The Future of Social Web

The Future of Social Web

Social web is defined as we learnt is our third lecture as the following;

‘We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.” (Boyd & Ellison 2007, p.211)

However, whilst attending the CS3010 lectures I have pondered what the future of social web is embarking on. The natural progression of social web would be for multinational companies to fully exploit the sheer amount of potential customers’ more so on social networking websites. For instance, the humanising of big brands, such as employees of brands and corporations themselves tweeting to the general public of up and coming products or events establish a relationship with consumers by providing a real face(s) that consumers can actually connect and communicate to personally.

An article by Jeremiah Owyang looked at the future of social web within a more long term forecast. He suggestes that there are 5 eras within the social web’s future: Era of Social Relationships, Era of Social Functionality, which is the era we are currently in, Era of Social Colonization, Era of Social Context and Era of Social Commerce. The Era of Social Relationships is the facility to simply connect to one another and share information with each other. The Era of Social Functionality is the current period we are experiencing; this in the form of an example is the creation and utilisation of Facebook as the platform to connect to other people and applications installed to enable further communication. The Era of Social Colonization is enabling the majority of websites to be social. With most websites sporting an array of logos ranging from Facebook to Digg It, it enables websites to become communal. For instance, Facebook Connect allows the user to click on the Facebook logo on a website such as Grooveshark (on-line music streaming) if they ’like’ a particular song, which will automatically be posted on the user’s wall and newsfeed. Era of Social Context is the provision of individuality to the consumer by providing tailored web sites for consumers by sharing their personal information, such as interests, activities etc. Thus displaying items that only parallel the consumer’s interests. The Era of Social Commerce is the replacing of brands with groups, with consumers’ of certain brands providing innovative ideas and features of what they would like to see in future products and/or services, shifting from a consumer culture to one of a prosumer.

Thus it could be seen that with constant evolution of social culture it is vital that companies are also matching their product portfolio/range with it. This is one of many possible views; do you follow this opinion?

References:

Jeremiah Owyang. (2009). The Future of the Social Web: In Five Eras. Available: http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2009/04/27/future-of-the-social-web/. Last accessed 22nd Nov 2011.