Ten minutes on the future of social media

Everything will be social media. And it is happening right now. The consolidation of blogging and of the communitybased social media is now. The fact that media for the moment is trying to understand how to re-act on this disruptive landscape and the statistics showing that the big eruption of new user on Facebook and Myspace is over is proof that the social media is getting into it’s adolescence. Corporate blogging, interaction between the web and the mobile. It’s not the future. It’s a now.

So what is around the corner?

V-logging: the true democratization of the social media. Everyone can have their say. Even if you’re not the writing kind of person. And it is on the verge to be truly social with the mobile versions and the reciprocality when streaming live. As Bambuser.

More social than media. Look at the utilization of Jaiku for the past months, or Twitter. Look at the bambusingfrenzy that aren’t just to show off but eagerness to be social. In an non-anonymous way that wasn’t there for say six months ago. Sidewinder: the death of nicknames. We want to be IRL, be ourselves even in our digital life.

The lifestream. It’s already here but how many do really use it even among us early adopters? Th next thing might be not trying to find out the new thing that specifies in a web 2.0 app or service but giving away the nothingness. A simple handler of digital footprints, a mashup without nothing more to do than to let people collect their lifestream and let everyone or the ones of the user’s choice follow it? Yes, I said simple. To handle.

Tagging everything, tagging is everything. Everything must be tagged. User defined tagged content will make the cloud complete since it’s not only the facts of the contence that are searchable but the understanding of the content – the user-defined tags – that do give another perspective on the content.

Geotagging. I know what, I know when – now I want to know where. The possibilities both for the user and his contacts, but also empower the marketing relevance is bigger than the privacy issues. It have to be rather automatic. It have to be opt-in. Then it is the totalization of the social media – the user revolution.

But here is my real thinker. The future thingy that is not an simple addition but something that again will rock the masses.

To look at the future one have to look at the past. And take the human psychology and socio-psychology into the algorithm of futureness. I believe in the theory of digital immigrants vs the digital natives and the metaphor is important when understanding what to come. The digital immigrants aren’t general a age-defined group but probably would it (and the statistics of the net demographics verifies it) be most of us that are born into the early eighties that could be defined as digital immigrants. We have moved into the digital land and also have reminscence of when the internet wasn’t there. The negative immigrants have been forced against their will into it when some of us gladly did explore almost every aspect of it.

And looking at the immigrationprocess in general the immigrant tend to a) search for their countrymen/likeminded b) be nomadic since their roots aren’t in this land. So both negative and positive digital immigrants are also more probable to move on. The life in this new environment is all about exploration and we become digital nomads. If we think that the other place is more fun, safe, supportive, social or if our social sphere has moved on – we do too.

But the digital natives aren’t like us. They are born into this digital land. They aren’t interested in exploring new things just for the sake of exploring. They are digital settlers, they stay where they are and make it a home. It is not a mystery that Facebook seemed to attract a older bunch of people. The young already have their networks. And they will stay there until the critical mass of their networks is moving. Or then they are as homebound that they just start to build a new network in the same place.

So even though many of you won’t believe it I think the next killer app of social media have to be in 3D, to be a virtual world.

The natives are born and raised in the virtual reality of games. They have played everything. For them the gamepad is a more natural way to navigate than the mouse. For them the spatial reality is not only analog but as well digital. But it must be ease of use, open to API:s and to import (and export) your digital footprints and “the cloud”.

The difference between the immigrant and the native is that the native can stay but want to build your world around you. If the place give the opportunities to grow old, to rebuild my place, renovate it and fill it with the things that is “me”. And the virtual world-concept puts you into a digital world that fulfill the basic needs of spatial understanding: we will ask for a room – not a plain two-dimensional hyperlinked page. A basic need of the human psyche.

We want something that are our home – a sort of startpoint and something to come back to. And a place that you can grow older in, and in the meantime you build your network and your lifestream in the place that is your digital home. And the brands that you love will of course be a part of this – and pay for the juice.

Of course with the mobile version to go with but yes – I still believe that we will use laptops in the future :).

No. It’s not Second Life. To complicated and you get nothing for free. But the one that manage to make this app probably will be the next Zuckerberg.

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