the next stage in the evolution of social networking

“This began as an interesting read but was at times going on and on too much. I think you should also not stop at the definition of what & why but also ask what it might become and what would it mean to society”.

The above is a bit of feedback I received from Bud on one of my previous blog posts; one of the few people I actually look up to in terms of new ideas and creative thinking. So naturally it gave me the much needed inspiration to start thinking about what social media networks are going to evolve into and what it's going to mean to society in the future. Sit back and relax, this post is a bit longer than usual.:)

The current state of social media is just a passing phase. Its a way of giving a voice to those who don't have a way of making their voice heard above the crowd. It's so popular only because everybody else does it. And as all phases pass on, the current state of social media too will pass, but not before it gives way to something so big that it effectively becomes an integral part of an individual's life and so strong at that, that it may even change the very roots of how society is formed.

I have spent minutes that then become hours trying to figure out where this thread of social networking is going to lead to. But only thinking about the future doesn't always get you the result you need. And so, I had to take a little advice from pitbull. “to understand the future, we have to go back in time” - Back In Time - OST Men In Black 3.

So in the spirit of casual observation (mind you, no heavy research in this post) and based on the author's experience with social networking, the oldest experience with social networking began with Hi5; a relatively primitive social networking platform, which at the time was all the rage. Hi5 seemed to be promising but obviously lacked the features which made it addictive to the user (in this case, me). Along with Hi5 there was also myspace, the more popular of the two. And so as it was slowly gaining momentum in the digital society, facebook crashed the party and proved to be the popular new social networking site.

In a matter of years facebook grew exponentially from 1 million users in 2004 to more than 900 million users by the year 2012. The other notable networking site is twitter; the micro-blogging site which has proved a headache to many governments around the world. Combining the two, it is safe to assume that nearly 1/6th of the worlds population is connected on line via these social networking platforms.

So, social networking, having come so far in a span of less than 15 years (we are only going back as far as the social network revolution; the age of Hi5 and myspace) leads the reader to the obvious question; “Where is it headed?”

To discuss the answer to that question, a casual observation of what social networks have achieved so far is necessary. For starters, social networking has taken away the user's reluctance to share personal information on the web. Integrated chat features made messaging and emailing obsolete. The massive numbers of users alone made the social networking platform one of the most used modes of communication, if not the most. The network facilitated, encouraged and brought about a sense of sharing with in interconnected users; sharing of information, media and updates. This sense of sharing is what gave way to the viral marketing frenzy. Basically, the social network has become a virtual marketplace of information. And to sum it up, it's like instant communication with instant feedback supported by a word-of-mouth frenzy.

So, where is it headed?

Naturally, business organizations are going to try and exploit this wealth of users. They are going to try and make connections with these users in the hope that they could convert those connections into paying customers. But it seems no one has actually cracked the code as to how to make a network of users who have gotten used to using free services to start paying hard earned money for it. So I believe what is required here is a form of a paradigm shift. A process that manages to convert the user's sub-conscious into accepting the idea of paying for what they wish to use.

I also believe that one of the most convenient ways of doing so would be to introduce business applications on the social networking platform. A social network and business-to-business network parallelized on the same operating platform would bring about a sense of acceptance within the user community. This would be a step forward towards commercialization of a social networking platform.

The existence of business applications running on a social networking platform should convincingly encourage a higher level of connectivity with the customer, suppliers and other relevant stakeholders. This is in the belief that all businesses consist of individuals who are bound to be part of a social network and thus increasing the level of acceptance to others in the same network.

The other idea is that once a business application starts operations on a social networking platform, and provided that the said platform facilitates sharing within users, the viral marketing effect takes place. This conveniently results in a digital word-of-mouth frenzy and thus boosting the number of users (who are part of a business organization) for that particular business app.

Therefore I believe it's safe to say that commercial and business applications will take over the social networking space in the next few years and that is going to be the next big step in the evolution of social networking. 

p.s feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below.:)