What will social media look like in the future? That’s a loaded question for sure. If this was asked several years ago the answer might include apps like Vine being a big player and part of social media’s future. Yet as things stand now Vine is a shell of its former self after Twitter, its parent company, decided it needed to slash funding in order to increase profitability (Constine 2017). If Vine was so popular then why couldn’t it bolster Twitter without having to be sacrificed?
That question brings us to the most interesting parts of social media. No one has a 100% guarantee on what platform will become wildly popular, which ones will endure and who will fade. Instagram began to host videos, which was damaging to Vine, and then Snapchat began hosting its “Stories” which was just another nail in the coffin. If you had asked the question years ago no one could have told you what has transpired yet the question we must answer is the same today.
We do have some educated guesses. We will probably look back at this post and laugh at how off the mark the estimates were or they all can turn out to be correct. Reminiscent of the articles that predicted the first Iphone would be a flop. So here is where the future of Social Media may lie.
Virtual Reality Can be a Big Player
Current social media behemoth Facebook has already double downed on virtual reality being the future of technology and possibly the future of social media. In August 2012 Oculus began a Kickstarter (Kickstarter 2012) for a virtual reality headset that worked by using your desktop PC to render your virtual environment. Facebook paid nearly 3 billion dollars to purchase the company that had yet to release its product in March 2014 (Pressburg 2017).
Some might ask why Facebook would jump into a market that had yet to even begin to blossom but there are theories as to what the future of virtual reality may hold. Consider this, one of social media, and Facebook specifically, big draws are that it keeps you in contact and connected to people around the world. You can now be kept up to date on the day to day happenings of your cousin who lives in Japan. Now take this concept and add virtual reality to it. Rather than take a flight costing you thousands to see your relative you can strap a headset on your face and feel as if you’re spending time with them in person in a matter of seconds.
Interaction between humans and digital environments is experiencing breakthroughs all the time. From companies like Virtuix who offer the Omni, a walking interface that translates your actual body movement into the digital plane, to Oculus themselves with their Touch controllers to get a greater degree of realism to hand movements in games, we are drawing closer to a truly immersive virtual experience.
If Facebook can be the facilitator of interaction, long distance relationships could benefit, deployed soldiers can “visit” their families, it can put a much heavier emphasis on the social aspect of social media. We may turn to digital to socialize in ways we couldn’t previously due to whatever restrictions our lives and locations have placed on us. This in turn would make Facebook the leader of all social media platforms more so than they already are.
One Platform Controls the Internet
It may seem as if I’m picking on Facebook but that is only because Facebook reaches the most people of any Social Media platform. With an active user base of 1.86 billion monthly users (Statista 2016) they reach the masses. It’s no secret that Facebook wants to be the end all be all of one stop internet usage. Need to search for an answer to a question? Facebook now has a search feature, that although doesn’t match Googles 3.5 billion searches per day (InternetLiveStats 2017) it clocks in at a surprisingly high 2 billion searches per day (Constine 2016).
They have a messenger app, marketers can advertise, you can play games on Facebook, it is even a rudimentary web browser. When you click a link from within the app it lets you view the site you wanted. From there you can shop or do anything else you like, but at any time you can click that little x and be right back to your news feed. Think you can get away from Facebook by using Instagram? Can’t escape that way either as they’re owned by Facebook as well.
Social media is also the new way the majority of people get their news, whether real or fake. Social media has ingrained itself in nearly every facet of our lives and Facebook is looking for ways to become all the more indispensable. In the future instead of using Google Chrome as our web browser we might be using Facebooks yet to be created browser not to visit other sites, but to access features that other companies pay to have included.
Social Media in the Work Place
Finally we may see the end of companies blocking social media in the work place. Many companies currently don’t have a social media policy in place, as of 2013 73% did not (Dougherty 2014). It’s safe to assume that in the 4 years since that number has dropped but even though they don’t actively warn users against usage they may block access with a firewall or some other similar software.
Recently however companies have begun to become more accepting of the positives of social media. It will never be okay to send your boss that funny meme about the “Cash me outside” girl or whatever may be popular at the time, but look at sites such as LinkedIn. It is a great way of recruiting potential employees and seeing a work history prior to hiring. To name Facebook again they have tried to enter the business field with Facebook at Work (Kleeman 2016). It’s a water downed version of the Facebook we all know and love. It has a news feed, a way to message, group message and a professional profile. This is Facebook again trying to take users from other similar professional offerings and bringing about the theory above. Whatever platform used it has been shown to produce productivity and company involvement.
So there you have it. Those are three distinct ways that I think social media can go in the future. Agree, disagree? I’d love to see what you think in the comments below!
References
Oculus Rift: Step Into the Game. (n.d.). Retrieved March 10, 2017, from https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game
Pressberg, M. (2017, January 17). Um, Facebook Bought Oculus for $3 Billion (Not $2 Billion). Retrieved March 10, 2017, from http://www.thewrap.com/um-facebook-bought-oculus-3-billion-not-2-billion/
Constine, J. (2017, January 17). Vine shuts off sharing, launches Vine Camera. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/17/download-vine-camera/
Facebook users worldwide 2016. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/
Constine, J. (2016, July 27). Facebook sees 2 billion searches per day, but it’s attacking Twitter not Google. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/27/facebook-will-make-you-talk/
Google Search Statistics. (n.d.). Retrieved March 10, 2017, from http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/
Dougherty, J. (2014, October 22) 73% of companies don’t have employee social media policies.. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from http://leaderswest.com/2013/04/09/study-68-of-companies-dont-share-the-purpose-of-social-media-with-employees/
Kleeman, S. (2016, March 04). What Is Facebook at Work and Do You Need to Care? Retrieved March 10, 2017, from http://gizmodo.com/what-is-facebook-at-work-and-do-you-need-to-care-1762754256
Diogenis,
You did some fantastic research for this blog post. I have to say that the “growth” of Facebook’s impact on our lives is really disturbing. Another internet phenomenon that is taking over more than we realize in an insidious manner is Amazon. Since they don’t have stores their growth is tremendous but not as easy to perceive.
As I told you at some other point sharing my life with my gym buddies is really nice probably because we are all so happy because of all of the endorphins.