The (not so distant) Future of Social Media

No one knows for sure what the social media landscape will look like in the not so distant future. Social media networks are governed by "what's-popular-right-now" principles and its hard to judge what network sites will take off like Facebook and Twitter--and which networks will flunk.

What is clear, though, is that the social media landscape is constantly evolving. Six years ago blogging sites like Livejournal were extremely popular. Livejournal was then replaced by MySpace, which is in turn being phased out by Facebook. Today, sites like Twitter and LinkedIn are digging into Facebook's "market share."

Jonathan Strickland from HowStuffWorks.com believes that social media's continuing evolution will mirror the development of Web 3.0 technologies. Strickland argues that advances in browser and search technologies will allow browsers to compile data and information across a user's entire internet experience.

The Web 3.0 experience may possibly foster the development of one, unified and integrated "profile" to replace the myriad of social networks that users frequent today.

Marshall Sponder (webmetricsguru.com) argues in his online presentation, The Future Of Social Media Monitoring, that social media is evolving everyday. He points to the emergence of free and universally accessible tools like Google Analytics, that empower users with a multitude of important information about their sites and others.

What do you think the social media universe will look like two years from now? How about five years from now?

SECL-101 Doing Business in the Virtual Realm

The emergence of Second Life and other internet-based virtual worlds has caused quite a boom in e-commerce recently-- actually a $567 million boom in 2009 according to the Linden Lab. Tens of thousands have flocked to Second Life to create virtual avatars of themselves both for business and pleasure.

Yet, what draws so many to Second Life? Is it the unnatural ability users are granted to shape and reshape every aspect of their virtual lives? The ability to create an image of themselves that reflects their wants, hopes, and dreams? For whatever reason, business is booming. Universities are creating virtual centers of learning, entrepreneurs are launching new business ventures, and real people are spending real dollars-- $567,000,000 a year to be precise!

Surely, Second Life is here to stay. What do you have to say about Gartner's claim that "80 percent of Internet users will have a second life in the virtual world only four years from now[?]"

Alex Germany-Wald, Inc.

Way back in the dark ages of information technology, Tom Peters wrote an insightful article on personal branding titled The Brand Called You. Even though Peters published the article in 1997, much of his advice, which reads like a 'success 101' self-help manual, is even more relevant today than it was thirteen years ago.

Peters argues that everyone is their own individual "brand"-- the sum of their skills, professionalism, qualities, traits, connections, appearance, reputation and legacy. He urges readers to proactively consider their personal brand when making everything from basic choices to life's most complex decisions.

In today's world of omnipresent social networking, the individual's brand is constantly exposed to others. In 1997, we had to meet people in person, talk on the phone or publish something in print to expose others to our personal brand. But now Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, blogs, YouTube, etc., allow others to "view" our brands 24/7, without our implicit knowledge.

In short, the need to consider our own personal brands has never been more important than it is today.

"If you were a consultant, you'd measure [power] by the number of CEOs who've got your business card in their Rolodexes. (And better yet, the number who know your beeper number by heart.)" ------From Tom Peters, The Brand Called You

Oh, the nineties...