The Future Of Social Networks

By Francesco D'Alessio - March, 11th 2014

At the current moment, a big wave of private messaging services has started to flood our screens. Masses of WhatsApp and SnapChat competitors swarm us daily in an attempt to jump onto the new trend of “less sharing and more messaging”. Searching through the Google Play application store in a attempt to find something interesting usually results in finding a new messaging application, this is becoming a more regular occurrence. These “competitors” are offering something new to the table and are bringing great innovation forcing the major winners to keep on their toes.

The real question behind all this is, What will happen to our social network platforms in the new few years? What choices will they make in the next few months and will they be crushed by private messaging services or be solely used for their messaging services?

Facebook

This is a difficult one, Facebook have just purchased WhatsApp and are in a very strange position in terms of their strategy and game plan. There are many various routes Facebook can go down but I these are their main choices that I think they would highlight.

• Condense Facebook’s features, forcing users to merge into smaller and smaller communities, this will allow them to focus on their Facebook Messenger tools and limits. Maintain WhatsApp as a separate service and use it as a money making tool with yearly subscriptions.

or

• Blend WhatsApp into Facebook Messenger and force your WhatsApp sign-in to be a Facebook Profile sign-in. In this case, many users I believe will leave the service and look for alternatives in the rage (similar to when Facebook bought Instagram but more extreme).

For Facebook I think that their best move would be to start turning their service into something like Path where users can keep an eye on what all users are doing at the same time, that is a service that I would enjoy using; so if you can hear me, Facebook jump onto the first train that I’ve highlighted.

Twitter

No comments on Twitter, Twitter will remain the standard media tool for the next 10 years at the very least. Even if “user” contribution stopped, Twitter could still offer the service as a news platform (this won’t happen).

Google+

Now this is a tough one, Almost everyone I have talked to has had negatives views on Google+ and I hope this is just a UK thing.

Being an active user myself I have been able to discover a lot about what the experience can offer a user. What people get wrong with Google+ is the fact that it is a social network, you have to add people for it to be interesting much like Twitter and Facebook. Many people simply sign-in and see nothing and expect to see a lot, but they forget this is not what they did with Facebook.

Anyhow, What does the next couple of years look like for Google+?. Simple, Smooth sailing. As they continue to force users onto Google+, they force users into using the Hangouts messaging service allowing the users to get a sense of being force fed. If anyone has ever used Google+ Hangouts, it is a great tool for jumping in and really interacting with a user. Maybe I’m biased but it is simply great for family chats to personal one on ones. There is nothing wrong with the service that Google+ showcases just what attitude people are taking towards this tool.

Google+’s road is very stable and with more exciting features coming soon and a network that was designed to adapt, this will be easy for Google+ to change to the new and evolving messaging market.

For the next couple of months/over the next year, social sharing will begin to plummet and social networks will start their process of changing their algorithms to suit this and focus intensely on their messaging applications as their hub of activities.

As a user of all major messaging applications and social networks I am looking forward to seeing which one suits me the most in the next few weeks, so that I can focus more of my time towards that network. It would be worth downloading as many of these applications and looking at the pros and cons of using the service. Remember find something that people are on, but make sure you are comfortable using it.