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Content Creation · MS elective · 3 credit hours · 16 sessions

The Future of Social Platforms

What comes after Instagram and TikTok? This forward-looking course speculates on the next generation of digital connection. Students will explore decentralized social networks (Web3), the Metaverse, and brain-computer interfaces (BCI). The curriculum combines technology trends with sociology to predict how humans will connect, share, and organize in the coming decades.

§ 01 By the end you can
  1. Analyze the limitations of Web2 (Centralization, Data Ownership)
  2. Explore Web3 and Decentralized Social Media (DeSo/Mastodon/Bluesky)
  3. Investigate the potential of the Metaverse and VR Social Spaces
  4. Discuss the implications of Brain-Computer Interfaces (Neuralink) on communication
  5. Design a concept for a future social platform that solves current societal issues
§ 02 Sixteen sessions

The whole semester.

  1. 01The Lifecycle of Social Networks: Birth to Death
  2. 02The Web2 Crisis: Privacy, Ads, & Algorithms
  3. 03Intro to Web3: Ownership & Tokenization
  4. 04Decentralized Protocols: ActivityPub & AT Protocol
  5. 05Fediverse Case Study: Mastodon
  6. 06Blockchain Social: Lens Protocol & Farcaster
  7. 07Data Sovereignty: Owning your Graph
  8. 08 · MidtermMidterm Examination
  9. 09The Metaverse: Socializing in VR/AR
  10. 10Digital Identity: Avatars & Pseudonymity
  11. 11Niche Networks: Vertical Social Media
  12. 12AI-Mediated Socializing (Replika/Character.ai)
  13. 13Brain-Computer Interfaces: Telepathic Social?
  14. 14Digital Legacy: What happens when we die?
  15. 15Regulation & The Future of Big Tech
  16. 16Final Project: The Next-Gen Platform Pitch

Midterm around session 8. Final project briefed at session 8 or 9 and developed in stages until the juries.

§ 03 Final project

Final Project: The Next-Gen Platform Pitch

How it’s judged

Recommended reading
  1. The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything by Matthew Ball
  2. Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet by Chris Dixon
  3. Snow Crash (Sci-Fi Context) by Neal Stephenson
  4. The Future of the Internet by Jonathan Zittrain
  5. Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis
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Crafting Social Media Contagious ContentWhy do some ideas spread like wildfire while others die? This course explores the science of virality. Drawing on behavioral psychology and network theory, students will deconstruct the anatomy of "Contagious" content.
Cross-Platform Content Repurposing"Create Once, Publish Everywhere" (COPE). This efficiency-focused course teaches the workflow of taking a single piece of "Pillar Content" (like a podcast or long-form video) and fracturing it into dozens of micro-assets for TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.