A little bit Instagram, a little bit TikTok, a little bit YouTube: Waveful is the first all-Italian social network. It was founded in 2020 by the two 18-year-old brothers Dennis and Steven Motta and, in recent weeks, is starting to get talked about.
It is a social network that brings together some features borrowed from the most popular and famous digital spaces in the world. Like Instagram, it allows you to publish photos and videos, while from TikTok it takes the organization of the feed, which scrolls vertically. To this, he adds the possibility of posting audio recordings and, starting with the YouTube model, a particular attention towards creators. We spent a week of testing on Waveful: here are three things that impressed us.
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How Waveful works
Much of Waveful’s operation is based on the concept of Tsunami, similar to groups of contents to which you can subscribe and then see the updates in your own feed principal. Basically, when you first log into Waveful, the platform suggests some Tsunamis to follow, such as News or Creator or Books to read. On the basis of the groups that you decide to follow, the homepage is composed, the default setting of which does not show the users followed, but the Tsunamis.
It is an interesting tool that, in the first place, has the potential to increase content distribution. When a user, in fact, publishes a post, he can choose a Tsunami in which to insert it, so as to more effectively reach the public interested in that kind of content. Furthermore, the solution favors the variety of feed main, with that discovery component that, among other things, made TikTok’s fortune and that Instagram is trying to replicate with the Reels.
Tsunami is a solution that tries to cope with what appears to be one of Waveful’s most important shortcomings. There is certainly an algorithm that organizes the contents, which are not shown in chronological order, but it does not seem, as it is physiological, to be a system comparable to that of the most famous social network platforms. Of course, it reacts to stimuli: when, in our experience, we ‘like’ or interacted with posts in a given Tsunami, we immediately saw others of the same kind. The algorithm, however, does not appear to be particularly effective in varying the feed: we have often seen, in sequence, very similar contents.
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The personalization of the profile
Another of the specifications that characterize Waveful is a component that, in a certain way, is reminiscent of the world of gaming. This is the badge system, according to which users can add medals to their profile when certain objectives are achieved. Most of these are related to performance on the platform, such as the achievement of a certain number of likes or followers – we got one at 10 – or viewing time.
In general, a bit like on MySpace in the early 2000s, there is a strong personalization component of your profile, with the possibility, above all, to change the color of the buttons.
A space dedicated to creators
The last feature we noticed in our exploration week is Waveful’s attention to creators, to those who want to emerge within the platform. Anyone can become one, simply reach 1000 views and activate the option in the profile settings. From here, you can start earning: every month Waveful shares 50% of their advertising revenue with creators, who are paid based on the number of views.
Another way to earn on the platform is the Superlike, an attestation of interest that also provides for a fee for those who produced the post. The Superlikes can be purchased in packages – the basic 4 costs 1.99 – or can be obtained through a Premium subscription. The latter, in addition to removing advertising and offering further possibilities for personalizing the profile, guarantees the possibility of giving 12 Superlike ones every month.