To ride the wave of the next big thing in social media, it often takes a lot of trial-and-error, a good deal of trendspotting, and some courage to try new things. I’ve spent some time reading up on what’s to come for social media and I’d love to get your thoughts on three new trends that might be monumental.

Source: 3 Soon-To-Be Social Media Trends You Can Profit On | The Next Web

Are you ready? Chatbots are being embraced at an unprecedented rate because they are easy to build, scalable — since they can be powered across a range of platforms — and are both useful and promotional, said Christian Brucculeri, CEO and director at Snaps. The future of branded bots, he said, will be brands “owning” areas and “offering smart utilities. “A grocer or a food brand, for instance, could develop a recipe generator bot, so all one has to do is type the name of an ingredient, and get a bunch of recipe recommendations.”

Source: Brands as Chatty Friends: Are Chatbots ‘The Beginning of a New Internet’? | Digiday

Digital disruption can be a frightening game, especially when some of the players are as yet out of view. By subjecting the sources of disruption to systematic analysis solidly based on the fundamentals of supply and demand, executives can better understand the threats they confront in the digital space—and search more proactively for their own opportunities.

Source: The Economic Essentials of Digital Strategy | McKinsey & Company

Yves Béhar is chief creative officer at fitness tracker company Jawbone and founder of US design and branding firm Fuseproject. Here, he shares his thoughts on the future of fitness trackers, their potential to improve healthcare and how to design a device that people will want to wear every day

Source: Track, Measure, Motivate – Creative Review

The basic Microbit is a pocket-sized computer circuit board, with USB, Bluetooth, accelerometer, temperature and moisture sensors. In short, it’s like the guts of a smartphone, only it has no screen, and it’s designed to be hooked up to all kinds of other devices. The idea is that kids can learn to build computer-based hardware projects the way you and I learned to build things out of wood, metal, plastic, and cardboard when we were in school. It was made by the BBC in partnership with U.K. startup Technology Will Save Us.

Source: The BBC Gives Computer Hacking Kits To 1 Million U.K. School Kids | Co.Exist