Lets get right to the point, don't waste valuable time blogging when you should be working. How cut and dry was that? Social networking has evolved into much more than anyone could have ever truly imagined, I'm certain. However, there have been some great successes.
What we find at the Corporations Bureau are many new business owners discussing the amount of time they are investing online to establish and develop leads for their business. Now on the surface, that sounds wonderfully efficient, but if we delve a bit deeper into the online research time, we then will find that there are a few key indicators that may help you spend your time more wisely.
While advising a client the other day I discovered that he was having a difficult time researching and developing leads and was growing more and more frustrated with his apprarent lack of success or time payoff. I want you to know that, the the type of business you operate will make a huge difference and play a major role in how much attention or payoff you get from a social network.
If you run a lawn business, a hair salon, or a small commercial print business, it doensn't mean you can't utilize online resources, yet, Facebook and Myspace may not truly be in your best interest. LinkedIn my suit your needs best. Once you create our LinkedIn account, visit our account (See link below) so that we can "recommend" you to other users that are Linked to us.
Chris Williams at the Register wrote this article recently regarding "Facebook fatigue". He quotes some data showing a slow down in traffic to the dominant social network website, and says people are "just, well, bored of social networks". I'll let you read the article and make up your own minds as to what points he is making but, I would like to respond in 3 areas..
That we are currently in a bubble that is going to burst and go badly for social networks. That widgets are only making money from other widget developers
Facebooks valuation was hugely over the top.
Lets start with the talk of a bubble. Average people are definately tired/bored of the talk of "web 2.0", and when I say average I mean non web developers. And to the layman I'm sure it does look that we are in another bubble similar to the late 90's. But I dissagree, for a few simple reasons.
A lot of people got "burnt" in the last internet bust, and I really don't see them making the same mistake twice, secondly while there is definately a lot of interest in "web 2.0" and a lot of people are investing large sums of money, they are usually investing that money in actual technology, not airy fairy idea's of what COULD happen (which is what happened in the late 90's, lots of good idea's but the technology wasn't there). I think those 2 reasons alone mean there won't be another collapse. The western economies as a whole are slowing down, yes, but thats not due to web 2.0!
Next widgets. Widgets/apps are the future of the internet. I think its only a matter of time before you won't be going to www.facebook.com but instead you will be firing up your social desktop app where you have all of the social networks you are on as little icons, which you just click on to see what's happening in each one, the point here is that widgets or apps are just a new layer of technology that is going to be used to make socialising online easier. OpenID is going to be used with these to splinter the larger communities into smaller niche based "groups". So looking at widgets or apps in purely a commercial fashion right now I think is a mistake, they are infact just the newest extension of web 2.0 technology.
Lastly Facebooks valuation was over the top ? Well if FB convert their members into shoppers (for products or services) then its not. The launch of the API could be seen as a clever way to get 3rd party developers to do that "conversion" process for them. And it appears to be working with the launch of a very successful platform.
Overall to suggest that social networks are going to go away I think is wrong, for lots of obvious reasons, but one word explains that more then any other, and thats community. Social networks are just communities of people with similar interests. These have always been around! However with the internet, it's easier for these communities to form (eventually touching on every subject you can think of). Social networks are the future of the internet, and widgets are the future of social networks.
As this pertains to your business and your strategy for new development, sometimes, social networks can become extremely tiring to the point of wearing you down from the constant back and forth. Invest your time, but the key word there is "invest". Only invest what you are sure to recoup. Otherwise, it just become a great loss for you and your new small business.
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