Next Generation of Social Networking

Yesterday, I attended an event sponsored by the WebGuild in the Silicon Valley, at Google HQ. The main topics were 1- Growing trends in social networking, 2- What are the key ingredients to a successful social network? 3- What is the best way to monetize advertising within social networks? 4- What characterizes Web 3.0? 5- When will we see Mobile 2.0?

1- Growing Trends in Social Networking

Jonathan Abrams, founder of Socializr said that the first growing trends was the increased use of implicit data to complement the use of user data known as explicit data. In short, social networks are becoming more intelligent by providing users with user interest generated lists. This is similar technology that Amazon uses to recommend purchase a shopper might like based on their existing shopping patterns and matching it with multitudes of other shoppers. The second trend that Abrams mentions is that more social networking features are appearing in the on mobile networks. Currently, text messaging a primitive form of social networking is growing fast in the United States.

2- What are the key ingredients for a successful a social network?

Jia Shen, CTO of RockYou shared his insight on the monetization of advertising to support widgets for Facebook. To have a successful social network you need two key ingredients namely a killer app and gain critical mass on your social network. He disagreed with the other guest speakers on the openness of Facebook (from a technical standpoint) arguing that Facebook is open enough in terms of monetization of advertising for widgets creators. To achieve critical mass the social network must draw users with its new so called killer app. that is structured on software as a service architecture (SaaS). Ajax and DOM scripting are replacements to Flash applications, the latter being something that his group focused on initially, but then abandoned in favor of software better suited for open social networking platforms, such as Facebook.. The main obstacle to generating critical mass is that a typical user has already invested a lot of time and explicit data within their chosen social network. In addition, existing social networks such as Facebook and MySpace have no interest in sharing their data among themselves. If a social network is to achieve commercial success over the long term, then it must follow the changing life path of a typical user. For example, MySpace caters to a younger crowd, where there is a lot of vanity, profanity and a strong dating scene. However, as a user matures, their needs change and the social network must cater to these changes. Therefore, the more conservative social networks that still can appeal to the younger crowds and also their parents will achieve the greatest success over the long term. Facebook is a good example of this.

3-What is the best way to monetize advertising within a social network?

All three guest speakers were in agreement that advertisers have not yet cracked the code to achieve successful monetization of advertising within the context of the consumer. Currently, the conversion rates from any form of advertising within a social network is very low. The main reason for this is that members of a social network never want to leave the network to conduct purchases on an external site. Their solution: create advertising that best parallels the social graph. In other words, use viral distribution of product recommendations based on the recommendations between friends within a social network. As each recommendation moves from one friend to another , the conversion rate improves along with this exchange.

4-What characterizes Web 3.0?

I asked the guest speakers what would be the main characteristics of Web 3.0? For example, wold we see a greater use of web bots or agents that would manage all the explicit data for users and also facilitate the extension of implicit data. All were in agreement, that this would be a key characteristic of web 3.0.

5- When will we see Mobile 2.0?

The speakers said that social networking has already begun in the United States in the primitive form of text messaging. Unfortunately, the U.S. is very far behind countries, such as Japan and countries in Europe. For example, the mobile infrastructure in Japan is very advanced and users interact on many different ways over the web. In many emerging markets, the computer is not part of the inventory of gadgets they own. As a result, the phone becomes the main form of communication and is more prone to faster adoption rates for social networking on mobile networks. When can we expect advanced social networking on mobile networks in the United States? We can expect to wait almost a decade before advanced social networks become ubiquitous in the U.S.

Source: Next Generation of Social Networking, October 17, 2007 from 6 - 9:30 p.m.6 p.m. - Reception; 7 p.m. - PresentationGoogle, 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy., Building 43