[RC] Are social networks falling apart ?

[BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community]

 
 
Why the Social Networks Are Falling Apart
The social networks are falling apart -- breaking up into  multiple sites 
and apps that do in a scattered way what used to happen  centrally.
 
By _Mike Elgan_ (http://www.cio.com/author/408971/Mike+Elgan)   
Sat, April 26, 2014 


 
_Computerworld_ (http://www.computerworld.com/)  — Once upon a time, there 
was a hoodie-wearing  college dropout who moved to Silicon Valley to grow a 
social network. 
At first, Mark Zuckerberg and his staff didn't know what their business 
model  would be, but they had a strong suspicion that gathering hundreds of 
millions of  eyeballs on a single site might be worth something someday. 
Eventually and inevitably, _Facebook_ 
(http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9157638/Facebook_Complete_coverage)   
introduced advertising to its site. 
The strategy was clear: Get everybody to  gather at a single location ( 
_Facebook.com_ (https://www.facebook.com/) ), harvest social signals at  that 
location, and sell ads that would be displayed at that location. Everyone  
and everything in one place. 
Facebook made a lot of money, went public, then made  a lot more money. 
(The company this week _reported_ 
(http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9247856/Facebook_Q1_sales_leap_as_mobile_ad_business_grows)
   Q1 revenue of $2.5 
billion.) 
Everything was fine in Facebookland, except for one small problem: Most 
users  were clearly migrating from desktop to mobile, and nobody was making 
significant  ad revenue in mobile. 
Except _Google_ (https://www.google.com/) . 
How did _Google_ 
(http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9136345/Google_Update)   make money in 
mobile? Instead of harvesting personal data in one 
place and  displaying personalized advertising in that same place, it did both 
in multiple  places. 
Ever since co-founder Larry Page took over the CEO  spot from Eric Schmidt 
in January 2011, the secret sauce for Google as a  business was the 
controversial _unification  of the Google privacy policy_ 
(http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9223691/Google_to_combine_users_data_across_its_services)
  in 
January 2012. 
That simple policy enabled Google to harvest user signals and personal data 
 from one service -- say, search -- and use that information to personalize 
 advertising on another service -- say, YouTube. 
That change ushered in the future of online  advertising, as both _Twitter_ 
(https://twitter.com/)  and Facebook  would later discover. 
Facebook outgrows Facebook 
For Facebook, that discovery started with an unwelcome shift in user  
behavior. It turns out that many Facebook users, especially younger users, got  
tired of interacting on a single site with their friends, extended families 
and  co-workers -- and everyone else. So in combination with the flight from 
desktop  to mobile, they increasingly embraced little apps for social 
interaction:  Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp -- you name it. On these little 
apps, 
people could  have unfettered interaction with small tribes of friends 
without the  public-pronouncement feeling of Facebook. 
So Facebook decided to start buying the apps and  services that young users 
were fleeing to. First, it tried and failed to buy _Snapchat_ 
(http://www.snapchat.com/) . After that move proved  unsuccessful, Zuckerberg 
built his 
own service, called Poke, but it didn't work  out so well. 
Then, about two years ago, Facebook bought _Instagram_ 
(http://instagram.com/) . And a couple of months ago the  company announced its 
intention to buy 
_WhatsApp_ (http://www.whatsapp.com/)  for about $19 billion. This week,  
Facebook announced the acquisition of the fitness app _Moves_ 
(http://www.moves-app.com/) . (It's marketed as a fitness app, but  in fact its 
purpose is 
to track exactly where you are at all times and give you  incentives to 
label those places to provide better location data.)
 
 
Whenever Facebook acquires such companies, it always says that it's not 
going  to change anything, and that it's not going to fold them into Facebook 
proper.  People tend to roll their eyes at these pronouncements, but I 
believe Facebook  and I'll tell you why in a minute. 
These acquisitions were part of a larger "multiple  app" strategy by 
Facebook that has been complemented by homegrown apps like _Messenger_ 
(https://www.facebook.com/mobile/messenger) , _Facebook Camera_ 
(https://www.facebook.com/mobile/camera)  and _Paper_ 
(https://www.facebook.com/paper) . 
>From a data-harvesting perspective, these various apps fall into the  
categories of "who you know," "where you go" and "what you like." These are the 
 
same categories of personal data that Facebook gathers to provide 
increasingly  relevant and customized advertising at Facebook.com. 
This week, we learned that Facebook plans to unveil  a _new  mobile ad 
network_ 
(http://recode.net/2014/04/20/here-comes-facebooks-ad-network-mobile-ads-launching-this-month/)
  at its F8 conference next week. The purpose of the 
network  is for Facebook to sell ads outside of Facebook.com and outside 
the Facebook  mobile app. 
If Facebook's direction or strategy isn't clear, let me spell it out: 
Harvest  personal data from multiple apps, then sell personalized advertising 
in 
multiple  locations. 
Here's an oversimplified example: An ad for a Starbucks promotion presented 
 to you in a mobile game (sold through Facebook's upcoming ad network) 
might be  based on knowledge that you spend a ton of time at Starbucks -- 
information  harvested from the Moves app. 
As you can see, there's no Facebook -- no social network -- involved in 
this  series of events. But Facebook gets paid anyway. 
_Twitter_ 
(http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9157658/Twitter_update_News_blogs_opinions_and_more_about_the_microblogging_service)
   is embracing a 
"mini" version of this approach. 
Twitter outgrows Twitter 
Twitter acquired _Vine_ (https://vine.co/)   in October 2012. As Facebook 
did with its social acquisitions, Twitter kept Vine  separate and didn't 
brand it as a Twitter product. 
And last year Twitter acquired a mobile ad network  of its own called 
_MoPub_ (http://www.mopub.com/) . 
Then Twitter this month acquired a company called _Gnip_ (http://gnip.com/) 
, which specializes in the harvesting of social  signals for advertising 
and marketing. 
The control and ownership of Vine, MoPub and Gnip demonstrate a shift in  
thinking. Twitter is no longer a social microblogging service, but instead a  
personalized advertising company that harvests user signals from wherever 
and  then displays personalized ads wherever. 
Which brings us full circle back to Google. 
Google outgrows Google+ 
Google this week announced the departure of the guy  who, in Larry Page's 
words, " _built Google+ from  nothing_ 
(https://plus.google.com/+LarryPage/posts/A2gm48nzitx) ." But _Vic Gundotra's  
departure_ 
(https://plus.google.com/+VicGundotra/posts/MFrDF3W4RJL)  appears to be part of 
a larger de-emphasis 
of Google+ as a social  network that unifies everything. 
The chatter in Silicon Valley is that Google will keep Google+ going, but  
invest more heavily in Google+ as a platform, rather than as an all-purpose  
destination social network.
 
 
In other words, with Facebook outgrowing Facebook and Twitter outgrowing  
Twitter, there's no need for Google to drive so many forced integrations with 
 other Google properties. 
Google has realized the same thing Facebook and Twitter have realized:  
There's no need for unity. Ubiquity and diversity -- what Google has succeeded  
with all along -- is more powerful. 
The new model is to harvest social signals from wherever and sell  
personalized ads wherever. 
Of course, none of the social networks are going anywhere. They're still  
important both to their companies and to their users, and they still play an  
essential role in user identity and data harvesting and, for Twitter and  
Facebook at least, as places to display advertising. 
What's important for these companies from a future-facing business  
perspective is to have multiple mobile apps that harvest multiple dimensions of 
 
personal data that can be applied to highly customized and personalized mobile 
 advertising at multiple locations. 
The social networks are falling apart -- they're breaking up into multiple  
sites and apps that do in a scattered way what used to happen centrally. 
If you're in the personalized advertising business, why restrict yourself 
to  a single social network? Users don't.

-- 
-- 
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community 
<RadicalCentrism@googlegroups.com>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org

--- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to radicalcentrism+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.