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Facebook Intentionally Breaking Apart | Social You Should Know

By: Jim Tobin

 

Facebook starts to break itself apart, Google+ searches for clarity around follower counts and Twitter buys Gnip.

 

What Will Facebook Look Like in Five Years?

Facebook is taking the unusual step of breaking its core product into pieces. Soon, mobile users won’t be able to message people without installing the separate Messenger app. Want news? Facebook wants you to open its Paper app. Share and look at photos? Instagram. It’s a very interesting, very risky strategy. For us as marketers, it further cements what I said in my recent book. We need to be ready for a post-Facebook world. There’s still tremendous opportunity but in a changing environment.

 

Twitter Buys Gnip

Gnip is a social data provider that has access to every Tweet ever written, plus the full fire hose of current tweets. So in the case where you wanted to analyze every tweet on a subject, you paid Gnip.Twitter bought Gnip this week, giving Twitter another product to sell directly. But Gnip also connectsthrough APIs into Reddit, Instagram and more, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out. Will those other platforms let Twitter sell access to their data over the long term?

 

Google+ Follower Counts Appear to Fall

If you suddenly appeared to lose Google+ followers late last month, never fear. What really happened is that Google has separated followers from those who +1, to those who were in circles. Confused? You should be. Google+ still displays different numbers on the G+ page for a brand than they do on the badge you can put on your site. Mashable’s page indicates three million followers. Their badge indicates 4.2 million followers. Bottom line: You didn’t lose followers. The scoring system just changed.

 

And finally, under the category of “Wow, let me know how that works out,” General Mills has updated their privacy policy indicating that consumers who like the brand on social media, download coupons, enter a sweepstakes or buy their products give up the right to sue and instead have to go through arbitration. We’ll see how this plays out.