On The Future of Social Media

Social media has definitely changed our worldview in the last 10 years. It has been a real phenomenon that has involved almost all online players, from individuals, companies, governments and even criminals. As to what it did to us personally, I've written about social media changing us in this previous post.

We can compare it, to some extent, with the internet boom happening in the 1990s, where companies and individuals started rushing online when realizing the benefits that online communications would bring to their businesses or individual activities. In this context, social media might appear as an improved subsequent phase of the internet development which resulted in the "dot-com bubble" in the late 1990s (this is not to say we will have a social media bubble in the next years).Anyway, social media has evolved a lot in recent years, and to some extent, it's clearly drafting the future of the overall internet.

In the following, I will be trying to synthesize some of the upcoming improvements/developments that will affect social media in the future:

1. Streaming live video: As posting videos is much more readily available and people become aware that its impact can be much bigger, usual texting is easily converging into video streaming. By the way, think about law enforcement regarding driving and texting, while there is no restriction to streaming while driving. Therefore, Facebook (Live), Periscope, YouTube, and LinkedIn already offer such functionalities, and it seems that, in the near future, it will be  adopted by more and more social platforms. Moreover,  social media platforms that only work with live streams such as Snapchat, Vine or Beam are gaining huge momentum and various professional services (i.e. Ustream, Livestream) offer functionalities that you can use and integrate within different platforms.
   
2. Virtual reality (VR): Some people say that in the next year we will see a switch in the way classic displays are used. It could happen that you enter in an office of a multinational and find people using VR glasses instead of mere monitors. VR will definitely improve the way we work and socialize by allowing us introduce human gestures when communicating. Psychology attributes more than 50% of the understanding of a message in human communication to it's non-verbal components (such as posture, hand and eye movement, inflections, etc). Therefore, we have reasons to believe that VR will bring about more effective and more intense human communication.  To further understand how VR works, have a look at this video. In 2014 Facebook bought an important company in the field (Oculus VR) and the results are already impressive. 
3. Artificial Intelligence (AI): As Wikipedia puts it, an "ideal intelligent machine is a flexible rational agent that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at an arbitrary goal". Not to be confused with artificial general intelligence (AGI) which is "the intelligence of a (hypothetical) machine that could successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can" and can also involve machine consciousness. In other words, AI is giving you a hand by doing something for you, sometimes before you thought of it. You can already notice such AI functionalities like: face recognition, voice recognition and control (Siri), news feed filtering algorithms, chat bots, semantic search etc. 
4. Wearable integration: Wearables include all types of gadgets that you use daily for different types of activities, they incorporate a small computer  and usually you can wear them as accessories. In this category we can find smartwatches, glasses, activity trackers and others. The trend now is to integrate as much of these gadgets with your social media accounts. You can benefit from instant communication of your activity with your online community, personalized content, whereas the social media platforms can also benefit from your activity tracker statistics for marketing purposes (gyms, healthy restaurants etc.).
5. Telepathic communication: although in a very early stage it's a thought that Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook CEO) has expressed openly. "One day, I believe we'll be able to send full rich thoughts to each other directly using technology. You'll just be able to think of something and your friends will immediately be able to experience it too, if you'd like. This would be the ultimate communication technology," he said. 

Below you can find a chart presenting the 10 yr Facebook road map as presented in the F8 conference 2016.

Facebook 10 years roadmap

Before we consider these developments, though, we need to agree that in order to facilitate the development of such features and technologies, more speed and more bandwidth are necessary.  Internet infrastructures and connectivity have become a key area of development as more and more investments are done in broadband technologies. Reaching out to as many people as possible worldwide is one of the biggest goals of social media platforms. That is why more people connected to the internet with higher speeds mean more revenue for companies. Drones, satellites, new mobile telephony technologies and standards (5G) are now getting a lot of attention as enhancers of connectivity between people around the globe.

Along with the development of social media and the underlying infrastructures, there comes another big challenge for the industry. How to analyze the enormous amounts of data collected. And there comes big data, a concept that appeared around 2007, that deals with techniques for analyzing large data sets or sometimes unstructured information. Social media companies are investing a lot in those kind of technologies and in skilled people. 

It is certain that we will have interesting changes in the next 10 years as to what regards the development of social media, and they will probably become an even greater business tool. Just having an online connection won't be enough, people and businesses will also have to get engaged in social media. Let's just hope that the current free basic features will remain free.

To conclude, I will tell you about an interesting post by Jason Falls I've recently come across regarding an upcoming social media backlash. He argues:

" there will be a day when people all around the world look up from their smart phones, their laptops and their Twitter and realize it’s been weeks since they’ve spoken to another human being, live and in person. And on that day, there will be a select group of social networks that will survive the backlash – those whose online community has a vibrant carry-over offline. Again, it won’t be a bust. It will only be a short pendulum swing back to a sense of humanity. We cannot become machines. It is beyond our nature to allow that to happen. As our lives become more digitally intertwined, we will begin to establish boundaries to strengthen our human connections and put our electronic ones in proper perspective."

Well, indeed this is a possible scenario, although Falls's post  was published in 2008 and we are now 8 years later. Indeed, social media has become a great part of our lives. There are kids nowadays who learn using social media at a very early age. For them, social media may become as natural as breathing. Indeed, though, for some other generations, the backlash phenomenon might appear. I am thinking now of people over 35 people that were not raised in the social media milieu that they might want at some point to remember the good old days where discussions were carried out over a pint of beer or coffee and not through a midnight chat or video streaming. Nonetheless, a total backlash would be too much, I believe that generational backlashes of certain degrees seem more probable.

Resources:

1. http://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/02/11-predictions-on-the-future-of-social-media.html
2. https://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/news-and-noise/predicting-the-future-of-social-media/
3. http://www.altimetergroup.com/2016/04/everything-you-need-to-know-about-mark-zuckerbergs-keynote-at-f8/
4. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-donald-trump-f8 
5. http://sproutsocial.com/insights/wearables-technology-social-media/

Three Gems from the Web - Every Tuesday (7) but not this Tuesday :))

Hello all,

I haven't spent online more than 3 hours this week, and therefore, I have no gems to unearth for you. Nevertheless, I have some thoughts about what it feels to be away from the Internet for a week:

• generally life is much more intense than the innumerate hours spent on the Internet;
• the less Internet you consume, the better you sleep;
• the Internet as a navigation tool, as a phone-book, as an information center, as a weather forecast, as a sharing tool, are all useful and taken for granted;
• the less you get involved with it, the less trouble it gives you;
• the more you move physically, the less you use the Internet;
• big data is free but making sense of it is very expensive;
• the more people you have around you, the less internet you need;
• big data is biased, is about lonely people only;
• people revert to Internet when they are not happy with what is happening around the
• following the example of "Earth Day" (when we switch off electricity) we should have an "Offline Day" to remind us of the important things in life.

Happy Tuesday and have a great summer, everybody!

You won't believe WHO CAME TO VISIT! It's not who you think!

Don't you just hate being misled by catchy titles that spark your curiosity?

These are called clickbaits and are used all around the internet. And the reason they are so popular with content creators is that THEY WORK.

As you might assume by now, nothing spectacular happened, not to me, anyway. This post is about grabbing attention in social media (and further). Click bait is a pejorative term describing web content that is aimed at generating online advertising revenue, especially at the expense of quality or accuracy, relying on sensationalist headlines or eye-catching thumbnail pictures to attract click-throughs and to encourage forwarding of the material over online social networks. Clickbait headlines typically aim to exploit the "curiosity gap", providing just enough information to make the reader curious, but not enough to satisfy their curiosity without clicking through to the linked content.

Clickbaits tap into people's habit of reading headlines on their feeds (be them social media or news-feeds) and they make sure they are that sensational that they receive a click once read/viewed. Most commonly, titles have something marginal to do with the content of the material your are directed to. They are deliberately vague so as not to be dismissed as lies, but in fact they are.

Networks such as Buzfeed or Upworthy are well known for their extensive use of clickbaits, while Facebook has openly declared it is fighting against them. Their algorithm is trying to track clickbaits by analyzing the time spent on the clicked link and the amount of positive feedback the post gets on the platform (shares and likes).  Facebook's fight against clickbaits has been announced around 2013, but I am not sure it worked that well. What do you think?

Here is what 20th century headlines would look like if written today. 

Image credit: xkcd

Why did they become so common place if they are so annoying?
Well, I have three quick possible explanations:

• our decreasing attention span forces content producers to make use of it so as to stand a chance to be viewed;
• with all the marketing and the publicity we are subjected to, deception is less impugned by society to the extent that it became morally acceptable;
• standard monetizing of web traffic has put more focus on the number of page visits than on actual time spent on an internet page and/or the quality of the experience people have on a certain web page quantified through actual user feedback.

There's plenty of other explanations, but then again, there are bigger problems in the world than clickbait, so I will stop here. My aim was to make you a little more aware of the internet slang and give you a glimpse into the problematic. While for the majority of us this is a marginal although rather annoying issue, for some clickbait is their job and source of income. 

Have a great weekend, you all!

P.S. I didn't lie. We have family coming over to visit. All very normal and boring, but it means the world to us :)) (Love your family with all your heart!)

Do you know what VidCon is?

Is VidCon the Golden Globes for new media?

It sure seems to be and so much more. If you are an outsider of the new media and you are out of their demographics, VidCon does not ring any bell for you. Nevertheless, for video content creators (YouTubers, Snapchaters, Viners, etc) this thing is huge and growing at a fast pace.

VidCon is a conference of social media creators that just took place in Anaheim, California. It is a very serious, although not at all solemn, teenagers' conference. Video creators and their fans just met for three days in a huge convention center for the 7th year in a row.  Most of them post on YouTube, Snapchat, Vine, Beam, etc and continuously praise the platforms as being life changing. I would call them game changing.

So as to understand it better I followed the live feed broadcast on YouTube for the three days of the event, and I came up with a few conclusions for the uninitiated. Here they are:

1. There are various types of YouTubers and they organize by their guild: pranksters, beauty gurus, gamers, tech savvies, family and children, DIY, music performers, interior designers, vloggers, food, comic, travelers, LGBTs, to name a few. These guilds share a community of fans, rules, threads, a lingo and leaders. To entertain the community they organise meet-ups with fans, they do "colab" videos and they go to gatherings such as VidCon to meet in person.

2. All creators want is to branch out into different businesses or other creative endeavors, so that  they can better monetize their stardom. This is why the usual route for a video creator is to grow a steady community of followers and then develop a business (or several businesses), write a book, start an online course, produce or star in movies, go into mainstream media, etc.

3. There are a few of "industry" rules. One would be that video creators don't copy each other, they are "inspired" by each other. They look rather ordinary and that makes them extraordinary. This point might come across as sarcastic, but it is not. 90% of the social media famous video creators would not stand the slightest chance to make it in traditional media because they are either too common, not too fit or not too good looking, not smart or educated enough, not networked enough or not appropriate enough. On the other hand, in this youth led community, the more you are not like in the mainstream media, the better chances you stand at getting liked and followed. This is simply because these kids are relate-able, they are open about their problems and struggles and are willing to take all the "hateful" comments so as to create a community around them.

4. Their discussions are simple yet profound. While watching VidCon I never heard hard talk or professional discussions, neither questioning of the establishment, but rather a sort of  positivist existentialist talk about discrimination, struggling and growing up, hard work and being consistent, creativity and self expression. The atmosphere/vibe was enthusiastic, playful, energetic. Isn't that great?
5. Blue hair was in fashion at this year's VidCon. So watch out for your teenage relative hair!

6. Video creating on social media is hard work. Most of them might have not finished high school yet, but they sure know about cameras, lenses, lights, exposure, about video editing, about flying drones, SEO optimization, demographics, copyright and reading traffic stats. And this is on top of their ascribed turf which they have to master so as to be convincing. Tough job for a teenager, right?

The reason I am writing this post is to give you a glimpse in a world you might have not yet dived in, but your child, little brother, nephew or neighbor could be totally into. This gathering also fights the common understanding that the young generation is growing disconnected because of the development of the Internet, and their lack of real life social connections. From what I have witnessed, they all cherish the communities they've nurtured through the Internet. All in all, we have to stay in touch with the game changers so as to prepare for what is to come, right?

Let me know if you found this interesting. I might follow this up with a comparison between media and social media.
Thank you for reading and have a great day!

Three Gems from the Web - Every Tuesday (6)

Hello there,

My last post was about the EU Referendum in Britain and my prognosis failed miserably. I must be Scottish at heart, as the result I predicted came close to the Scotland result.

Nevertheless, life goes on, within or outside of the EU. We spend roughly 3 to 5 hours on the Internet (at least this is what Google says) and we need interesting and useful places to go to. Therefore, I am here to propose this week's three "gems" found on the web. Today's theme is education. And not education in the strict sense of the word, but entertaining, high quality and spot on education

1.

CrashCourse is a YouTube channel consisting of 5 to 10 minutes lessons about various topics such as world history, science and philosophy. The channel is very useful if you are trying to sediment your knowledge or get familiar with complicated concepts in an easy and entertaining way. The Green brothers who developed this channel are really awesome and have various other projects that are equally interesting. You should check those out, too.

2.

Coursera - says it provides universal access to the world’s best education. It partners with top world universities such as Duke, Stanford or Tel Aviv University to offer access to a huge variety of online courses. The courses usually include video content as well as access to all the ascribed readings, and this in itself is a huge resource and privilege. I am currently enrolled in a big data course and I love it. Watch out that not all the courses are free. Usually the old ones are free of charge.

3.

Ted Ed - is my third pick. It is the younger sister site of the huge and transforming website called Ted.com and it focuses on education in 10 minutes clips on a various range of topics. The videos include animation, high quality videos and easy to understand content. Some of them have quizzes at the end making them applicable in formal education settings. It is a must if you want to start using your time online and learn or systematize your knowledge.

By the way, starting first of July they are launching the July challenge. If you sign up you will receive a video lesson followed by a short quiz every day in the month of July, so that you will learn 31 new things next months. I signed up here!

There are plenty other resources for learning online, depending on your interest or inclinations. Nevertheless, these are the choices that, from my perspective, are the least time consuming and the most entertaining of them all. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Please write back if you have other suggestions.

Have a great Tuesday and thank you for reading this.

Britain's EU Referendum - 5 Less Obvious Social Media Conversations and a Prognosis

As a bachelor in Political Science and an avid admirer of the United Kingdom, I cannot shy away from discussing tomorrow's EU Referendum. That is why I am bringing you 5 conversations  related to it that I came across on social media. I will stay away from the main points and keep a closer eye to the "not so obvious" topics that came up:

1. The EU Referendum and booze  -

this association is for real and has been done several times and on several platforms. Basically, one of the arguments used by the "Remain" campaigners was that the Italian Prosecco wine would get more expensive because of the custom duties that would be imposed on it in the absence of the free market. As UK is the most important consumer of Prosecco (apart from Italy), campaigners invited UK citizens to vote remain for the sake of a good cheap Italian glass of wine if not for a higher cause ...

2. Second generation immigrants complaining about immigration -

Yes! It is a fact. After building solid lives on UK soil as immigrants themselves, they now want to vote to get out of the EU because opened borders will bring in more immigrants. Is it ironic, amusing or hypocritical of them? Well, none of the above. It is actually very pragmatic. Immigrants usually compete for lower wage jobs and for social benefits. Bringing in more immigrants would mean harsher competition and diminishing social benefits.

3.Drawing parallels with the US elections -

"Obama says to stay IN" while "Trump says to LEAVE the EU". Interestingly, campaigners have not used Hilary Clinton as an "IN" advocate but have tricked Obama in as he is highly popular in Britain.

Furthermore, some threads on Instagram take advantage of the physical resemblance between Boris Johnson, ex mayor of London and lead "LEAVE" campaigner and Donald Trump, trying to discredit the former by association and by portraying them both as radical and hasty decision makers.

4. Food conversation -

On the same note as the wine conversation, posters claiming "Remain" votes use word play to emphasize the supplementary costs on import goods such as the Romaine Lettuce ("romaine" = "remain") or the French Fromage ("Fromage not Farage "(Neil)).

5. Cat conversation - Could cats stay out of it? No, they could not. How would cats vote on tomorrow's referendum? Well one article says that they would vote to LEAVE and then refuse to go :-) There is a myriad of threads involving cats on the topic of EUReferendum and the #catsagainstBrexit hashtag has huge coverage on all platforms.
Media outlets such as the BBC and Forbes have also joined the conversation.

I am sure there are plenty out there I am not aware. this is what I could spot today on social media, I will make further updates if other noteworthy conversations do pop up.

Finally, I would dare a prognosis for tomorrow's vote based on the vibe I got from social media. The "Remain" campaign seems to be more articulate and data driven, while the "Leave" campaign seems to be that of the restless and nonconformists.

Results tomorrow: 65% Remain - 35% Leave.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments bellow or on our Facebook Page and Twitter account.
Happy Wednesday!

UPDATE: I am in dismay! Social media mislead me :)) Farewell Britain!

Three Gems of the Web - Every Tuesday (5)

Hi there,

Sorry I didn't post too much last week, but we were away in a very special place, and we have been running all day long to absorb as much as we could of the vibe of my favorite city in the world, London.
Nevertheless, I couldn't miss my series post. Every Tuesday I try to suggest you places on the web that I come across and find interesting, useful or amusing. Here are my picks for this week:

1. Overheard in New York -

we all know that New York is a world's cradle for innovation and creativity. This website is no exception. It started around the idea that New Yorkers would contribute to the site by submitting snippets of conversations they have heard around the city. It then became such a success that it spread across the globe and developed new versions of the first thread such as "Overheard in the Office" or "Overheard at the Beach". Go and have a look if you are in the mood for a little laugh and a lot of genuine absurd :))



2. ReWork

is a platform developed by Google aiming at sharing their acquired knowledge and practices regarding work, productivity, and all the things related to it. It offers step by step guides to achieving work related goals, access to videos and documents, a blog, access to a LinkedIn community and several case studies. It is worth checking if you are a manager or considering a management position in the future, or if you want to improve your work environment. So many good ideas!


3. Quora -

a social media platform that answers all of your questions.
Here is how Carl Logan, a top writer on Quora describes it "Ever wanted to know why the sky is blue? What are the best vacation spots within two hours drive of x? Want to help others in their pursuit of knowledge? Sure you could do a google search for a answer to your question "How do I meet members of the opposite sex?" ....you might fish around on the internet for hours without any success whilst Quora is like asking your Grandparent who will give you some advice and provide a funny anecdote of how they met their significant other during World War II. " 
Dive in, you can use your Facebook account!

Hope you like my three picks! If so, check the previous "Three Gems of the Web" posts here and here. Happy Tuesday!