Marketing 6.0

CHAPTER 7Tapping into the Metaverse: The Future Form of Social Media Platforms

The current social media format emerged in the early 2000s and gained momentum as the Internet, personal computers, and smartphones became widely prevalent. Since then, social media has become a cornerstone of the second Internet iteration, or Web2.

Web2 represents a crucial evolution of the Internet, enabling the platform economy. Unlike in the Web1 era, where users could only consume content, Web2 allows users to produce and share content through social media. This marked the rise of user‐generated content on the Internet.

Throughout the Web2 upsurge, we have witnessed the ascent and decline of various social media, including Friendster, Myspace, and Google+. During this period, we have seen the evolution of how social media work as platforms. The prominent social media today, such as Facebook and Instagram (both are part of Meta), TikTok, and Twitter, enable users to connect and generate and distribute multimedia content. They typically generate revenue by providing a platform for advertisers to market products and services.

Over the past 20 years, social media has undergone major shifts, leading to present‐day challenges. Initially intended for friends and acquaintances to connect, social media has evolved into an alternative form of mass media that reaches a similarly large audience. The growth of the user base has partly contributed to this shift, along with social platforms attempting to fulfill ...