According to Fred Wilson “the social media phase of the Internet ended” in 2014.  He should know, his firm Union Square Ventures spotted the emergence of social media early and profited from it, investing early in Twitter, Tumblr, Zynga and Foursquare.  Wilson is of course talking about opportunities to invest in new social media businesses.  His view is that the market is now mature and the opportunities, for growth lie elsewhere, namely messaging.

In the two years since On Device Research‘s last report on messaging – Messenger Wars – Facebook has climbed its way back to be number one spot of social messengers. With competition from super secret Snapchat and social messaging ecosystems, WeChat and Line, Messenger Wars 2 looks at the dynamics of this space, exploring the reasons for its growth, putting smartphone users in the USA, UK, Germany, Japan and China under the microscope.

[slideshare id=45931963&doc=messengerwars2-150317054123-conversion-gate01]