Last month, a panelist at MediaPost’s Social Media Insider Summit demonstrated the brilliance of Instagram and other social niche-works with a single keen observation. As the panel bandied about the topic of who uses Twitter and why, a young man piped in with this articulation:“I mean, like, really, who cares? Like, I mean, like seriously, like who cares what I’m doing right now? And I certainly, don’t care what you’re doing (pointing to another panelist) right now.”

Precisely. In what was surely a gift from the irony gods, four minutes later the same fellow claimed his favorite social platform was Foursquare – the granddaddy of “this is what I’m doing right now” apps. Amen.

Tweet This.

The danger with Twitter is that users have no control of the content coming in. You absolutely can choose whom to follow (and unfollow), but the reality is Twitter feeds have become a free-for-all of brands hyping products, blogs linking to articles, retweets and replies, that one friend who is positive his 140 character observations are comedy gold and on down the line. The inmates run the asylum and for at least one of the folks on this panel, that meant a steady diet of “At the gym. #GTL baby.”

Luckily there is a solution and it comes from observing the Oracle of Restraint himself, Mr. Jobs. Apple has built the realm on its warlock ability to know just how much control users should have (and not have). Applications – yes. Base operating system – no.

The (100) Million User March

For the best example of an application that forces users down a single path to the land of joy and happiness, look no further than Instagram. Just shy of its second birthday, the newly minted jewel in the Facebook portfolio reached its 100,000,000th active user. Keep in mind, for most it’s life Instagram only lived on a single mobile operating system and still doesn’t support web based photo uploads. So that’s 100M mobile only users. Users who have grown to love the mind-numbingly simple app that boils the experience down to a very simple act: upload a photo. Instagram users know precisely what they’re in for when they open the app and they only have two ways to get in on the action: upload or engage. You can like or comment, or you can upload. It’s that simple.

This same linear experience is driving other networks to success as well. Pinterest, like Instagram, is built on users’ insatiable appetite for images. The experience is more complex with the ability to curate and add others’ content to your collection, but the content itself is always the same. Certainly there is a danger that eventually all to see will have been seen, but that is where brands must realize a tremendous opportunity as content creators and conversation shapers.

The users have spoken and the path has been laid. App builders – build it simple, build it linear. Content creators – adapt to the tools that give users the power to create simply and publish quickly, and people will care what you’re doing.