Digital Report 2023 on Myth of Social Media Dying, Streaming Wars & Generative AI with Simon Kemp
Simon Kemp reviews the major themes from the Digital Report 2023: the myth of social media dying, the streaming wars in the time of an endemic world, and the new world order on digital marketing & advertising brought about by Generative AI.
Fresh out of the studio, Simon Kemp returned for the 6th year to break down the key digital, mobile, and social media trends in the annual Digital Report 2023. Simon began with the first surprise that social media is not dying from Meta to Twitter, and debunked the myth propagated by social media on the war between Instagram vs Tik Tok. He highlighted the key trends on how the shift from pandemic to endemic will impact the streaming wars, and the fallout on cryptocurrencies and NFTs after the crypto crash in 2022. In the same conversation, Simon discussed how generative AI inspired by ChatGPT and Midjourney will upend digital advertising and marketing and what it means for brands moving forward. Last but not least, Simon offered what great would look like for the digital report in the next decade.
"The media have been feeding us this fake news story about the death of social media. There is absolutely nothing in the data - regardless of what data points I look at, there's nothing in the data that supports the idea that social media is dying. It's the complete opposite. Social media users are growing. The time that we spend using social media is increasing. There is no evidence of the death of social media. So that was a big surprise in there. When you start looking at things like streaming, there are obviously some really interesting conversations there about the overall time we spend streaming TV content versus how that splits across different companies. So Netflix versus Disney plus versus whatever else. Search behaviors. I'm sure we're gonna unpack that later on, but that is another one that is evolving quite rapidly. And how people find what they're looking for on the internet is evolving rapidly. That's got implications for everybody. It's not just a business conversation. That's anybody that is wanting to reach and influence audiences on the internet." - Simon Kemp
Introduction
- Simon Kemp (@eskimon, LinkedIn), Founder & CEO of Kepios
- How has life been treating you since our last conversation in August 2022?
- We spoke for the past few years, and I am sure that you have evolved in your career. What are the interesting lessons you can share with our audience on your career journey so far?
Digital 2023 Report: Social Media is not dying, Streaming Wars and Generative AI
- What are the key takeaways and major surprises from the report in 2023?
- What are the new data sources added to the report this year?
- What is the one thing you know now about social media that not many people do from the Digital 2023 report?
- Are there any inflection points relating to growth on the web, mobile, and social users across the world?
- An interesting perspective from the report is that social media choices are not a zero-sum equation and what does that mean for brands, consumers, and advertisers?
- One key insight which I saw was that the social media CPMS had experienced a major drop, what happened there, and are there causes for worry in the advertising market?
- Where are we in the barometer for Meta (Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp) is dying given that they have had a stock price surge recently?
- How about Twitter? It seems that it is growing after Elon’s takeover of a kitchen sink. What are your hypotheses on Twitter?
- Can web3 networks like Farcaster or Mastodon challenge Twitter?
- Given the crypto crash in 2022 with the FTX collapse being the most significant, how has the cryptocurrency market with respect to NFTs and cryptocurrencies?
- What is your feeling on the ground on web3 gaming or NFTs? I am surprised by the amount of developer activity in web3 gaming growing in the past few months.
- Given that we are now living in an endemic world and even China has reversed on their COVID-zero policy and opened up, are there any implications for example, streaming videos for consumers or other behavioral changes that are dominant during the pandemic period?
- How would that change given that Netflix, Disney+, and other streaming platforms are in the midst of rolling out their advertising tiers to the market?
- Are you going to relook at search engine advertising with the recent surprise that sprang up by Microsoft and Open AI challenge to Google? What are the signs of growth or decline you will look at the monopoly that Google has enjoyed for the past 15 years?
- Of course, the big story in the past few months is generative AI, starting with everyone testing their podcast readings with Open AI’s ChatGPT to testing whether the AI is sentient with Bing’s Sydney. With generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, and Midjourney for images, means that content generation will be automated, what are your perspectives on the likely impact on the social apps we are using?
- We have chatted now on your annual report for the past 7 years and it’s a major milestone. I have never asked this question before but I will do it here today. What does great mean for the Digital Report for the next decade?
Closing
- Any recommendations which have inspired you recently?
- Simon's recommendation: James Webb Space Telescope Images
- How can my audience find you?
Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).
