 (Credit:
Illustration by James Martin/CNET)
(Credit:
Illustration by James Martin/CNET)
 
When you think of social media these days, you probably think primarily 
of Facebook and Twitter, and perhaps Instagram. But while those services
 have massive -- and growing -- user bases, they're of course not the 
only games in town.
The world of social media is filled with other services, and millions of
 people get a daily fix without ever going near Facebook or Twitter. 
There are big general networks like Tagged, and plenty of smaller, 
purpose-built ones like Path or celebrity-focused ones like Lady Gaga's 
Little Monsters. There's even a revamped MySpace.
So what does 2013 hold in store for the world of social media? Only time
 will tell, naturally, but CNET put on its prognosticator's hat and took
 a stab at a few predictions for the year ahead.
1. MySpace relaunches; no one cares
 If all goes as planned, sometime in the next few months a 
fully revamped MySpace will launch,
 attempting to lure in a hip, young audience with a media-centric theme 
and an ownership that includes celebrities like Justin Timberlake.
The company knows it will never again be as big as it once was, but 
launch it will. And the collective response will be crickets. Though 
MySpace's new senior management knows they can't compete with Facebook 
as people's primary social network -- they expect that it will be 
integrated with both Facebook and Twitter and focus on music -- it's still hard to understand why anyone needs a new MySpace. 
After all, Facebook, with its Spotify partnership, already makes it easy
 to listen to and share music. And Facebook and Twitter both give 
musicians easy ways to connect with fans. So the entire rationale for 
relaunching a beleaguered brand whose raison d'etre has been superseded 
by bigger, stronger rivals, is hard to figure.
And users will come to the same conclusion. Though there may be a little
 bit of excitement as Timberlake and others lend their names and glamour
 to the new MySpace, that will quickly wear off as everyone realizes no 
one cares.
2. Twitter-Instagram photo rivalry continues to develop
 A major 2012 story, which just happened to take place in the closing weeks of the year, was the 
intensifying battle
 between Twitter and its former ally Instagram. Twitter had seemingly 
hoped to buy the photo-sharing service itself, but saw its hopes dashed 
as Mark Zuckerberg swooped in with what turned out to be $715 million 
worth of cash and stock and 
bought Instagram
 for Facebook. In the process, Twitter lost its shot at a huge amount of
 revenue potential, not to mention being able to bring tens of millions 
of passionate and committed new users instantly into the fold.
In the wake of the Facebook-Instagram acquisition, Twitter began rolling
 out a set of fresh features that seemed intended to mimic the Instagram
 experience. That effort included making relevant photos show up atop 
Twitter search results; creating a more consistent mobile experience; 
and, then, most important of all, releasing its own 
photo-filtering tools.
But Instagram still boasts some significant advantages over Twitter when
 it comes to photo-sharing and creating and sharing artistic 
photography. Perhaps the most obvious is the extremely passionate -- and
 fast-growing -- community it enjoys. Still, Twitter has its own massive
 user base, and the potential to leverage it as its tools improve. 
Twitter needs to make its mobile photo experience even better and more 
focused than it is. It might even find that one way to attract more 
photographers is to add a photo tab to the current set of tabs: Home, 
Connect, Discover, and Me. 
To date, Twitter has released eight free filters, and that number will 
have to increase and get closer to Instagram's 18. That would help 
Twitter users see photo-sharing as a major part of what they choose to 
use the service for. Twitter is a force to be reckoned with, but the key
 question is whether it can work rapidly enough to catch up to Instagram
 before it's too late.
3. Tout breaks out
 In some circles, 
Tout
 is already a household name. The video-sharing service, which lets 
users quickly create and share 15-second clips, has become a favorite of
 athletes, news stations, and others. But many people have yet to even 
hear of it.
That could change in a big way in 2013. Though the company doesn't seem 
to spend much on marketing, it has a loyal fan base, which uses the 
service consistently and smartly and are known to see their Twitter 
followings go up at faster rates than normal Twitter users.
And why not? If a picture's worth a thousand words, then a short video 
must be worth far more than that. Tout is easy to use, and it's easy to 
embed a tout in a tweet, and who doesn't think a short video can say 
more than 140 text characters?
So far, though, despite being the service of choice for things like 
basketball star Shaquille O'Neil announcing his retirement, Tout has yet
 to break through. This could be the year that changes, as more and more
 people realize the value of creating and sharing 15-second videos. It 
turns out you can say a lot in 15 seconds, and as people learn that, 
they'll have a service at the ready to help them get their messages out.
4. Bigger bucks for Twitter
 Almost since its inception, despite its rapid growth, Twitter has 
had to fend off questions about its financial prospects. It was always 
seen as a great service, but few could see how it would make money. Now 
its critics are quieting down as it has beefed up its advertising 
platform.
But investors have put $1.16 billion into Twitter, according to 
Crunchbase, and it's certain those VCs want the microblogging giant to step up its 
revenue machine. And soon.
How does it do that? It can continue doing what it began to get good at 
in 2012: getting brands involved, and deeply involved at that, while not
 making users unhappy by watering down the service with ads.
Plus, it could develop easier ways to place ads. Google became a 
financial juggernaut when it answered that problem, in part with 
self-service ads, and brands wanting to place ads on Twitter would 
surely like to have an easier experience. As well, Twitter needs new 
ways to make sales. 
Fortunately, the company appears to take these challenges very 
seriously, and is investing real time and energy into how to take the 
next step. One advantage it has over Facebook is that mobile is just as 
good a platform for advertising on Twitter as the Web. That could bode 
very well down the line.
5. Facebook buys RockMelt?
 Facebook has built a platform that offers users almost any tool you
 can imagine, from timelines to chatting to photo-sharing to groups, and
 so on. But one thing it doesn't have is its own browser, either for the
 Web or for mobile.
Google, of course, has a browser, Chrome, that it leverages to gather 
data on what people are looking for, to boost advertising, and generally
 to keep millions of users tied to Google in ever more ways. 
While Facebook could build its own browser -- and could conceivably be 
doing so -- it could choose instead to buy one that's already developed 
and that has already proved attractive to users, as well as one that was
 created specifically to integrate well with Facebook.
To those who follow such things, that browser is RockMelt.
 Built as the browser for social, this Chromium-based tool is designed 
to easily work with Facebook and Twitter, yet it can also browse the Web
 normally. Its special sauce, however, is surely the way it seamlessly 
integrates social elements of Facebook.
As far as anyone knows, RockMelt's not for sale, and there's been no 
public indication that the company wants to sell, or has interest in 
selling to Facebook. But then again, RockMelt and Facebook share 
investors (Andreessen Horowitz), public relations firms (Outcast), and a
 sense that Facebook is at the heart of the social experience. 
Bringing RockMelt in house would give Facebook a browser of its own, and
 one that might come at a reasonable price. Why would Facebook want to 
have a browser? Because it would suddenly have access to far more 
information about users' behaviors, and could potentially keep users 
inside an all-Facebook fence, and away from its competitors, especially 
Google. Plus, RockMelt has an
iPad version.