Undoubtedly, Meta cannot ignore the competition from TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance nowadays. The temptation of content ranking based on social graphs for users is increasingly inferior to the taste and convenience of recommended content. However, three trends are emerging in the consumer Internet, from media to algorithms to interaction. Meta, or Facebook and Instagram together, is on the way to differentiating itself meanwhile building the safeguard with resources on user and technology.
- Immersive Medium
It has been witnessed that Facebook gained explosive growth after it added photo sharing from the text mode, and Instagram expanded rapidly after adding the video function to photo media. The progression of the medium, from text to images, then videos, 3D afterward, and till then VR, is the most signification advancement that all the consumer internet companies above are devoting into.
- Involvement of AI
Computers are becoming smarter and more convenient. As time passed, Facebook changed from a collection of personal information to time stamp posts, then to ranking feed with weight and signal. The recommendation is another stop with a huge step: the content pool is more than your interests and following but from the whole internet. Afterward, AI generation and creation will be the next focus.
- Dynamic User Interaction
The third trend for consumer internet would be the transformation of user-orientated towards computer-controlling. While “click”, “scroll,” and “tap” were used in the initial versions of Facebook and Instagram, TikTok applied “swipe” to simplify the process in a more user-friendly way. Other companies, such as Youtube, are using “autoplay”, which is a more interchangeable and less-interaction method.
No matter what technology or direction those consumer internet companies are heading to, the attractive part is that they’re combining those trends and making them boundless. In the long run, the diverse content creation environment and lower cost of AI could realize a vision far more than user engagement, but what users choose to interact with.
Reference
Rebecaa F. (2019). The Strategy Behind TikTok’s Global Rise. Harvard Business Review, September, 19.
