By the time you read this blog post, you will probably already be sick of the Bitstrips phenomenon clogging up Facebook. You may have already taken the 3 easy steps to block Bitstrips from your news feed. And some people may be glad to know that my participation in Bitstrips probably means it has officially jumped the shark. You’re welcome, America.
Last Sunday, I decided to check out Bitstrips, and I couldn’t get past creating a persona. Like, was I an average build, or was I in denial and thought I was athletic? What do my eye brows REALLY look like? And how can I properly represent my eye color, or the proper amount of lines on my face? And why would my casual outfit have to include a red t-shirt? I don’t think I own any red t-shirts.
And what about a co-star? If my wife created her own persona, would I just link to her? Should I create one for my son and just create Bitstrips on my life as a father of a toddler? Would I be able to include co-workers or my wife or my father into a Bitstrip?
So after a few hours of pondering this whole Bitstrips thing, I felt it was best to put my iPhone down and stay away from the Bitstrips world.
But over the past week, I was wondering if I could use Bitstrips to do some cool stuff – you know, like do some creative stuff to make my Facebook friends laugh, or incorporate them into this very blog. So I looked that answer up on my iPad on Saturday, and determined the answer was “no.”
Okay, it was “maybe” until I posted the above-shown one to my Facebook timeline and caught some flack from my friends. And then, my answer became a pretty solid “no.”
Bitstrips just seems to be too templated. Yes, you can create a Bitstrip and it can seem pretty zany, but are you really doing what you say you’re doing (or are really fantasizing), or are you just doing what the Bitstrip creators want you to do. Just adding a voice bubble, thought bubble, etc., doesn’t make it a creative masterpiece… for me, at least.
I mean, really. I don’t know how to start a campfire, and I certainly wouldn’t start one in a back alley, or next to a brick house, or create a potentially-toxic mess that would get me into trouble with my local HAZMAT team.
If I were a merchant, could I use them as a part of my social media strategy to drive traffic to my site? Possibly, depending on the templated message, and depending on your audience.
Yes, Bitstrips have become a social media phenomenon (maybe not along the lines of Candy Crush Saga or Angry Birds), but maybe the app makers should have held up on releasing it. I just have a feeling too many users are going to abandon their Bitstrips apps before updates for real story-telling roll out, and another app maker will have rushed in to make, well, a better Bitstrips.