Open Password – Wednesday June 22, 2022
#1091
Outsell – Global Standards Publishing – Tatiana Khayrullina – Standards Publishing Market – Public Bodies – Trade Bodies – National Standards Organizations – Primary Research – Currency Conversions – Oanda – Market Definition – Standards Development Organizations – Macro-Level Drivers – Robust Economic Growth – Acceleration of Innovations – Rise in the Prominence of Global Challenges – ESG Goals – Ethical Aspects of Artificial Intelligence – Permanently Distributes Workforce – Micro-Level Drivers – Expedited Transition to Digital Delivery Via Subscriptions – Effective Investment in Marketing and Customer Services – Addition of Value-Added Products and Services in the Portfolios of Standards Organizations – Strategic Expansion into New Markets – Inhibitors – A Dimming Global Macroeconomic Climate in 2022 and Beyond – War in Ukraine – Disrupted Supply Chains – The Ongoing Challenge of Privacy – Constraints on Pricing – The Gray Area of Content Reuse – Industry-led Initiatives for the Development of Standards – The Increasing Influence of Open Access
ZPID – Michael Jäckel – Claudia Dalbert – Malu Dreyer – Karl-Heinz Renner – Gabriel Schui – German Society for Psychology – University of Trier – Research infrastructure – Ideal-typical research cycle – Open Science
BIIA 2022 Biennal Conference – 180 Years of Business Information – Lewis Tappan – Mercantile Agency Concept – Dun & Bradstreet – Technology as Enabler – Pandemic – War in Europe – Volatility – Unpredictability – Henry Kissinger – Get Real with AI
Social Media Atlas – Facebook – WhatsApp – Instagram – Facts Office – Meta Platforms – Toluna – User Behavior – Age Groups – Trust – Advertising Effectiveness – Roland Heintze
Title
Outsell’s June Contribution: Global Standards Publishing – Segment View 2022 – By Tatiana Khayrullina
II.
50 years of ZPID:
Supporting the entire scientific work process
III.
BIIA 2022 Biennial Conference:
Celebrating 180 Years of Business Information
IV.
Social Media Atlas
This is how Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram compare to each other
Outsell’s June Contribution
Global Standards Publishing – Segment View 2022
By Tatiana Khayrullina, Consulting Partner
Tatiana Khayrullina
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Why This Segment
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Standards publishers serve a market going digital, and engineers are increasingly instrumental in providing solutions to broader societal challenges, such as sustainable consumption and cybersecurity. These macro forces, coupled with digital publishing market trends, are reshaping publishing standards.
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Methodology
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To create market sizing estimates, we took revenue data from Outsell’s information
industry database for all major players in this space and conducted a top-down calculation of total revenues from the sale of standards. We compiled the revenues for standards products using data and guidance available in public financial filings, investor presentations, and annual reports, supplementing this information with our own informed estimates.
In the course of this research, we refined our understanding of annual revenues reported by a number of players in 2020, which resulted in revising down the overall size of the standards publishing market in 2020.
Outsell also conducted interviews with leading standards development organizations, resellers, and technology vendors, creating a qualitative picture of market drivers, disruptors, and the competitive landscape. Representatives participating in our research came from AFNOR (France), ANSI, ASME, ASTM, Austrian Standards, BSI (UK), Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), DIN/Beuth (Germany), Global Data Vision, IEC, IEEE, ISO, NEN (Netherlands), Realta Online, SAE International, SAI Global, Standards Norway, Standards Australia, Techstreet, and UL.
We corroborated our findings with the information provided by public bodies, research performed by trade bodies and national standards organizations, and Outsell’s portfolio of related primary research. A deep understanding of disruptive forces driving the information-based engineering solutions market, daily interaction with executives in the information industry, and an analysis of products and services that Outsell conducts as part of its advisory services further supported our analysis.
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Impact of Currency Conversion
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Outsell converts all stated and estimated revenues into US dollars to build an overall estimate of the size of the global standards market and to facilitate comparisons over time and between companies. To make currency conversions, Outsell uses a 365-day historical average of published FOREX rates compared to the US dollar. Table 1 shows the impact of currency conversion for some major currencies.
Table 1: Annual Percentage Changes in US Dollar Exchange Rates for Selected
Major Currencies
Source: Oanda, Inc., January 1, 2021, to December 31, 2021; 365-day average
In any year, fluctuations in the exchange rate between the US dollar and the currency used for reported results can have a significant impact on many organizations in the standards market. Many vendors sell mainly into their domestic markets and derive a relatively small percentage of revenue from international sales; this is particularly the case for the national standards body (NSB) segment of the market. A weak domestic result can appear stronger when expressed in US dollars, which was often the case in 2021, and vice versa. For example, in 2021, DIN’s revenue grew 3.5% in euros but showed a growth of 7.2% due to the exchange rate difference. This is why we have chosen to include growth both in the local reporting currency and in US dollars in some figures and tables.
As Table 1 shows, exchange rates can be very volatile, with currencies strengthening or weakening by 10% or more against the dollar over a year. In 2021, all currencies included in the table except the Japanese yen strengthened against the US dollar, with the Australian dollar gaining 9% and the British pound and the Chinese yuan gaining 7% over 2020 values. When expressed in US dollars, the overall growth rate of the global standards market was 1.83% higher than the average of the growth rates when the market is sized in domestic currencies.
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Market definition
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As the role of standards publishers and providers continues to evolve, Outsell keeps its definition of the market under review. However, for this report, we have retained the market definition we used in our standards report covering 2020, which defines the market as including the following:
- Standards documents published by any type of standards developing organization (SDO)
• Online platforms and databases of standards • Other technical specifications and regulations • Guidance and interpretative publications, periodicals, books, training materials, and other secondary works derived from or associated with standards
Outsell excludes from this market definition certification activities and professional services such as consulting or events. We also exclude other revenue sources for SDOs, such as membership fees; funds from sponsors, donors, or grants; and proceeds from ancillary businesses. These services are still important and demonstrable factors in the market, and they will be discussed in this report where they support and influence the sales of the core products covered by our market definition.
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Channel profiles
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Outsell views standards as developed, produced, and sold by four broad types of organizations:
- International standards bodies that coordinate and harmonize standards across
multiple countries or territories in a codified manner, such as the InternationalOrganization for Standardization (ISO) and the International TelecommunicationsUnion (ITU).• National standards bodies (NSBs) responsible for setting and establishing standards across multiple territories or at the national level that interact with ISO on behalf of their respective countries. Examples include the British Standards Institution (BSI), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and the Association Française de Normalization (AFNOR).• Standards development organizations (SDOs) that focus on a specific sector or industry and are prevalent in decentralized markets, especially in the US. Examples include the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE International).• Commercial resellers and aggregators, which do not develop standards themselves but facilitate the sale of standards products from multiple organizations to end-users, either as individual products or in aggregated packages organized by industry, sector, or competency. Examples of aggregators include S&P Engineering Solutions (formerly IHS Markit), SAI Global, and Techstreet.
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Market Drivers and Inhibitors
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Sales of standards are sensitive to a variety of factors, both originating from the greater economy (macro-level) and specific to the standards marketplace (micro-level). One such factor is the cyclical nature of standards development when a spike in sales is tied to the release of a flagship publication in a specific year. The following forces contributed to the growth rates in 2021 and are likely to continue driving the market in the long term.
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Macro level drivers
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On the macro level, drivers include the following.
Robust economic growth. There is a strong correlation between an increase in economic activity and the demand for standards that support the functions and events in the society feeding such activity. This includes the establishment of new enterprises, expansion of regulatory oversight to more entities, the growing number of companies seeking entry to new markets, and market players competing on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. Last year saw a rebound of activity in many jurisdictions around the globe, and standards vendors immediately registered a surge in demand.
Acceleration of Innovation. Innovation drives the need for standards from incumbent standards users as they seek to remain competitive; it also brings new entrants to the market, widening the pool of users for existing standards and driving the demand for new standards development activities. Standards come into the limelight as industries look for reliable guidelines to adjust their operating practices, retool their manufacturing facilities, obtain certification for adjacent markets, respond to changes in technology, or innovate in converging areas of knowledge. In 2020, the market experienced demand for standards in the medical device manufacturing and healthcare realm as the world responded to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, as the global economy readjusted to the post-pandemic realities, innovation in other industries contributed to growth in the sales of standards.
Rise in the Prominence of Global Challenges. Global challenges require a consistent global solution. Standards developers have a vetted track record of offering globally applicable solutions steeped in condensed industry expertise. For example, they are well-positioned to support the policy changes and regulatory reform driven by an increased concern for an environmentally friendly and sustainable economy.
Reinforced by the 2021 COP 26 and the Glasgow Climate Pact, ESG goals such as a commitment to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 are pertinent for all industrial sectors. These goals will call for amendments to existing standards and the creation of new ones and will remain a growth factor for the standards publishing market. Another area of universal concern that can potentially delay the deployment of advanced technology is ethical aspects of artificial intelligence (AI), addressed by IEEE SA and other organizations.
Permanently Distributed Workforce. Throughout 2021, it became apparent that the COVID-19 pandemic changed the perception of office and work location toward accepting a distributed workforce as the new normal. As part of this new reality, remote engineering brought changes in the consumption of information, including standards. Two related factors contributing to the growth of sales of standards were a reduction in sharing copies of documents in an office environment and a lack of access to colleagues for consultations, factors that prompted users to obtain their own copies of standards. Another factor was the shift to digital consumption of standards overall and the growth in subscriptions, which we address below.
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Micro Level Drivers
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On the micro level, we observe the following drivers.
Expedited Transition to Digital Delivery Via Subscriptions . Digital subscriptions kept the market afloat in 2020, and in 2021, the growth rate in subscriptions typically exceeded the growth rate in overall sales. Digital delivery to individual accounts is an efficient way to serve the distributed workforce and meet the demands of remote engineering, which has now become the new normal. Besides being a recurring source of revenue, subscriptions wean users off hard-copy standards and introduce the benefits of document consumption in a digital format.
Effective investment in marketing and customer service. Publishers and distributors continued enhancing their digital presence while also relying on customer service teams to drive revenue through up-sell and cross-sell. These investments paid off significantly where the discoverability of standards was improved.
Addition of Value-Added Products and Services in the Portfolios of Standards Organizations .While pure content is still a core revenue source (delivering 70-100% of overall sales), the portion of value-added products and services is growing, adding to top -line revenues.
Strategic expansion into new markets. Regional expansion into the emerging economies of Asia and Latin America by standards providers operating in the mature markets of North America and Western Europe contributes to growth in sales.
Increased Agility in Responding to the Needs of Stakeholders . Standards developers continue to experiment with standards and standards-related documents to ensure relevance for the industry as the pace of innovation accelerates. For some, like BSI and NEN, developing a non-consensus standard that can be used for certification is the answer. For others, it is the commitment to the existing standards development schedule without delays. Overall, remaining on-point and sensitive to the expectations of industry stakeholders generates sales in the short term.
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inhibitors
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While capitalizing on favorable conditions, standards developers will need to continue mitigating the risks tempering the growth in this market, namely, the following inhibitors.
A Dimming Global Macroeconomic Climate in 2022 and Beyond. At the time of writing, the World Bank cut its global growth forecast for 2022 by almost a full percentage point. The realities of war in Ukraine, political turmoil, and disrupted supply chains continue to affect the growth of all leading economies, with a spillover effect on the demand for standards.
The Ongoing Challenge of Piracy. Piracy persists, and standards developers continue to lose revenue to the illegal consumption of standards. While also signaling an existing demand for lower-priced standards, piracy slows digitization and diverts investment from more strategic objectives.
Constraints on pricing. Standards developers find it challenging to increase prices for their products. On the one hand, they work with the existing perception of standards as being out of reach for the majority of small and medium-sized enterprises. On the other hand, they need to uphold their mission of standards advocacy, which favors accessible if not free standards. Other forces keeping prices low include volunteer contribution to standards development and IP conflicts created by the incorporation of standards into legislation by reference.
The Gray Area of Content Reuse. Concerns about copyright do not stop with addressing piracy at the document level. More persistent issues are the “gray areas” of content reuse by customers and the incorporation of standards content into derivative documents by third parties. The existence of the “gray areas” of intellectual property rights protection has slowed progress in advancing data mining solutions for standards developers, adding to the technical difficulties of text-to-data conversion.
Industry-Led Initiatives for the Development of Standards. On a longer time horizon, industry consortia and alliances engaging in the development of standards present a risk of eroding the market. Although they may currently lack the credibility of established SDOs, winning it with regulators and other industry members is a matter of time, as is obtaining accreditation as SDOs for these alliances.
The Increasing Influence of Open Access. The growing availability of open content and data, coupled with a push for free standards in some jurisdictions, changes market expectations towards obtaining access to standards free of charge. While not an immediate risk, open access (OA) in scholarly communications is a powerful transforming force for the wider digital publishing arena, and standards publishers are not immune to its influence. This is especially true for standards developers who also publish academic research, such as IEEE and SAE International.
Coming Soon: Part II of “Global Standards Publishing” with Market Size and Forecast – Global Coverage: Regional Perspective – Market Composition and Competitive Review – Competitive Landscape – Performance by Category: Aggregators – Performance by Category: National Standards Bodies
50 years of ZPID
Support the entire scientific work process
(ZPID) 50 years of psychological information and documentation at the University of Trier! After a break due to the pandemic, the team from the Leibniz Institute for Psychology ZPID was able to meet again for the anniversary in the Viehmarktthermen in Trier. Together they celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID): the President of the University of Trier Prof. Dr. Michael Jäckel, the director of the Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID), Prof. Dr. Claudia Dalbert, the Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer, the second vice-president of the German Psychological Society (DGPs), Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Renner and the managing director of ZPID Dr. Gabriel Schui (from left to right).
Prof. Dr. Claudia Dalbert, Director of the Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID), thanked the employees for their great commitment. Dr. Gabriel Shui. Managing Director of the Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID) reviewed the past 50 years of the institute and its successful development. Prof. Dr. emphasized the high value of the Leibniz Institute of Psychology (ZPID) for students, researchers and teachers. Karl-Heinz Renner, the second vice president of the German Psychological Society (DGPs), highlighted in his guest lecture.
Malu Dreyer, Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, is proud to have the ZPID, an outstanding infrastructure for researchers and practitioners in the field of psychology and related subjects in the state.
After almost two and a half years of pandemic and home office, the employees of the Leibniz Institute of Psychology (ZPID) came together as a team again for the first time at the beginning of June. “The most important guest of the day are the employees who have continuously developed the institute with their products over the last 50 years,” said director Prof. Dr. Claudia Dalbert to the point. She herself has been accompanying the institute for almost 50 years. “This evening is a family reunion, a friends reunion for all of us.”
“The ZPID does not exist without the University of Trier, it is part of the University of Trier,” emphasized Claudia Dalbert. The psychological information and documentation project that began in 1972 with five employees at the University of Trier has evolved into an international infrastructure institute over the past fifty years.
Prime Minister Malu Dreyer: With the ZPID, Rhineland-Palatinate has an outstanding infrastructure for researchers and practitioners in the field of psychology and related subjects. With its services, online applications and databases, it supports the entire scientific work process and has also continuously expanded its own research.”
Managing Director Dr. Gabriel Schui, who has been part of the institute for 22 years, gave a historical review. While in the early years literature lists were sent by package from the USA, in the late 1980s an acoustic coupler connected a PC and a telephone line to transmit data. A little later, the Internet formed the basis of all ZPID products and services.
Today, the institute, with a team of more than 60, offers an information and documentation infrastructure for psychology in German-speaking countries. Based on an ideal research cycle, it supports the entire scientific work process from literature research and study planning to data collection and evaluation through to documentation, archiving and publication of results. It is committed to the idea of open science and sees itself as a public open science institute for psychology. Its origins are still visible today in the name ZPID, “Center for Psychological Information and Documentation”. The project gave itself this acronym over 50 years ago.
Detailed information on development and comments on the anniversary: https://leibniz-psychology.org/institut/entwicklung/
BIIA 2022 Biennial Conference*
Celebrating 180 Years of Business Information
(BIIA) In closing the conference, Joachim C Bartels, Cofounder and Managing Director of BIIA thanked the audience for their attendance and support of BIIA. He gave a collective thanks to all who worked hard to make this conference a success.He used the occasion to remind the audience that in 2021 it was the 180th birthday of the business of business information. We couldn’t celebrate it then, and there was no reason for not celebrating today.
It was always the uncertainties about risk which drove the need for information. It took a man by the name of Lewis Tappan, who lost US$3 million in the great panic of 1837, to set up an information business as risk prevention. He developed the Mercantile Agency concept (essentially credit reporting) and it took 30 years to set standards. It later became the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, which after 180 years is still in the business of business information.
The triggers which lead to the creation of the business are still the same today as it was in 1841: Information services grow in the age of uncertainty. Over time technology became an enabler with the early development of the Morse telegraph, the commercial typewriter, the telephone etc. Compared to other businesses the information companies were timid in adapting the new technology of computing. Only about 25 years ago the technology became a real driver aided by regulations requiring transparency in business transactions, known as AML/KYC/Financial Crime compliance.
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Business information did well during the pandemic.
In “a totally new era” even more volatility and unpredictability.
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T o make the point: Business information companies did well during the pandemic.
During the past 8 quarters the large players had revenues grow at a high double-digit growth.
Just as we are recovering from the health and economic effects of Covid-
19 war in Europe has arrived. Once again uncertainties have risen again, with more volatility. Financial systems effects are unpredictable. As Henry Kissinger stated recently: “We are now living in a totally new era”.
Magnitude of risk and the complexity of risk will increase posing new challenges for risk managers and the information industry, which are to support them. Perhaps it is time for our industry to get real with AI to be able to deal with the complexity.
* BIIA is the international partner of Open Password.
Social Media Atlas
This is how Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram compare to each other
(Faktenkontor) Between Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, the services, strengths and weaknesses of the large social media services from Meta Platforms are very different: WhatsApp has the greatest reach, which is used by more than seven out of ten Germans with access to the Internet. The former top dog Facebook no longer reaches such heights, but for the first time in years it was able to slightly increase its share of users to 63 percent. Instagram is also bolstering its community and is now used by almost every second online user – but is increasingly losing popularity among the youngest people. This is shown by the new Social Media Atlas 2022, which has been published annually since 2011 by the Hamburg communications consultancy Aktuellkontor, for which the market researcher Toluna conducted a representative survey of 3,500 Internet users aged 16 and over.
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WhatsApp: The Champion
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The champion not only among meta services, but among social media as a whole is WhatsApp. An unsurpassed 71 percent of all online users in Germany use the messenger with a mass group chat function. More than eight out of ten of those under 40 can be reached via WhatsApp. But even beyond the age of 40, WhatsApp enjoys a particularly high level of acceptance across all age groups. At 53 percent, the majority of silver surfers aged 60 and over are reached here.
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Used equally across generations
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WhatsApp is not only used by a majority in all age groups – it is also the only social media channel in which users across generations are roughly equally active. Regardless of whether “Gen Z” (16-25 years old), Millennials (26-40 years old) or older people: 28 percent of online users regularly write WhatsApp messages. Reading other users’ posts has become a habit for one in two older internet users; for Gen Z and Millennials the figure is only eight percentage points more. It’s mostly about personal matters, which 58 percent of online users exchange information about via WhatsApp. Other topics, such as work (13 percent) and current affairs (11 percent), follow at a considerable distance.
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Facebook: User decline stopped…
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Facebook is increasing in favor with users for the first time since 2017: with a slight increase of three percentage points compared to the previous year’s survey, the proportion of German online users who use Facebook is now 63 percent. In addition to WhatsApp, only YouTube has a higher number with 71 percent, but the former top dog can no longer build on its former glory days, in which it reached up to 76 percent of online users.
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…but obsolescence remains
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Even if the decline in users seems to have stopped for now, the social media service continues to weaken among the youngest target groups: Only 39 percent of Internet users between the ages of 16 and 19 are on Facebook – fewer than in all other age groups. The network, on the other hand, is particularly successful in appealing to “thirty-somethings”: eight out of ten online users between the ages of 30 and 39 use Facebook, which shortens the gap to WhatsApp and YouTube in this cohort to just four percentage points
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Commercial content: Lowest trust – but highest advertising impact
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Also noticeable: nowhere else on the social web are users more suspicious of companies. Of all the social media channels examined, Facebook is the only one on which more than half of the users (54 percent) say they have little trust in the information they receive there from commercial providers. Nevertheless, Facebook proves that social media has the highest advertising effectiveness: one in four online users has already bought products or used services because they were advertised on Facebook.
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Instagram: Young beauty loses youth
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Instagram was also able to expand its user base in Germany by three percentage points to 49 percent of online users aged 16 and over. However, a look at the development in different age groups shows that the aging of users, which was already apparent in the previous study, is also becoming more common on Instagram. Strong increases can be found here, especially among online users aged 60 and over, up six percentage points to now 21 percent, and between the ages of 30 and 39, up five percentage points to now 68 percent. Instagram continues to penetrate younger target groups the most, but the trend is downwards: after a sharp drop from 91 to 80 percent in the previous year, only 78 percent of those surveyed between the ages of 16 and 19 currently say they use Instagram. Top Instagrammers remain twenty-somethings at 81 percent (previous year: 82 percent). In terms of content, personal matters also come first on Instagram; topics relating to fashion, beauty and lifestyle attract greater interest here than on WhatsApp and Facebook.
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Investment instead of innovation
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“Facebook’s own development lives from its substance, the acquisition of Instagram loses touch with the next generation, only the messenger WhatsApp, which was also purchased, finds universal popularity,” summarizes Dr. Roland Heintze, social media expert and managing partner of the Aktuellkontor. “Innovation and rapid growth are taking place elsewhere in the social web. But its size and lead allow Meta Platforms to continue to defend its market position through further acquisitions in the future. How well this succeeds depends on the quality of these investments.”
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