What do current apps tell us about the future of social media?
September 26th, 2008 |
As I write a chapter on the future of social media for my SocialCorp book, I asked people on Twitter last night whether they had favorite social media apps and which if any offered hints at the future. Here are the responses:
- Imho, Qik, and Seesmic a close second. I have never seen a single 12second.tv video that made any sense whatsoever.
- chi.mp One profile to rule them all.
- Check out Socialbrowse.
- Tumblr and disqus
- none. i have tumblr, disqus, 12 seconds, but i wouldn’t say any of them are predictors. i would say Twitter is the one i go to see what is happening around the world 24/7.
One of the more imaginative scenarios came from Chris Grayson who suggested “some cross between the iPhone App called Loopt with iChatAV and Second Life in a discrete virtual vision visor display built into your eye wear.”
What do you think the future holds? What about Friendfeed and other aggregators? And whether you love or hate Plurk, and everyone either loves it or hates it, you have to give them credit for exploring a new user interface. Or not. Maybe Yammer and other apps that encroach on the corporate firewall, or internal clones like Pfizer’s Pfacebook and IBM’s BlueTwit will become popular.
SO COME ONE! SPEAK UP! WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Please add your ideas for most progressive or innovative applications to the comments on this post. Thank you!
Tags: , chi.mp, tumblr, disqus, twitter, seesmic, 12seconds, qik, iphone, loopt, ichatav, second life, future of social media, plurk, friendfeed, yammer
| Sphere This |
I think the problem is that we have so many different social media sites doing the same things in different ways. Myspace, Orkut, and Facebook. Twitter and Plurk. Heck, Friendfeed also probably has the same thing going for it.
In my opinion, all of these “social media” site boil down to one of 2 frequency paradigms:
1. Low frequency, high bandwidth communications.
- These are those services that you use less frequently, but write or read more per use. Email and Blogs have their roots here.
2. High frequency, low bandwidth communications.
- These are those services that you use more frequently, but write and read less per use. Instant Messaging and Forums have their roots here.
On top of that, we have the “public” or “private” paradigm. I like to think of Twitter as a completely open and public version of an IM conversation. Same with Blog posts. They’re public emails to me.
I know there are exceptions to these, but I feel they’re mostly correct from what I can see. We’re recycling the same ideas and trying to make them different, but in the end we’re recycling the same 4 ideas without much difference between them.
Comment by Gh0st_Preacher — September 26, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
With regards to the 12seconds “not making sense”, the same was said about Twitter early on, not enough space for context.
Qik requires proprietary software, and is only supported on certain phones. Seesmic requires bandwidth.
Anyone with a cellphone with ANY video capability can participate in 12seconds. It’s the only one that approximates the multiple input paths that made Twitter explode.
Comment by Ike — September 26, 2008 @ 8:30 pm
You are so right when you say that many of the applications that are being used today are showing us the social media of the future. It is not so much changing the applications, rather changing the way we think about the ways in which these applications can be used. Just as the term web 2.0 depicts a change in the philosophy around the Internet rather than an actual ‘thing’, the way in which we think about using social media applications is shifting.
The future is bringing social media apps out of the “social networking” domain and applying the principles to the way we manage businesses and institutions. Social media apps are being adapted and applied to connect all elements of institutions. Social media platforms such as socMe are taking social media apps and applying them to businesses to develop multi-dimensional websites. This is based upon a centralized system that extends across platforms and devices taking information to where it is needed rather than being a destination. Combining CMS, LMS and social media applications built in tracking systems, how they integrate and work depends on what you need it to be.
Comment by Alasdair Munn — September 27, 2008 @ 12:50 am