Question: What Will Emerge as the Next Great Social Network?
I get asked all the time what is emerging as the next great social network. I still believe it will be a network of sites powered underneath by technologies from Facebook, Google and Twitter. But in the interim, I am sure there will be some new site that comes along and captures the hearts of geeks - just as Twitter, and to some degree, Friendfeed did. I would love your insights here.
In the first chart in the gallery that follows I plotted the four sites that I am hearing about a lot at least from friends in my circle - Foursquare, Posterous, Brightkite and Squarespace (which is really an amazing CMS, not a social network per se). I ran their traffic stats through Google Trends and compared them to Friendfeed as a base. Posterous right now is the leader. If they add deeper links to Twitter and Facebook, I bet they will grow.
The one major site that's missing from this list is Tumblr. Their traffic trumps all of these other sites combined. So why not include them? Because to me, Tumblr is already mainstream. It never lit a fire with geeks, but according to Google Ad Planner data, also in the gallery below, it's catching on with a younger set - 81% of its users are under 44. And over 60% don't have a college degree - at least yet. So I think they're scaling the other side of the road to glory.
What's your view?



Comments 18 Comments
What if all of our current platforms: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Wordpress, Posterous, Tumblr, et al. are simply gatekeepers to the social network? We're simply putting data out there and these guys are controlling the delivery, organization, and ways by which we consume it all.
I long for the day where I upload a video not to Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. but just to the internet. Replace video with photos, status updates, blog posts, or whatever else you can think of and we arrive at a true open internet.
Maybe what we need is not just OpenID but the OpenPlatform where we are platform agnostic. Facebook and Twitter would just be layers that we can use to help us organize all this data.
In the meantime, I think Tumblr may have a better shot at this than some of the other platforms you mentioned. http://trends.google.com/websites?q=tumblr.com%2C+posterous.com%2C&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
I always love your keen eye to the future. Thanks for making us think!
How do you think Google Wave and its real-time interaction will change the game among Social Networks?
A lot of Google Reader talk is going on right now--even comparisons to FriendFeed--but it lacks immediacy and a genuine sense of connectedness.
Thanks, Steve!
In the mid-term ahead, GWave may be the force holding all the pockets of discussion together, in the short term, with all our existing services, we need to to make one dragging gesture and accomplish what is now takes three gestures: select, copy, paste.
I understand when you say that Posterous is not very social right now. But I can bet that it is going to enter the social game in a BIG way through its acquisition of Slinkset. I'd love to know what plans they have for it but one thing I know for sure -- whatever they come up with, it's going to be as awesome as everything they have till date.
My vote is definitely for Posterous.
still nice and simple and SOCIAL (ala twitter) BUT with multimedia built into the conversation (rather than links) is Zannel. not betting on it being the next big thing - but wonder why it hasn't caught on - and now seems to be overrun with celebrity news spam.
my vote is it isn't out there yet.
Slinkset to the company will change it. Being able to vote up
comments, stories, sites. will help. Tracking popular, will get
posterous in the social game more than sharing (which they've done
well).
I hope for that. At the same time, I hope that federated, distributed
service deliver to us more than any one service can or should. I want
to pick my tool set of the 4 or 5 social web services that I like and
have the content I create and favor interact seamlessly with the
content on the services you've picked for your tool set.
In the discussion below Rubel's post, the desire was expressed that we
eventually gain the ability to post the internet, not just to FaceBook
or YouTube.
While, we've been able to post into our own web space since the
beginning of the web, we need social discovery, tracking of friends
and trusted sources as well as popularity to allow our posting to
reach a meaningful audience.
LinkedIn
Ulrich Hammerschmidt has sent you a message.
Date: 5/06/2010
Subject: RE: These are all great, but they are nothing more than platforms. I come from a very traditional PR background. While I meld PR and Social...
You should take a look at http://test.mycommsuite.net/pronto
We provide whitelabel services for social communities that include all communication methods.
Regards
Ulrich
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