Consumers and Investors Still Flocking to Social Media Companies Despite Privacy Concerns

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This may be counter-intuitive given all the negative media concerning privacy matters with social media platforms, but industry research sources project enormous growth for the sector as the companies “will continue to find ways to monetize.” The January 2019 report continues: “Since going mainstream over a decade ago, hundreds of millions of Americans have embraced social networking websites; from Facebook and Twitter to LinkedIn and dozens more, people use these networks maintain relationships with friends, follow the news and share photos and videos. By leveraging user data for targeted advertisements, where the supermajority of revenue is derived, operators in the Social Networking Sites industry have been able to capitalize on the popularity of their platforms. Active tech and social media companies in the markets this week include: Findit, Inc., Facebook, Inc., Twitter, Inc., Snap Inc., Microsoft Corporation.

Over the five years to 2018, the industry has surged at an annualized rate of 36.0% to $34.0 billion, including a 17.5% rise in 2018 alone. The report sees that: “Growing advertising spending and (growing) disposable income will benefit the industry.”It added that the industry is trending up! “Over the past five years, the Social Networking Sites industry has grown by 29.1% to reach revenue of $40bn in 2019. In the same timeframe, the number of businesses has grown by 4.9% and the number of employees has grown by 31.1%.”According to latest figures on Yahoo FINANCE, impressive market caps in the Social Media space includes: Facebook, Inc. is currently sitting today over a $473 Billion Market Cap. Twitter, Inc. is sitting with over a $22 Billion Market Cap and Snap Inc. rounds out the big three with over a $11 Billion DollarMarket Cap.

Findit, Inc. BREAKING NEWS: Findit, owns and operates the website Findit.com, prepares to launch newly revised Native App in Android and IOS through Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

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The App will be available in the near future with newly revised features for members and visitors to benefit from. The revised app will provide anyone who wants to download the App the option of joining Findit or not joining but being able to view the content that is being posted by Findit members.

Raymond Firth, “There is growing concern among people using social networking platforms that their personal, private information is not safe with these platforms. This fear is very real in light of recent disclosures that this data was sold to, or shared with third parties. Findit is a safe alternative that allows people to view content without having to create an account. It is only necessary to create an account when someone wants to post their own Right Now messages, or like and comment on Right Now posts from other members. We believe that this makes Findit a much more valuable platform that enables members to reach a wider audience beyond only those who are followers.”

Findit currently has the App available in both IOS and Android that allows members to post to the Findit App that then pushes those posts to the website Findit. From the website, all content currently can be crawled and indexed in Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines, because signing in is not required. This is a very large advantage to members that are looking to increase their organic indexing in search engines. The other popular feature that is enabled on Findit is the sharing capabilities from each post to other extremely popular social networking sites that include but are not limited to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN, Pinterest and Google. The New App launch will provide members privacy sharing options that allows members to select if they want their posts to be: public, only to their followers or to the followers and people following them or to be private. By adding this feature in the New App launch we can provide members on Snapchat (SNAP), Facebook (FB), Instagram (FB) and Twitter settings that exist on those sites to Findit members.

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Other recent developments in the social media industry include:

Facebook, Inc. Founded in 2004, Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them. Recently on January 30, 2019 Facebook reported financial results for the quarter and full year ended December 31, 2018.

“Our community and business continue to grow,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. “We’ve fundamentally changed how we run our company to focus on the biggest social issues, and we’re investing more to build new and inspiring ways for people to connect.”

Twitter, Inc. recently the company announced financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2018. “2018 is proof that our long-term strategy is working. Our efforts to improve health have delivered important results, and new product features like a single switch to move between latest and most relevant Tweets have been embraced by the people who use Twitter,” said Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO. “We enter this year confident that we will continue to deliver strong performance by focusing on making Twitter a healthier and more conversational service.”

“Through our consistent strategy and solid execution, Q4 was a strong finish to the year. We’re delivering great results with revenue up 24% year-over-year, steady sequential growth in total monetizable daily active users (mDAU) and revenue, along with GAAP profitability throughout the year,” said Ned Segal, Twitter’s CFO. “We’re also continuing to demonstrate Twitter’s unique value proposition for advertisers as the best place to launch something new or connect with what’s happening.”

Snap Inc. recently, the company announced financial results for the quarter and full year ended December 31, 2018, which included: Fourth quarter revenue increased 36% to a record $390 million; Full year revenue increased 43% to $1.2 billion; and Daily Active Users were flat sequentially at 186 million.

“In 2018, we focused on building a foundation to scale the business over the long-term by driving sustainable product innovation, scaling our advertising platform, and hiring the leadership team that will help us achieve our future goals,” said Evan Spiegel, CEO. “We ended the year with user engagement stabilizing and have started rolling out the new version of our Android application to a small percentage of our community. We are substantially closer to achieving profitability, as we have maintained a relatively flat cost structure across the past five quarters while growing full-year revenue 43 percent year-over-year.”