Social apps and emerging trends

Opinion by Arsim Ajeti

Editor in Chief / thejournalbiz.com

Digitization, as the progressive global trend came together with product innovation, from online shopping(amazon vs ebay) to couples dating(tinder vs match) online rental booking (airbnb vs uber) all the way to web-stream online movies(Netflix vs HBO ) towards growing trend of online gaming( WoW vs  Fortnite)

Electronic essential became personal computers, smartphones, the technology on the go, replacing old TV & radios.

How the futuristic innovations end up on consumer’s watch? how come that a small group of people who own a revolutionary innovative product end up on mass adoption scale that changes the core of our daily habits! What’s the secret behind brands like Tesla, Uber, Airbnb, Apple, Facebook, Pay-pal!?

There are several stages that one innovative product goes through, starting from continuous innovation, towards discontinuous innovation, ending with disruptive innovation. So, what’s the difference between them and how does consumer end-up adopting them?

According to senior investor Bill Miller Facebook stocks valuation after the scandal were not correlating with reality!? pointing out the importance and crucial role of social network, established on 2004 and entered the stock market on 2012 has generated revenues of US$ 55.8 billion by 2018, is set for an entry into the early adopters’ stage of globally digitization monetary exchange with their proclaimed globally currency Libra, but what true intentions lies behind the hype!?

When the buzz of  blockchain was surging in silicon valley and beyond, Facebook set a sight into growing trend &emerging market by investing into extensive research on the decentralized block chain technology phenomena, the first indication of exploring the market in depth came with the Facebook involvement on WhatsApp stable coin integration (managed by former Paypal president David Marcus), hired by Facebook explicitly to spearhead the path towards their new baby project ‘libra’

Ever since bitcoin reached all time high on December 2017  the speculation continued to grow about the Facebook next move on their own digitized token branded the ‘internet coin’ , until official confirmation, after the privacy scandal and market volatility

But before we descent further into adoption of innovation philosophy, Facebook entered into commercial maze known as PLC ( Product life cycle)

Entry into maturity stage, that’s when company needs less support or marketing strategy to maintain its market share stability, profits are stable and the company continues to expands & gets positive return on the investment — that is the perfect time for acquisition, as indeed happened  Facebook acquires instagram

Next stage is a decline, indication when new competitors enters the market, the case with Twitter.Inc and Snap that have attracted the diverse group of clients, a random cycle that one cannot break, it goes from generation to generation, and by default the new generations (Millennial to Gen Z) of consumers bring with them different ideas, needs and trends

As a result, many ‘logged off’ from the Facebook, and set their sight in Twitter, seen as more of debate driven micro blogging social media,( Twitter became one of most influential social tool since Trump election, his daily twits causes havoc on market shares) while Snap Inc are focused solely on privacy related and younger generation exchanging short videos and photos (gen Z) as the consumers preferences starts to shift.

While the famous scandal of Cambridge analytical descended Facebook towards obsolete territory very fast, it was a huge blow that spiraled the social media out of control.

Compromising personal data of US voters & influencing their behavior, people’s favorite social network become very unreliable, insecure, repetitive, and experienced a dramatic downgrade embedded in negative sentiment of social media role and mission, reaching the critical stage when loyal clients deleted accounts prompting shares drop to new low

The entire process was sensitive enough as to seriously implicate Facebook into allegation of meddling on Us election 2016, as a consequence Mark was summoned on explanatory hearing session before the US Congress.

In order to survive the decline and revive the brand, one must have a back up plan, while startups were in a gold-rush mode Facebook sets its sights into future business plan, developing a new product for emerging market and consumers,

Facebook engaged into a new product development  the ‘idea generation’ that led to Libra project , in cooperation with many Fin-tech conglomerate the likes of pioneers brands cited on Libra whitepaper

Vodafone Group known for their famous digital offline payment with M-Pesa project in Kenya,( crisis of hyperinflation)

What is Libra made of, is it decentralized?

Governed by independent Libra Association ( Identifying the decentralized issue importance is key to success, privacy and transparency matter in today’s sentiment and market value)

Facebook’s playground for building Libra has been massively boosted by the ease of access and data collection source, as highlighted on the Millennial & Money insight report using Insights, about the demographics and behaviors of Millennial’s on Facebook that gives a clear picture and key differences between generations as survey data take us a level deeper, revealing as to why are the Millennial’s & Gen Z the driving force of the consumer changes

The X Factor-Millennial’s &Generation Z

Today, as Baby boomers are on retirement stage & Generation X are looking forward to close the cycle of data integration, Millennial’s are the ones to further enhance web and cloud development, innovation that started with Gen X were portable consoles, credit cards & digital cameras, while the whole e-commerce was mainly misunderstood.

Millennial’s tech savvy smartphone generation, from YouTube live video streaming, to e-commerce, web communication, all the way to online education has been a major shift towards integration into cyberspace, witnessing fundamental changes, mobile banking, email on the go that smartphone offers at a glance of a swipe& click, Gps location and personal avatar for a complete social networking integration.

Therefore, Generation Z will not go through the absorption of digitized stages as the case with previous generation that subsequently produced segmentation into early adopters, late majority, and laggards. Millennial’s integration has opened the door to Gen Z as future AI & decentralized automation comes as a natural daily habit and a social norm.

We can conclude that Social Network changed our lives radically, in mirroring comparison as how internet impacted the telecommunications industry, postal mail service, printed journalism, and now the monetary digitization as a trend and necessity of time.

Will it disrupt the monopolization of money produced by global governments and controlled by market regulation?? perhaps not to the scale of online communication and e-commerce evolution, but there will be a significant addition to the monetary and reserve asset categories that will compete with US dollar and gold respectively,

As current trade phenomena applied by Venezuela, Russia& China circumventing the dollar while trading exclusively on gold for oil & other commodities.

Additionally, fluctuation as well as regulation issues have kept the market very skeptic and lacking in mass-adoption, constant hacking threats, mining issues, and vast electricity consumption only added to the complexity of entitlement that any coin can claim the Throne of the world currency.