Who will set 2011’s standards in NewNet technologies like social media and real-time feeds? In terms of growing user adoption, revenues and technology innovation and influence, there appear to be three types of impact players: the sure-to-be leaders, mid-size companies with potential to disrupt and the big, long-established players who can’t be ignored in any discussion of the space.
The Leaders
The NewNet behemoths — though it’s hard to call such relatively young companies that — remain two of 2010’s highest-impact players:
Facebook. You can’t miss the influence of Facebook’s user growth (and its usage) and its technology platform. But even if it’s a billion-dollar business, Facebook is making far less money off its users than Yahoo, let along Google — both of whom sell tons more ads to users. I don’t expect Facebook to cash in on its social graph by licensing the data — that would be a privacy PR nightmare. I also believe its execs when they say the company is not working on a social media ad network — yet. But in 2011, we should expect at least two things from Facebook:
- Facebook will build out its advertising and sponsorship offerings. It needs to do that to get more money from big-brand advertisers. Facebook Pages should get a richer creative palette, and may also get better integration with off-site targeting and measurement. That might require an ad network partnership — are you listening, Microsoft?
- Third-party developers will handle apps. Facebook will likely leave the development of more engaging app experiences to third-party developers in its ecosystem, and concentrate on communications. Facebook Groups and Messaging are both on a path toward a unified communications hub.
Twitter. At some point, we have to answer three questions about Twitter:
- How can it make money?
- How important is its data?
- How can its information feed be made more useful for users?
The answers may not be as related as you’d think. Twitter bailed out on social commerce, and it is still only experimenting in advertising, though its recent site redesign is much more accommodating of display, video and search marketing. Expect to see it expand its data licensing and concentrate on building out features — probably something that feels like topic filters — so users will find its site and apps both more addictive and more flexible. That focus would be at the expense of solving the real-time advertising opportunity, although we’ll probably see richer and better-targeted ad formats on Twitter built off its learnings from promoted tweets and trends.
Potential Power Players?
Facebook and Twitter may be a given in 2011, but these mid-range companies stand to potentially disrupt the NewNet space this year.
LinkedIn. One of the original social networks, LinkedIn’s professional social graph includes extremely rich data, including profession, expertise, sophisticated contact relationship info, “six degrees of separation” connection weighting, etc.
LinkedIn already acts as an easy-to-use, efficient Twitter filter: Users’ contacts who tweet are automatically added to the LinkedIn network activity feed — no need to follow or make lists. LinkedIn offers company pages and product recommendations, and is even trying to syndicate its own Like button. But what would be more interesting would be mining that professional graph for more than job-hunting, say, for instance, by building out ad targeting, sales opportunity connections and more professional services.
Skype. Skype, the leading global Internet voice and video communications network, has 124 million average monthly connected users and half a billion accounts, many with billing relationships. Skype is well-positioned to act as a unified communications hub for managing different types of communications, contacts and groups. It could play a role in presence management. Most of its integration efforts have been done to get Skype voice and video on more screens. Could Skype be a social network, or is the company content to offer communications services to them?
Stalwarts Yet to be Heard From
To-date, big companies responsible for influential technology platforms — i.e., the core services and APIs that developers build on, and their resulting ecosystems — haven’t played very important roles in establishing NewNet technologies. Perhaps that’s due to the Innovator’s Dilemma, or maybe social media is just not in their DNA. But participation in social and real-time technologies is critical for the advancement of their platforms. I suspect we haven’t finished hearing from the group that includes:
Google. Google has had its share of social flops, and Groupon is arguably more about local advertising than social commerce. Google needs to ensure its search and ad network businesses can harvest — not necessarily own — social and real-time data. That’s more important than turning Gmail into a social network.
Microsoft. Microsoft has parlayed its stake in Facebook into — well, not much really. Unlike Google, whose only revenue stream is advertising, social media advertising would be incremental to Microsoft’s core business. Could Microsoft parlay a Facebook partnership into a social media ad network? Can Microsoft continue to be enterprise communications’ biggest player without better social network connections?
Apple. Apple remains an extremely successful delivery vehicle for social media. But at heart, Apple is not a leader in communications software, or in the media business — though it’s an important retailer, it doesn’t sell ads. I’d bet it could remain a leader in creating and defining user experiences by being a fast follower in social media, adding social elements and connections to its core products and services, much as it did with the iPhone’s pre-loaded third-party email experience, or even Ping, if only it connected with the rest of the social world.
eBay. Arguably, the only place micropayments and virtual currency have worked is in social gaming, and PayPal is a power behind those scenes. EBay’s person-to-person auctions helped create the notion of social commerce and featured competitive “game” elements and real-time participation. But when was the last time eBay was an innovator? PayPal’s increasing importance to eBay could jump-start innovation.
Amazon. Like Apple, Amazon recently grew its business and platform by harnessing social technology from other companies. Amazon powers Procter & Gamble’s Facebook stores and promotes Lightning Deals on its Facebook page. Still, after being an early creator of user ratings and reviews, it hasn’t done much to syndicate its customers’ activities or favorites.
