Competition and teamwork is at the core of human motivation. What many of us struggle to achieve on our own, without supervision and benchmarks, can often be achieved when we are pushed beyond our comfort zone and joined by others with a common goal. Nike has repeatedly leveraged this fundamental element of human nature, and has successfully gamified the typical shopping experience through their online community: NikePlus.  

Social media is spider-webbing into so many nooks and crannies of our everyday lives, it is a challenge to truly answer the question of “where is social media going in the future?” in a simplistic form. On one hand, the easy answer is, social media is going everywhere. For example, think of a recent time when you came across a product or app that you never thought of yourself and you say “ah…yes, that is a really good idea”…how many times has that included an accompanying app or tracking application? Social media is everywhere! There is nothing truer to that just described, to the wearables sector. From keeping a light eye on wearables through personal interest, I thought where Fit Bit and similar product is going was interesting; I also found Bellabeat, a women’s focused wearable of smart jewellery. I knew there was innovation and development, and I also knew there are apps that are built around integration with these devices. I thought looking at the future of social media through wearables would be interesting, but I had no idea how huge this space was. It was predicted (in 2016) that by 2020 that the wearables market will be worth $34 billion (Lamkin, 2016). This is up from a forecast in 2015 for the wearables market to be worth $25 billion in 2019 (CCS Insight, 2015).

Chances are if you have used a wearable device or sat in traffic and had to use Waze on your smartphone, you have already been apart of The Internet of Things. Wikipedia defines The internet of things (IoT) as the network of physical devices, vehicles, buildings and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity that enable these objects to collect and exchange data. So when we talk about the future of social media, the internet of things must also be included in the conversation. IoT has the potential to change what it means to be social. We can see this first hand in the mobile traffic app, Waze. By linking internet connected smartphones to traffic signals, cameras, people, data and other systems, the network helps drivers optimize their journeys in real time.