Is Facebook Changing the Landscape of Tech Startups?

Facebook has employed the old Microsoft strategy. If you can’t beat your competitors, just buy them up. They purchased Instagram after realizing how important photo sharing really is nowadays, and they offered to buy Snapchat after their rival app, Poke, failed miserably. And their latest acquisition? WhatsApp a messaging app for a whopping $19 billion.

That is a lot of money.

And a lot of people will have you thinking Facebook just bought an app that people can download for free. Which is true, but after a year it costs a dollar a year to maintain your account through the app. A nominal fee, but some revenue none the less.

See where WhatsApp is desirable is that messages can be sent between cell phone numbers across mobile data networks, meaning that you can send messages internationally without being slammed with international charges.

While this acquisition has some interesting consequences coming in the tech, social media, and messaging world, I’m curious about what effect it will have on the start up culture.

Facebook has shown that if they feel threatened, they’ll offer to buy you and if they can’t buy you they’ll try to out do you. So will this change how people will approach start up ideas? Create a great idea and then sell it to Facebook? Or do you try to create an app that will compete with Facebook directly, a company valued at around $40 billion? Is that even possible?

I’m worried that if too many people subscribe to the idea that they should just create ideas that Facebook will buy, the quality of ideas will fall sharply. On the other hand, if people subscribe to the idea that they will fail to win against Facebook they will lose the courage to create awesome stuff.

I think the beauty of the current situation of tech in the US is that the entrepreneurial spirit is high. People love creating new things and trying to find out how to be the next Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But will Facebook lead to its own demise by eating up all the people with a competitive spirit?

I guess only time will tell. Till then, I hope that people will still see how worthwhile and fun creating a startup can be. Let the good ideas flow.

Social Media/ Internet Predictions for 2014

Ahh, Happy New Year! Around this time of year people are either extremely nostalgic or  somehow gain the abilities of Nostradamus. Since 2013 was exactly the best year for me, I’ll go ahead and make some predictions now that my hangover has finally subsided.

Without further ado, here are my predictions for the world of tech, social media, and the internet for 2014. Let’s see if any of it comes true. If not, I’ll just come back and edit this post so it looks like I was smart. That’s what most people do, right?

1. 2014 will be the year the “Internet of Things” comes to fruition. 
   This year the internet and connected devices will perpetuate every aspect of our life. Yeah, they all exist now and have for a while, but we’ll see widespread adoption this year. We’ll use our phones and tablets to unlock our cars and homes, we’ll change the channel on our TV and mirror our screens, we’ll turn off the lights in our house and turn on the security systems. Our lives will get a lot more interconnected. We’ll be able to schedule appointments, move money, and a lot more that I can’t think of or else I’d probably be making it and getting paid right now.
2. Digital Currency will take off.
   This is more like 1A, but regardless, digital currency will take off. Things like Coin will end up being used. It’s already here with Starbucks Cards on smart phones, but either Google Wallet or Passbook will take off. Let’s just see which decides to partner with a bank first. Reloadable cards are great, like Starbucks, but they are too much of a hassle to see widespread use. First company to get a bank on board with it and create a digital credit/debit card wins…as long as they make sure that it can be used anywhere without extra equipment.Bitcoin? Yeah, I’m not so sure about that. Every game has their own currency, not quite sure these kinda things will take off.
3. Social Network usage will diversify.
   No, teens are not flocking away from Facebook. But they are diversifying their social media networks. Instead of just being on Facebook, they’re on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Vine. This will happen with other age demographics. Instagram does a good job at what it does, pictures and video. Snapchat lets us send pictures without taking up all of our devices memory. Vine is just plain fun and easy. Twitter aggregates almost everything we care about. These networks each do one thing well and that is their claim to success. Facebook? Pretty diverse, and right now its greatest strength is its numbers. Can Google+ steal daily users away? If they can, we may see a downfall in Facebook, but I think Facebook will be fine for at least 2014. Pinterest will be an interesting site to keep an eye on. They’re making moves.
4. Social Video will be huge.
   This year we saw brands try their hand a real time marketing, commenting on current events and trying to be in the moment. Some succeeded, but a lot failed. This year we’ll see brands try out social video. Still a relatively new area for advertising, brands will learn what success and failure in this area look like. Vine will continue to grow and we’ll start to see more videos posted by brands on Instagram.
5. Mobile is the new design standard. Location, Location, Location.
   When it comes to websites and content, people will need to start developing and considering mobile devices. I feel like this year will see a huge shift to how people access pages online. Mobile will still trail desktop/laptop browsing, but sites that excel in mobile will see results in their bottom line as consumers utilize those websites inside stores to shop and browse other options. Responsive design was so 2013 maybe even 2012. 2014 will be about how websites can utilize mobile browsers and geofencing to help consumers take the next step into buying products. We’ll see a lot more usage of location based things. Foursquare? Let’s see if they can shine. There will be an opportunity for it.

Let’s hope I can go 5 for 5. But we’ll see. 2014 will be an interesting year for tech and advertising.

If I Can’t Buy You… Twitter/Instagram introduce picture messaging

Let’s start from the beginning.

Back in the early November of this year, reports surfaced that Snapchat had been offered $3 billion by Facebook. They turned down the offer expecting that 2014 would boost their value.

Fast forward to December 10th when Twitter introduced that pictures could now be sent in direct messages (DMs). The next day Instagram (owned by Facebook) announced that they now had Instagram Direct, a way for their users to share photos to individuals and groups.

Interesting. There’s been a lot of hubbub about Snapchat lately and its usage among Millennials. So much so that the major players like Facebook and Twitter have started to look to ways to incorporate picture messaging into their services. A great thing for users. We all love pictures and making them easier to share and display doesn’t harm us at all. Well except for the fact that it will eventually be used to advertise to us in some way or form. (see in feed Twitter picture previews).

I’m not sure people understand that appeal of Snapchat. It’s a way to send quick pictures, normally of things you wouldn’t want people to have or would waste the time to post. It’s the digital equivalent of walking down the street with someone and saying “Hey! Look at that!” and walking away. It’s not important enough to take an actual picture of and not quite something that should be ignored.

Instagram has become a place where, for the most part, they are pictures that we would like to keep. Pictures that we take the time to edit and filter to create something that we are proud of. And since we’re proud of it we share it with everyone we can. I’m not sure right now how much I’ll use Instagram Direct, or anyone for that matter. Maybe baby pictures? But people aren’t as worried about security of that stuff now. Dick pics to celebrities? Yeah, that will probably happen a lot.

Twitter on the other hand, has a very real use. Being able to DM pictures is another alternative to sending it in text messages, emails or even Facebook messages. But other than that, I can’t see it.

Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter all cater to their own niche which makes them powerful in their own ways. This means that as long as they continue to be the best at what they do, they’ll have no reason to worry about the things that the other ones do. I can’t say this for certain but, when they all start doing the same thing, well that’s when we won’t be using all of them anymore.

Instagram Ads have changed nothing

Instagram’s first ad showed up in some users’ feeds Friday to an admittedly mixed review. Reading some of the comments will have you believing that users are dropping Instagram to “jellyfish-less seas.” (see @mccann_WW tweet at the bottom of the post.) But, I happen to think, and am surprised that others haven’t seen this, that this is just the usual ranting that comes from any change in a service(think ANY Facebook update).

Instagram’s advertisers have been announced to include Ben & Jerry’s, Burberry, General Electric, Lexus, Levi’s®, Macy’s, Michael Kors, PayPal and Starwood. And I don’t know if you’ve perused their feeds, but they have already been creating some pretty beautiful photos, in general.

Before we get any further, ICYMI, here is Michael Kors’ Ad.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Michael Kors (@michaelkors)

Now, that the background info is out of the way. Here’s my take on this new introduction, in a cool little millennial list form that we so love.

1. Instagram Ads aren’t going to drive users away.
   Facebook introduced ads and didn’t see much of a dip. Users utilize these sites because that’s where their social connections are. Myspace died because people migrated to Facebook, until something comes up that causes people to migrate from Instagram, they’ll be there to stay.
2. Instagram Ads will be pretty effective.
   Instagram promises to show ads that are relevant to consumers, that’s probably what is going to drive their bottom line so you know they’ll perfect the algorithms behind it as soon as possible. This means that you’ll see brand pictures of stuff that you actually want, like and may end up buying. At the very least, you may even start following brands that are featured in ads. More engagement.
3. Instagram Ads aren’t intrusive.
   They look like any other photo in your stream, just replace the time stamp with a “sponsored.” Most people who scroll quickly through their feeds may end up just scrolling past them without giving them a second thought. Think about it, there is no exiting out of this ad, no sitting through a video, no reading around the ad to get to the article. You just scroll past it, 2 second advertisement.
4. Instagram Ads AREN’T INTRUSIVE.
   I know, I know, I said this already. But this poses a difficulty for advertisers. All I have to do is scroll past the ad. You REALLY have to make me stop to actually interact, or even consume an ad. This means that advertisers need to create photos that really stop people. Videos, the way they play on Instagram right now, won’t work. They require way too much interaction by the audience.

For the basic user experience on Instagram, ads haven’t changed much. You may see a couple of photos that you wouldn’t have before, or you may just scroll right on by. For advertisers, they have to step their game up. The name of the game is always to make people stop and look at your advertisement, but now that users aren’t in anyway forced to consume this, they don’t have anything to fall back on.

So take it from a millennial, don’t worry about how ads will impact users, worry about how ads will impact advertisers and brands.

 

Here’s that McCann tweet I was talking about. Obviously they didn’t like the way Twitter now shows photos in stream.

Unwanted photos float through our @Twitter stream like jellyfish interrupting an August ocean swim.

— McCann (@McCann_WW) October 30, 2013