Applications
Social media revenue to jump 43% to $16.9 bn in 2012: Gartner
MUMBAI: Global social media revenue is forecast to reach $16.9 billion in 2012, up 43.1 per cent from 2011 revenue of $11.8 billion, according to Gartner.
Advertising is, and will continue to be, the largest contributor to overall social media revenue and is projected to total $8.8 billion in 2012. Social gaming revenue more than doubled between 2010 and 2011 and is expected to reach $6.2 billion in 2012, while revenue from subscriptions is expected to total $278 million this year.
Gartner senior research analyst Neha Gupta said, “Usage of online social media has matured, and more than one billion people worldwide will use social networks this year. Although the number of social media users is large, and in some cases increasingly mature in their usage patterns, the market is still in its early stages from a revenue perspective.”
Gartner expects the number of social media users will continue to increase at a moderate pace. New forms of media and entertainment will keep users engaged on social media sites and attract new ones. Rising competition among social media players, each vying for consumers‘ leisure time and attention, will lead to the rise of new forms of social media (Web based and mobile).
Marketers are allocating a higher percentage of their advertising budget to social networking sites. This is mainly driven by the fact that these sites offer a large pool of engaged users who spend considerable time on these sites — this increases the potential click-through rates (CTRs).
Social media sites enable marketers to target ads to discrete consumer segments by unlocking the interconnected data structures of users that include lists of friends, their comments and messages, photos and all their social connections, contact information and associated media.
“Social media sites are becoming more innovative in their ad products to attract marketers” . Social networking sites should deploy data analytic technologies that interrogate social networks to give marketers a more accurate picture of trends in accordance with consumers‘ needs and preferences” added Gupta.
Gartner analysts said that social media sites will continue to incorporate gaming techniques on their networks, driven by the monetization opportunities that it presents. The sale of virtual goods will remain the primary source of revenue. Major console gaming publishers have recently entered the social gaming arena and are adding momentum to the social gaming industry by utilising their intellectual properties.
Gartner expects this trend to have a favourable impact on social gaming revenue as consumers are likely to be attracted to familiar gaming titles. Some of the big social developers such as Zynga, GREE and DeNA have moved to an open-platform strategy, enhancing user convenience and choice.
The growth in users paying for professional networking accounts will continue to grow. However, social sites are moving toward lower subscription fees and shifting focus to other sources of revenue, such as advertisement-based sales. This is corroborated by the fact that many of the professional sites (including LinkedIn and Xing) that charge for premium services observed a decline in the subscriptions revenue ratio. Apart from a few exceptions, Gartner continues to see limited success with the premium subscription models.
The sale of virtual goods outside of social gaming is the largest revenue earner in the “other” category. The trend to sell high-value advisory services (such as public relations and reputation management) to brands so that they can better manage their presence on social networks is on the rise and is expected to continue.
Payments on social media sites will increase, providing increased revenue opportunities to social media sites to serve as a payment platform for transactions of digital content (to pay for applications, such as part of Facebook), as part of social gaming (for example, FarmVille), or to
make a person-to-person (P2P) payment to another user of the network site. New revenue opportunities for social media will also arise as both mobile and TV platforms integrate with social networking as a core service.
“New revenue opportunities will exist in social media, but no new services will be able to bring significant fresh revenue to social media by 2016. The biggest impact of growth in social media is on the advertisers. In the short and medium terms, social media sites should deploy data analytic techniques that interrogate social networks to give marketers a more accurate picture of trends about consumers‘ needs and preferences on a customized basis. In the meantime, however, they should also continue to exploit other channels of revenue like mobile advertising and social commerce,” added Gupta.
Applications
Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
