Social media expert, Jeremiah Owyang, provides a glimpse into his Forrester Research study on the Future of the Social Web. He interviewed 24 of the top social media application experts across the nation - leaders from Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Looking at the next 4 years, Jeremiah presents five eras of the social web:
Social Relationships (fairly mature) – connect with others online and share information – MySpace, Facebook, Twitter
Social Functionality (current) - social networks become like operating systems allowing you to add applications to social networks and perform activities beyond sharing static information. Multimedia / Multi-platform collaboration. Example: Facebook and LinkedIn. This era is not at all mature, much growth ahead.
Social Colonization – wherever you go online or with your mobile device, your friends can go with you. You can make decisions based on this peer review wherever you go. Also, you’re constantly connected to people.
Social Context – now that we have portable identities in our devices or online, you can exchange parts of your identity for more relevant content. Personalized content, even to the extent of personalized television and multimedia content. Demographic, psychographic, preferences, previous buying behavior and social context (people you know) will affect the kind of content you will have access to. Because you control your identity, registration pages will go away. Lead tracking will be reinvented.
Social Commerce – Communities will work together to define the products/services that they will buy. Product feedback will become part of the product development process. Again, a new level of customization. Brands will bid for their information. Community buying.
Great perspective – watch the video to hear Jeremiah firsthand.
