a month of launching it

His attempt to launch a post-presidential blog with high ambitions ended with a whimper in June, shutting down for good.

As The New York Times said in June:

"Mr. Trump had become frustrated after hearing from friends that the site was receiving little traffic and made it seem small and irrelevant, according to a person familiar with his thinking."

"The site, which cost a few thousand dollars and was created for Mr. Trump by a company run by his former campaign manager Brad Parscale, was intended to be an online hub for his supporters to view the statements made by the former president and to communicate with him. "

To be clear:

some people will consume whatever Trump does.

But that group is not large enough to launch a successful social network.

Now here near.

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