Featured article by Fred Anderson, Independent Technology Author
Most people now spend a large proportion of their day using their phones, in particular the internet and most of this time is spent on different forms of social media. It is predicted that by 2021 there will be 3.02 billion social media users worldwide. Hence the reason why we have already seen companies getting involved, from RoyalVegas CA creating their very own blog to Coca Cola registering more than 107 million likes on Facebook.
So due to the amount of time we now spend on these media platforms, it is no surprise that a lot of research is going into how technology can be used to change and improve social media. Furthermore, it is now a vital part of business strategy and marketing to improve reach and analytics, as well as enhance and innovate the user experience. Therefore, we have highlighted different forms of technology that are leading the way with the changes in social media.
Each year we are seeing more and more Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technology appearing everywhere and it does seem to be just a matter of time until they are integrated into our everyday lives. So that it only a matter of time before they become normal features of social media. For example the NY Times released a social app this year that incorporated AR. The result of this, was that on average, users watched the AR presentations on the app for 14 minutes; which is classed within the industry as a very high amount. Thus underlining the fact that it is very likely that we will soon see augmented and virtual reality options for watching video and viewing images within social media as the norm.
Selfies are photos taken by an individual of themselves.This is usually done with a smartphone and then posted on social media platforms. Now this practice is also being influenced by technology and particularly AR. Millennials will take about 25,700 selfies during their life time and social media platforms such as Snapchat, now use Augmented Reality to provide filters for users to alter their photos. Snapchat was the first social media platform to use AR for selfies, introducing a ‘rainbow barfing’ filter in 2015. More and more filters are appearing on a regular basis on other social media platforms too, such as Instagram filters, that can be used on both photos and videos.
It is also possible that the future could see the use of RFID (radio frequency identification) within social media. RFID tags serve many different purposes in terms of being scanned for billing and identification, with the main purpose being to collect data with regards to stock levels, purchases and consumption. RFID could be used by social media in terms of allowing users to see the purchasing choices of people via their friends list, for example on Facebook.
Technology is also starting to be used for security purposes within social media too. For example, some social media sites are now compatible with facial recognition technology, which of course helps to add an extra layer of user verification and security.
There are also many more technologies that can be used and most likely will be in the future within social media. In fact, there is no doubt they will continue to provide innovative solutions and exciting features for users of the sites and apps for a long time to come.
