The Future of Social Media

If you consider yourself even to be mildly Internet savvy, most people would be shocked if you haven't investigated at least one social media website. By the end of 2008, it is expected that there will be more than 230 million members of social media sites worldwide.

Social media is still a relatively infantile service, but there are literally thousands to choose from for any purpose under the sun, including professional, political, social, special interest, dating, and so on. But with boom of social media, where new sites are launched almost daily around the world, what is the main hype? What about 10 years from now?

One hotly contested topic is how to generate revenue from these sites. There are plenty of business models available (even some that work), but speculation is still widespread since the key characteristic to many popular sites is a free membership policy. Advertising is the largest profit contributor (by a wide margin), which made the social media industry worth more than 970 million dollars in 2007.

Furthermore, thousands of companies have slowly begun to realize the benefit of reaching their target demographics through social media outlets, which has sparked a slow revolution in cyberspace interactivity. Here are some predictions for the future of the social media madness:

1. Content aggregation will take the spotlight. Most companies or groups with a message are mostly interested in using "sexy" marketing campaigns. Viral video contests, build your own site or profile, etc. Content, however, will always trump other features. Searching for content can be a little inefficient for most sites, even for the monsters such Facebook, MySpace and Blogger. Therefore, finding what you're looking for can take some valuable time.

More and more businesses are literally spending millions of dollars creating mediocre widgets and "stuff" simply to throw their name and brand messaging on it. At a fraction of the cost, the same companies could aggregate the most important content in their brand, provide a utility that matters to the site's users, and get tremendous brand equity in return.

2. Mobility and utility equal survival. Within the next decade, it is likely that most online services will have some form of mobile access. Facebook Mobile and Twitter are common examples, but thousands of websites have developed a mini-screen format for their sites as well. While most new designs are made for the iPhone, Blackberry, or Treo, there are text-based versions for almost any phone with a screen and web access.

Because this technology is already available and improving exponentially, it is inevitable that it will be commonplace in the already saturated market of social media.

3. Out with the old, in with the new. Twitter's problems and debugging efforts are well known, but it certainly isn't the only service to only get it half right. With the emergence of newer companies with more sound software and API, it is possible that Twitter will become the Friendster of microblogging. As developers begin to interact in open sourcing (watch the Google Campfire One lecture if you don't believe me), it is a matter of time until popular sites and services are obsolete and new sites take their place.

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