We are not a social media platform, but first community media – Ghanaian inventor

The CEO of Comcent Limited, Kwadwo Dwomo II, has reiterated that his software called Comcent is not a social media platform, but rather a community media platform.

He said, “we are not a social media platform and, for that matter, we are not competing against the likes of Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. However, we welcome all competitors that will enter into the community media space so that together, we can change our communities according to the will of the Almighty Creator.”

According to him, social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc., were built around the idea of connecting friends and family to each other. Thus the whole idea of social media was that it allowed people with access to the internet and a computer or smartphone to have access to his/her social network on a phone or computer connected to the internet.

A person's social network is his/her set of friends, acquaintances, co-workers, and family. For example, when one makes a post on Facebook, it is almost the friends and family of that person that reclives the posts. A similar thing can be said for the sharing of WhatsApp status. Unless you have met someone and exchanged information with that person, you cannot view the WhatsApp status of that person. It is as a result of this architecture of social media – an architectural decision that was decided upon by the pioneers of social media – that Kwadwo Dwomo II does not accept that Comcent is a social media platform.

He rather describes his invention as a community media platform. Instead of friends, family, acquaintances, and co-workers that social media enables people to communicate with, he insisted that the architecture of community media is about connecting people to other members of their community and the various leaders of that community as well.

Based on this, members of a community who join Comcent would then get the opportunity to share the collective concerns of the community with everyone in the community and they may also get the opportunity to express the brilliant solutions that will make life better for everyone in the community. With the leaders of the community, since they are to give an account of their stewardship, they are expected to inform the community what problemsthey are working on and also use the platform to share opportunities.

Yet still, they can also join to offer their solution to the most common problems that they can find within the community.

Asked to explain if there can be an overlap between the two architectures, Kwadwo Dwomo II admitted that yes there can. He compared it to a person having a heart problem. He can either visit the neurosurgeon who may know a thing or two about the heart since he studied general medicine.

But a patient like that is better off visiting a cardiologist, who is a heart specialist. Likewise, users who wish to contribute their ideas towards making their community a better place can go to social media and share an idea, yet they are better off doing that on community media because it was purposely built for that. He gave his conclusion that he and his team are working all the hardest and smartest to find ways they can make community media more impactful.