The fall of Yahoo: 2016 finally marked the fall of the last of the online properties of Web 2.0 age — Yahoo. Ironically, it was Yahoo that introduced the world to social and chat with the iconic Yahoo messenger in an age when ‘social media’ as we know it today didn’t exist. The decline could be attributed to the company’s failure to reinvent itself in line with the new world order of curated content, social media and marketing, its inability to build its flagship properties like Messenger, Answers, Flickr, all of which lost out to similar new apps
Catching up with Pokémon Go: Nintendo’s maiden foray into smartphone game tech earned over 500 million downloads and got millions of people out of their homes, walking around in real world to catch the elusive critter Pikachu. The game was an instant hit and social media went into a tizzy with folks here in India using crack and hacks to download and play. The app, a huge battery drainer, is not a flash fad but a global trend in the world of mobile apps. As with all things today, it rekindled interest in the retro vis-a-vis tech
The growth of Instagram: Instagram continued its double digit growth in India. For the young, upwardly mobile Indians within the age group of 18 to 30 with high spending power, the mobile photo-video sharing app is the canvas to showcase their life stories and connect with likeminded people. As of November 2016, as per NapoleonCat, there are 16 million Instagram users in India, of which over 90 per cent are younger than 35
Swiping right on Tinder: Although present in India since 2013, Tinder’s popularity soared in 2016. That India is an important market for the dating app can be gauged from the fact that the company chose to open its first international office outside the US here in 2016. Tinder saw a “400 per cent increase in downloads here in the past one year, and women are more active on it than men”, said its Country Head, Taru Kapoor, in November 2016
Sudden quiet on Pinterest: The noise its lovely visual cards made in 2015 was no more the talk of the town in India in 2016, even as abroad Pinterest continues to remain popular. This has been a strange development given the fact that the most difficult to reach audiences in India are women and children, and Pinterest continues to be the platform with almost 70 per cent female population
Question mark
on Twitter: Simple to use, extremely popular but not growing at the same pace as other new apps and its contemporaries, and with a big question mark looming large on its analytics and numbers along with its inability to monetise made Twitter appear directionless
Facebook live and Instant Articles: Facebook live will prove to be a game changer for both brands and publishers and individuals who wish to tell stories in the ultimate credible manner. Facebook Instant Articles, on the other hand, changed how the publishing industry engages with the platform
launch of Jio: It was the biggest launch of the year and many digital pundits have dubbed it as the ‘world’s largest start-up’. There is a positive buzz around it, given its promotions and marketing, but Jio is yet to prove its success on ground. Nevertheless, it has created great interest in 4G and has driven connectivity in rural spaces
Rise of Paytm: As of November 2016, Paytm had over 75 million android based app downloads. The Government’s demonetisation drive has also led to a rise in the usage of the service. Analysts predict that Paytm will create the market for credit card adoption amongst customers who were earlier uncomfortable with the idea of parting with their personal information
Programmatic buying/advertising: Though the base is still minuscule in India, the advertising model moved towards programmatic buying changing the focus of advertising to targeted campaigns and made it easier for publishers to reach out to brands and help brands connect with audiences easily. The market is set to see an exponential growth in this area in 2017