The Next Big Thing In Social Networking

The social has been all the buzz on the web for a few years now. And it is still going strong, for good reason. You might not remember Friendster, but that came along before MySpace. And MySpace was all

Image via CrunchBase

the rage. Then Facebook took over. Like Sam Walton claimed, you can reinvent retailing "again and again and again."

The social has been the web maturing. It is not about technology, it is about people. That is the message.

The joke at my high school back in the days was trousers narrow at the bottom and then go wide again a few years later. How else could the fashion pendulum swing? The social is the trousers going wide

Image via CrunchBase

at the botttom. But the pendulum will swing.

The next generation of social networking is going to be about the individual. That well defined individual's social interactions online will reflect the ones offline. You are closer to some people than others. You share more with some than others. Everybody on Facebook being your general friend is going to start looking bland.

Image via CrunchBase

But first Facebook has to run its course. Twitter already stole a lot of its buzz. Google Wave will likely steal a lot of buzz from both Twitter and Facebook. But Wave is still the pendulum swinging in the same direction. And Wave might remain a great way to collaborate on projects.

At what point will have the pendulum swung all the way? Perhaps when Facebook hits 600 million people? More?

Five Blind Men And Google Wave
Space, Time And Twitter: Are There Plant Twitters?
Is Google Wave Social Enough To Challenge Facebook, Twitter?
Facebook's Ad Space Is Different

In The News

1. Wi-Fi Is About to Get a Whole Lot Easier BusinessWeek
2. Wal-Mart's Painful Lessons
3. Intel Results May Bode Well for Recovery
4. Stock Picks: Goldman Sachs, Cisco Systems, Synaptics
5. Health Care: What Comes Next

1. Health Care Turns to Harry Reid After Key Vote Time
2. Why It's Time to Retire the 401(k)
3. Take A Trip into the Future on the Electronic Superhighway
4. Is the Market Rally About to Run Out of Gas?
5. Moving Troops to Afghanistan Harder Than Getting Them
6. Why Women Have Sex
7. After the Crash: The Unlikely Tale of How Britney Spears Got Back on Track

1. Craigslist ad seeks suicidal astronaut CNet
2. Marathon winner disqualified for wearing iPod
3. Next Firefox can detect computer orientation
4. Apple acknowledges Snow Leopard data loss issue
5. Get ZoneAlarm Pro Firewall 2010 free (today only) 

Using Windows 7 to 'Elevate Miami'
Acer overtakes Dell in PC shipments
New Wi-Fi spec challenges Bluetooth
Photos: First glance at Barnes & Noble's e-reader
Chrome Mac beta nearer; Win 7 features recede
Finland: 1Mbps broadband access is a legal right
Bringing tech jobs to Third World refugees
Iron Mountain introduces a cloud storage API
Call it a comeback? Google earnings due
Report: Apple developing radio app for iPhone
The supercollider and a theory about fate
SolarEdge garners $23 million in funding
Gartner eyeing electronics recovery next year
Intel earnings beat Wall Street predictions
Intel CEO remarks on Netbooks, Windows 7
Survey: Do small businesses use social networking?
Acer's 3D-capable Aspire laptop leaks
Pretty Web journal tool Penzu goes pro
Concert Vault: Free live recordings on your iPhone
Intel, AMD file motions in 2005 antitrust case
Want good health in your golden years? Keep working

Related articles by Zemanta

• For Tech Sector, It's an Antitrust Year (blogs.wsj.com)
• Silicon Valley chip maker Marvell scores big with China Mobile Ophone launch (venturebeat.com)
• For Intel, small laptops bring challenge from ARM (news.cnet.com)
• Intel's Otellini: PC industry on brink of recovery (macworld.com)
• Microsoft: Windows 7 will trump Chrome OS, Apple (news.cnet.com)
• Microsoft bribes Apple retail managers and staff (ceoworld.biz)
• Snow Leopard 'less secure than Windows Vista' (telegraph.co.uk)
• Steve Jobs: The Stonking Big Profile (crunchgear.com)
• New Wi-Fi Direct Technology to Turn Every Gadget Into a Wi-Fi Access Point [Wi-Fi] (lifehacker.com)
• For the love of God can someone please fix the friggin problems in Snow Leopard? (fakesteve.net)
• How to make a greener Apple: Change the batteries, Steve (dailyfinance.com)
• Windows 7 works fine with Zune HD, iTunes 9 (news.cnet.com)
• U.S. retail sales better than expected (thestar.com)
• Note: What About the 'Bi' in 'Bipartisan' Health Care? (blogs.abcnews.com)
• "Internet left fringe" Prediction Thread (mydd.com)
• Schumer Pushes for Public Option (politicalwire.com)
• Health care may hit House, Senate floor mid-month (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Reid Confident On Eve Of Health Bill's Debut (huffingtonpost.com)
• Senate Finance Committee approves health-care reform bill in a 14-9 vote - MedCity Morning Read, Oct. 14, 2009 (medcitynews.com)
• "Snowe Voting Yes On Senate Finance Health Care Reform Bill" and related posts (huffingtonpost.com)
• "The Nobel Peace Prize and Barack Obama" and related posts (dinmerican.wordpress.com)
• Review: First look at Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.5 on the HTC Pure cell phone (venturebeat.com)
• Social Networking Watch: Recommended Social Networking Books (jonggunlee.tistory.com)
• App Sketchbook Uses Email for Feedback, Doubles Twitter Followers (mailchimp.com)
• Social Networking Watch: Founder Of Social Networking (jonggunlee.tistory.com)
• Fired for Blogging? You Are Not Alone. (cloudave.com)
• The Social Networking Timeline (kwiqq.com)

~ The way of the world is meeting people through other people. ~
Robert Kerrigan


~ It's not what you know but who you know that makes the difference. ~
Annonymous


~ It isn't just what you know, and it isn't just who you know. It's actually who you know, who knows you, and what you do for a living. ~
Bob Burg


~ More business decisions occur over lunch and dinner than at any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject. ~
Peter Drucker


~ Informal conversation is probably the oldest mechanism by which opinions on products and brands are developed, expressed, and spread. ~
Johan Arndt


~ It's all about people. It's about networking and being nice to people and not burning any bridges. ~
Mike Davidson


~ Position yourself as a center of influence - the one who knows the movers and shakers. People will respond to that, and you'll soon become what you project. ~
Bob Burg


~ In the earliest days, this was a project I worked on with great passion because I wanted to solve the Defense Department's problem: it did not want proprietary networking and it didn't want to be confined to a single network technology. ~
Vinton Cerf


~ Social networking sites like Myspace, Friendster, and Facebook have literally exploded in popularity in just a few short years. ~
Mike Fitzpatrick


Katherine Berry at Pajamas Media discusses social networking: "Having just spent another morning of my life reading the most boring details of other people's mornings, I've realized how very little things like Twitter, FaceBook, or FriendFeed actually contribute to one's life: it's more like sitting in a room full of over-caffeinated narcissistic Tourette's patients with ADHD who are all trying to be the most entertaining. And, really, what's so social about a monologue?"