Comments on: What?s After Social Networks?

By: Patricia

Patricia — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:43:21 +0000

@ Justin, damn. I want to spend an hour inside your mind :)

I do agree that mobile is going to blow up and I agree about twitter (you can see what I wrote about Twitter on my blog www.industrygirlblog.com). I do think more applications will be built on social networks, but where I'm coming from in my article is that everybody needs to look ahead (not just us).

Thanks for commenting on my article guys!

By: Justin Kistner

Justin Kistner — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:58:33 +0000

I think the mobile space is the next area. While there were many communities online prior to MySpace and Facebook (all the way back to BBS), those sites opened up networking online to the general public. Users want more mobile functionality and I think the communities to watch out for are Twitter, Jaiku, and Pownce (because they are even more user friendly than MySpace and Facebook). Integrating GPS location will change everything. Imagine walking into a room and being able to browse the profiles of those around you. Imagine being able to know if those people have mutual friends. Imagine an automatic message being sent when you enter your friend's favorite bar. Lot of information control will coincide with such rad features to maintain privacy.

But it's more than that. As you pointed out, Patricia, communities have been around long before YASNS, and the ability to integrate with existing and future communities in a more decentralized and standardized way will be key to long term success. Therefore I agree with Marcos that we'll see more APIs. I think we'll also see more widget orientated functionality. The one thing we're missing from the blog world that prevents it from being a social network is permission control connected to identity. I think MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog are in a position to offer identity based permissions that could be integrated with blog CMSs as a plug-in and their existing widgets. Would be nice to see OpenID get some traction in there as well…

By: Patricia

Patricia — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:07:13 +0000

@ Marcos, it isn't that there won't be a place for social networks. It's that I think companies that fixate on them aren't understanding there's already been a shift, and more changes will come.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 12:04:32 +0000

I don't even care about social networks, I just want to know who this hot chick is??

By: Ian Bell

Ian Bell — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 13:05:51 +0000

I do think that social networking has run its course as well. There are several “winners” that have emerged, and it's time to go to the next evolutionary step, as Patricia points out.

By: Marcos El Malo

Marcos El Malo — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 11:09:48 +0000

What makes you think social networking has run its course? I think the demand for better and more sophisticated SN apps is going to continue to drive development, although admittedly that will only be one component.

What think will happen (mostly because I'd like to happen, but there are some clues to indicate it might) is development of more tools and infrastructure for users (yes, users) to develop their own SN sites. We'll see the infrastructure come in the form of APIs, like we've seen with FaceBook and other sites. Tools will take the form of add in modules or roll your own using AJAX and the like. MS and Adobe will be pushing hard for a deal with someone to use their tools as the basis for such an infrastructure. The other trend I see combining with all this is a return to the thin client model, with the server being the internet or “cloud” as the jargony types like to say. But I see the creation of “structured clouds”, again through the release of APIs, not to mention the adoption of open standards.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 13:44:16 +0000

Similar to trends on TV, we are stuck on reality TV, and a million spin offs from that. Before we were stuck on game shows. The US market has a tendancy to borrow from the market overseas, like Asia. Media is king there, but people won't pay for it. I think the next King of media here will be the forward looker that can look past the obvious “social” aspect and won't put an “i” in front of it. The next original thinker should think around it. Now that I would spend money on.