Social Media – Thematic Intelligence

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Social Media Report Overview

Social media companies are diversifying away from their ad-funded business model due to increased regulatory scrutiny. In 2023 alone, some leading players have been fined for breaching data privacy laws over their ad-targeting practices. Regulators have also accused them of monopolistic behavior around access to personal data.

The social media thematic report provides an overview of the social media theme. It identifies the key trends impacting the growth of the sector over the next 12 to 24 months. It includes a comprehensive industry analysis, outlining the key growth areas and potential use cases.

Total Pages 56
Key Value Chain Components ·        Content Layer

·        Distribution Layer

·        Data Layer

·        Services Layer

·        Customer Layer

Leading Public Players ·        Meta

·        Alphabet (parent company of Google)

·        Amazon

·        Snap

Leading Private Players ·        ByteDance

·        Reddit

·        Signal

·        Telegram

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Social Media Thematic Trends

The main trends shaping the social media theme over the next 12 to 24 months are classified into technology trends, macroeconomic trends, and regulatory trends.

Technology Trends: Some of the key technology trends gaining traction in the social media theme include the increasing use of AI, content moderation by tech companies, focus on the metaverse, and the evolution of gaming into a platform for social engagement among others.

Macroeconomic Trends: Impacts of high levels of inflation driven by COVID-19, uncertain macroeconomic environment, increased data privacy concerns, and government crackdown on the tech sector in China are the key macroeconomic trends impacting the social media theme.

Regulatory Trends: The Digital Markets Act (DMA) By the EU, focuses on regulations and actions to address online harms, and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) among others are the prominent regulatory trends influencing the social media theme.

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Social Media - Signals

The social media signals analysis covers–

  • Timeline
  • Patent trends
  • Hiring trends
  • Company filing trends

M&A trends: The volume of M&A deals involving social media companies slowed in 2023 as they exercised caution with their investments following the industry’s downturn. Developments in AI, however, have led to large social media companies striking deals in this area. For example, both Google and Amazon have acquired stakes in AI start-up Anthropic. Meta continued its bet on the metaverse in 2023 despite heavy financial losses from this venture. It has acquired Gary Sharp Innovations, a developer of AR glasses and VR headsets, Luxexcel, a developer of 3D printed lenses, and Rescued Ideas, a touch-focused VR company.

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Social Media Value Chain Insights

The social media value chain comprises several discrete layers. This includes the content layer, distribution layer, data layer, services layer, and customer layer.

Content Layer: The content layer consists of user-generated content, consumer profile data, news, film and TV, and Games. This is the layer where content is produced, both by users and third parties. The content is then shared on social media platforms. Platforms like Google, Facebook, and TikTok can collect large datasets directly. Google has more than 270 consumer-facing products and services (as of 2022), which it uses to collect more data on its users than any other Big Tech firm, according to StockApps’ 2022 analysis.

Social Media Value Chain Analysis

Social Media Value Chain Analysis

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Social Media Industry – Competitive Landscape

Some of the leading public players associated with this social media theme include:

  • Meta
  • Alphabet (parent company of Google)
  • Amazon
  • Snap

Some of the leading private players associated with this social media theme include:

  • ByteDance
  • Reddit
  • Signal
  • Telegram

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Social Media Sector Scorecard

The three screens in the industry scorecard comprise of –

Thematic Screen: The thematic screen ranks companies based on overall leadership in the 10 themes that matter most to their industry, generating a leading indicator of future performance.

Valuation Screen: The valuation screen ranks our universe of companies within a sector based on selected valuation metrics.

Risk Screen: The risk screen ranks companies within a particular sector based on overall investment risk.

Social Media Sector Scorecard Analysis

Social Media Sector Scorecard Analysis

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Scope

  • This report provides an overview of the social media theme.
  • It identifies the key trends impacting the growth of the theme over the next 12 to 24 months, split into three categories: technology trends, macroeconomic trends, and regulatory trends.
  • It contains details of M&A deals driven by the social media theme and a timeline highlighting milestones in the development of social media.
  • The detailed value chain comprises five layers: content, distribution, data, services, and customer. Leading and challenging vendors are identified across all five layers.

Key Highlights

Social media companies will increasingly diversify away from their ad-funded business model in the face of increased regulatory scrutiny. In 2023 alone, Alphabet, Amazon, ByteDance, and Meta were fined a combined $7.7 billion for breaching data privacy laws over their ad-targeting practices. Regulators have also accused them of monopolistic behavior around access to personal data. In 2023, Alphabet, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft were classified as “gatekeepers” under the EU’s latest antitrust legislation.

Several smaller social networks, such as BlueSky, Damus, and Mastodon, have entered the market following regulatory scrutiny of large social media companies’ business practices and users’ desire for more intimate engagement. The scrutiny has seen the UK launch an investigation into Google’s dominance in adtech, and the EU Commission launched an investigation into Apple and Microsoft. The regulatory crackdown on monopolistic behavior means the super-app model pioneered by Tencent in China is unlikely to be as successful in the West. Consumer demand will also impact attempts to build pools of connected apps, such as Elon Musk’s bid to transform X (formerly Twitter) into a super-app to diversify revenue streams away from personalized ads. Consumers’ increased concern about the use of personal data and content moderation will instead see smaller decentralized apps (dApps) become more popular.

Reasons to Buy

  • The report identifies six main categories of social media players (social networks, discussion forums, media-sharing sites, consumer review networks, sharing economy companies, and messaging services) and highlights leading and challenging companies across all six categories.
  • It also analyzes Big Tech’s presence in the social media sector. In most segments, big platforms benefit from network effects, and, thanks to their larger number of users, they are the most attractive to consumers and advertisers. However, smaller networks are gaining popularity due to user concerns about data privacy and content moderation.

Ab Initio
AccelData
Adetiq
Adknowledge
Ahewar
Airbnb
Airbyte
Alation
Alibaba
Alphabet
Alteryx
Altibase
Amazon
AMC Networks
Amundsen
Anyscale
Apache Foundation
Apple
Astronomer
Ataccama
Atlan
Attivio
AvantLink
Avis Budget Group
Baidu
BBC
BeReal
Bigeye
BlaBlaCar
Bluesky
BMC Software
Bolt
Booking.com
Boomi
Broadcom
ByteDance
CData
CEDQ
Celigo
Census
Check Point Software
Cisco
CJ Affiliate
ClickHouse
Cloud Software Group
Cloudera
Cohesity
Colibra
Comcast
Common Room
Confluent
Couchbase
Criterio
CrowdStrike
Cyclr
Damco Group
Damus
Darktrace
Dask
Data Virtuality
data.world
Databricks
DataCaptive
DataHub
Dataiku
DataStax
DataTorrent
DataVirtuality
Dbt Labs
Degreed
Dell Technologies
Delphix
Delta Lake
DeNa
Denodo Technologies
DesignerShare
Digital Point
Discord
Disney
Domo
Dremio
Eastern Jin Tech
Ebay
eFuse
Elementl
EnterpriseDB
Epic Games
Epom
Exasol
Experian
Feefo
FireEye
FlexOffers
Flink
Flinkster
Flipboard
Forcepoint
Fortinet
Foursquare
Fox Corp
Fujitsu
GameSpot
Gaming Buddy
Getfeedback
Glassdoor
GoFundMe
Gojek
Google
Grab
Great Expectations
Gree
Groupon
HackerNews
HalloApp
HCL Technologies
Helpsystems
Hightouch
Hitachi
Hive
HPE
Huawei
Hubski
IBM
Immuta
Imply
India Forums
Informatica
Information Builders
Insource
Instant Bloomberg
Intel
Intenda
ITV
Jitterbit
Judy's Book
Kakao
KasKus
Keboola
KickStarter
Kik
Kuaishou
Lark Technologies
Lemmy
Line
Lionsgate
Locket
LookML
Lyft
Mail.ru
Make
MariaDB
MarkLogic
Mastodon
Materialize
Matillion
MediaLab AI
Meta
Microsoft
Mixi
Momo
MongoDB
Monte Carlo
Naver
NC Soft
NetApp
Netflix
New Work
News Corp
Nikkei
nMedia
Nostr
NuoDB
Nutanix
Nvidia
Okta
Oracle
Outsourcely
Ovaledge
Palantir
Palo Alto Networks
Pandas
Panoply
Paramount Global
PayPal
PDD Holdings
Percona
Pinterest
Plato Team
Pollywork
PostgreSQL
Precisely
Prefect
Privacera
Profisee
Progress Software
Pulsar
Pure Storage
PyTorch
Qlik
Qualcomm
Qubole
Quora
Rakuten (Viber)
RapidMiner
Reddit
Redis Labs
Renren
Retalk
Revenuewire
Revolut
Roblox
Rockset
S&P
SaidIt
Salesforce
SAP
SAS
Scality
Securonix
ShareChat
Shopify
Signal
Silent Phone
Sina
SingleStore
Singtel
Sitejabber
Snap
SnapLogici
Snowflake
Software AG
Sogou
Sony
Sophos
Splunk
Stack Overflow
Starburst
Stibo Systems
Stitch
Stone Bond Technologies
Stratio
StreamSets
Substack
Supergrain
Supermetrics
Taboola
Tabular
Talend
TalentGarden
Talkatone
TaskRabbit
Telegram
Tencent
Teradata
Tessian
The New York Times
Thomson Reuters
Transwarp
Tray.io
Trellix
Trend Micro
TripAdvisor
Trustpilot
Uber
Ucommune
Uhive
Upsolver
uReview.me
Valve
Vdoo
Veritas
Viaplay
VMware
VoltDB
Voxer
Warner Bros. Discovery
WeGroup
WeWork
Workato
X
XDA-Developers
Xiaohongshu
Xing
Yandex
Yelp
Yubo
YY
Z Holdings
Zee Entertainment
Zhihu
Zomato

Table of Contents

  • 1. Executive Summary
  • 2. Players
  • 3. Thematic Briefing
  • 4. Trends

    • 4.1. Technology trends
    • 4.2. Macroeconomic trends
    • 4.3. Regulatory trends
    • 4.4. Timeline

  • 5. Signals

    • 5.1. M&A trends
    • 5.2. Patent trends
    • 5.3. Company filing trends
    • 5.4. Hiring trends

  • 6. Value Chain

    • 6.1. Content layer
    • 6.2. Distribution layer
    • 6.3. Data layer
    • 6.4. Services layer
    • 6.5. Customer layer

  • 7. Companies
  • 8. Sector Scorecard

    • 8.1. Social media sector scorecard

  • 9. Glossary
  • 10. Further Reading
  • 11. Our Thematic Research Methodology
  • 12. About GlobalData
  • 13. Contact Us

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