<p>As July came to an end, all social media platforms released their second quarter results. So how did Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn do this quarter?<br><br>Twitter, which is in the midst of a leadership change, had a troubled quarter. While its revenue rose 61 per cent year-on-year this quarter as it reached $502 million, its user growth has slowed. The monthly average users were 304 million for the second quarter compared to 302 million in the previous quarter.<br><br>“The product initiatives we’ve (introduced) like instant timelines and logged out experiences have not yet had meaningful impact on growing our audience or participation. This is unacceptable and we’re not happy about it,” said Jack Dorsey, interim CEO of Twitter.<br><br>Facebook, on the other hand, had a good quarter. It generated $4 billion in revenue. “This was another strong quarter for our community. Engagement across our family of apps keeps growing, and we remain focussed on improving the quality of our services,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO.<br><br>In June, approximately 1.31 billion people accessed Facebook on mobile devices, up 23 per cent from last year.<br><br><img alt="" src="http://bw-image.s3.amazonaws.com/social-media-VR-300.jpg" style="width: 350px; height: 308px; float: right; margin: 5px;">LinkedIn’s revenue for the quarter was $712 million, an increase of 33 per cent compared to the same quarter last year. “LinkedIn continued to deliver increased member and customer value in the second quarter while delivering solid financial results. We continued to invest in our long-term strategic roadmap and began integrating the acquisition of lynda.com that closed during the quarter,” said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn.<br><br><span style="color:#ff0000;"><strong>BRAND BUZZ</strong></span><br><strong>Video Without Audio</strong><br>Yahoo’s new one-to-one live video texting app Livetext allows users to text, with the immediacy and vividness of live video, but without the audio. It is a new way to communicate that blends the ease of texting with the expressiveness of video.<br><br>Arjun Sethi, senior director, Product Management, Yahoo said on the launch, “We see video as a way to make your conversations more authentic, and we see text as a way to connect that’s quick and non-intrusive.” The app will be rolled out globally soon.<br><br><span style="color:#daa520;"><strong>DIG THE DATA</strong></span><br><strong>Teen Addiction</strong><br>A recent study by Pew Research Center shows that 24 per cent of teens admit to going online ‘almost constantly’, which is undoubtedly linked to the widespread availability of smartphones. Ninety-two per cent report going online at least once a day, and 56 per cent admit they go online “several times” a day. This means only 8 per cent of teens are able to resist going online every day.<br><br><strong>The Chosen One</strong><br>Facebook has more than 1 million small and medium entrprises advertising. It is estimated that larger companies are spending as much as $100 million on Facebook advertising per year according to Smallbiztrends.com.<br><br><strong>LEADER</strong><br><em>Jeff Weiner<br>@jeffweiner CEO, LinkedIn</em><br>“Almost without exception, the best products are developed by teams with desire to solve a problem; not a company’s need to fufill a strategy”<br><br><em>Uday Kotak<br>@udaykotak CEO, Kotak Mahindra Bank</em><br>“RBI moves forward on ease of doing business: allows bank branch shifts,merger. In physical + digital era, serving customers efficiently key”<br><br>(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 07-09-2015)</p>
