Now that we’ve had some time to absorb the changes in the space during Q3, let’s take a look back at the big announcements, compare the new landscape to the changes from the second quarter, and project what will have the most impact for Q4 of 2011. In a sentence, Facebook’s f8 developer conference contained more sweeping changes to the largest social platform (now 800 million users) since its launch in 2004.
July
Twitter Town Hall @ White House (7/5): In July, the first ever Twitter Town Hall was hosted at the White House by President Obama, and tweeters could send in their questions using the hashtag #AskObama. Our President has always done a good job using social media to connect with and converse with voters – he and his staff were widely acclaimed for their use of social during their campaign three years ago – and this was another great example of the flattening effect that technology has on society, all the way up to the highest office in the land.
Facebook Video Calling (7/6): When Facebook and Skype joined forces, we knew it was only a matter of time before regular text chat would turn into video chat, especially with Google+ Hangouts launching a month earlier. Usage numbers aren’t public, but the feature itself is quick to install, easy to use, and sleek in integration.
Foursquare Redesign and Notification Tray (7/15): Foursquare made a couple plays during Q3, both to their web interface and to their mobile app. In this update, a new notification tray is unrolled to users, and is met with positive feedback. The tray simplifies and rolls up many of the processes that foursquare users had become accustom to, providing an experience with less friction and a smoother overall experience for surfacing relevant content.
August
- Foursquare Brand Pages Now Self-Serve (8/2): In early August, foursquare opened up the Brand Page creation process to businesses, making the process infinitely more scalable and increasing the value (via Page control) for businesses on the platform. To get started with your brand page, check out Foursquare: Create Page.
- Facebook Messenger (8/9): With the acquisition of Beluga, Facebook made a strong play into mobile messaging and released a stand-alone mobile app called Messenger. It integrates directly into your Facebook Messages, syncing conversations and surfacing the friends with whom you message the most. With over 350 million active users accessing Facebook via mobile, expect to see more attention given to the distribution channel from the largest social platform during Q4.
Linkedin Launches New Mobile App (8/15): Linkedin launched a massive update to their mobile app that has people flocking to their respective app stores. The new UI has been met with praise, and it should result in a renewed interest in keeping abreast of your In network, at least for now.- Targeting Your Sharing on Facebook (8/23): In an effort to make sharing and privacy more transparent with its 800 million users, Facebook began rolling out targeted sharing at the end of August. This allows users to post updates and content in three tiers, Public, Friends, and Custom (where you can target by List group), in addition to being able to pre-approve tags in photos and updates before they go live. Also, Facebook surfaced the View Profile As button, making it easier to see how your profile appears to any other user on Facebook. Overall, these changes are another step forward in gaining the trust of the masses.
Mixi Launches Brand Pages (8/31): Japan’s largest social network, Mixi, with 23 million users, launched their version of brand pages at the tail end of August. Mixi isn’t Facebook, but it will be interesting to see how brands decide to leverage programs and campaigns back and forth between the two platforms.
September
- Facebook Subscribe and Changes to Newsfeed (9/20): Pre-f8, Facebook rolled out several important structural changes that took aim at some nice functionality that already existed outside of the platform. The Subscribe button was introduced, which essentially allows you to receive a person’s status updates in your newsfeed, like and comment on them, without being connected to them as friends. Take that, Twitter. Then Facebook rolled out Smart Lists, which segments your friends into groups, which then allows you to dictate both what you share with them and what gets shared with you, and upgraded the ticker to display a real-time stream of activity across your social graph. Take that, Google+.
- Share Photos on Twitter via SMS (9/21): Right before f8, Twitter introduced SMS photo sharing. Some may ask, why are upgrades being rolled out for SMS in Q3 of 2011? The significance is that there is still much of the world where smart phones aren’t as pervasive, but where users still need to connect and share. A picture is worth a thousand words, and as global new sources like CNN increasingly source the ‘public journalist,’ photos take center stage when breaking global events, be they natural disasters or political upheavals.
- Facebook Timeline (9/22): In September, Facebook began unleashing feature changes and upgrades, and everything came to a head at f8 with the introduction of Timeline, which represents a new lens on the user profile page, largely unchanged since it’s inception. Timeline also represents an enormous opportunity for brands, as they now have the ability to weave themselves into the fabric of consumers lives with utility and entertainment like never before. For more on this, check out Paradigm Shift for Brands on Facebook.
Google+ Membership Climbs (9/26): Reported in late September was the continued growth of the nacent social network, Google+, and how it was primed to take over significant market share from other players and, most importantly, Facebook. Then people seemed to realize that nobody else was there. Hindsight is 20/20 so we’ll see what happens with Google+ in Q4, especially with the roll out of brand pages and functionality.- Foursquare Global Hackathon Winners Announced (9/28): On the heels of f8 was the announcement of the foursquare global hackathon winners. The winning applications were focused on utility and social good and, if anything, show that there are still rich developer communities outside of Facebook. That said, with the advent of tagging locations and new apps that allow for User, Action, Object functionality, will folks continue to use foursquare when it means they can only checkin to a place, when on Facebook, you can checkin to a place, be reading a book, be hiking a trail, and be cooking a dish (hopefully not all at the same time)?
f8 truly changed the direction of all players in the space, from Google+ privacy advantages, to foursquare checkins, to Twitter follower functionality. Now that Facebook has surpassed the number of users that the entire Internet had in 2004, and with the fact that they are dictating the structure of the landscape with such sweeping changes, should we consider the Facebook Platform the ‘new’ web?
Did we miss any major updates from Q3? Link us to them in the comments!
