Where is Social Media Heading in 2017?

Social media has came such a long way since it was first started in 1997 with SixDegrees.com. So many different popular social medias have been developed since that time, so successful and others not. But it is clear who are the true competitors vs quick fads. Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube I would say are the most popular forms of social media today. It’s almost like anyone you know has at least one of them but usually more than one. So the question is, what do we think will happen with these sites in the future?

It is said that over time these forms of social media have gradually becoming more similar. For example with Instagram adding stories to the timeline makes it compete with snapchat. And Snapchat adding memories so you can now hold on to photos forever like Instagram. In 2017 all of these companies will continue to blend into each other. It is said that YouTube is testing community features allowing creators to share text and image based posts (aka, Facebook). And that Facebook is trying to be the go-to place for news and trending stories(aka, Twitter. And finally Facebook is testing disappearing messages in Messenger (aka, Snapchat). With all of these changes I believe that they will become similar of each other. But, I believe there will never be a time were one of the companies takes over the other. I believe that these top competitors for social media will continue to produce like in app features but will also continue to improve what they specialize in to keep the original meaning as to why the app was created, therefore keeping its users.