Social Media

Will Social Media Change In 2010?

23 Comments

I came across an article that was actually a guest post on a blog called . The article was titled 10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010. I thought that since the post already have 50 comments and the writer hasn’t responded to any of them that I would comment on what she wrote here and let them have the trackback, if they’re predisposed to accept them. By the way, going unprofessional for a quick moment, I think she’s hot. 😉 Anyway, you can read the same article on her site, and it’s pretty good; pick your poison.

Anyway, here are her top 10 predictions:

Social Media Will Become a Single, Cohesive Experience Embedded In Our Activities and Technologies – This is a very good prediction, and I think it’s right on. I think we saw a lot of this already in 2009, and I think it’s even going to be bigger. Facebook is actually trying to go that way by finding a lot of different platforms and integrate with, so obviously they see that as the future themselves.

Social Media Innovation Will No Longer Be Limited By Technology – I’m not so sure that this one will be able to take place in 2010, but I think it could be very close to happening. Everyone doesn’t have to wait for new technology to do things these days, and I think that’s been evidenced by how many sites seem to crop up trying to copy something that’s already out there.

Mobile Will Take Center Stage – I think this is a bold prediction, but one that will probably take at least another 3 years or so to really get there. Right now, we still have issues with access, dropped calls, and overall costs. Are you one of those folks already paying $150 a month for your iPhone?

Expect an Intense Battle As People and Companies Look To Own Their Own Content – I think this battle has been going on for years, but it all ready started to change up in 2009 with news organizations such as Rupert Murdoch’s companies (which I’ll call “faux news”) griping at Google for linking to their content. I think that’s a stupid move because Murdoch seems to believe that people will just go to his site without first finding the link on Google; ain’t gonna happen. Of course, another minor controversy on this front concerns who actually owns comments on blogs. Stay tuned.

Enterprises Will Shape the Next Generation of What We’ve Called “Social Media” – I had to think about this a little bit before figuring out what side of the fence I was on. The truth is that many large companies are now hiring people with the title of “director of search” or “vice president of search”, which would’ve been unheard of even going back to 2008. Also, more large companies are hiring internal people to not only write their blogs, but to write posts for them on Twitter and also to check streams for any time their company names are mentioned. So, I think she’s on point with this one.

ROI Will Be Measured — and It Will Matter – I don’t know that this is anything new across the board, as companies, especially in 2009, have been taking crucial looks at the bottom line. ROI has always been a buzzword in business, so I’m not sure exactly what supposed to change.

Finally: Real, Cool and Very Bizarre Online-Offline Integration – She paints a very interesting picture with this one, but somewhere in my mind I’m still not sure we have the technology to do this efficiently yet, or cost effectively yet. That plus I tend to think that we just don’t have enough people even now who are computer savvy enough to even manage the Internet, let alone some of these other things.

Many “Old” Skills Will Be Needed Again – Man, am I hoping she’s right on this one. How many people are there who can still add up a string of numbers in their head without needing a calculator to do it? For that matter, what if we let people write it down on paper and figured out? And isn’t it a shame that when you go to a fast food restaurant everything is now in pictures rather than numbers on a cash register?

Women Will Rule Social Media – The funny thing about this one is that when blogging first started, it was mainly women who were doing it. Men passed women when they figured out they could make money from blogging. Now social media takes into account so many things that it’s hard to determine who is really running what. So, it’s possible women are already ruling social media; I’m not sure where to find any real answers on this one, but I don’t have any real opinion either way.

Social Media Will Move Into New Domains – This is another bold prediction that possibly may have already occurred, at least in some fashion. I have to admit that I’m amazed at some of the people and some of the businesses that have finally figured out what social media is and what it can do for them, but there’s so many more people and companies to go. Personally, I think my main business would profit greatly if more of them were into social media, especially since I rank so well for those main search terms. Once again, I really hope she’s right on this one.

There is my commentary; what are your thoughts?

The iPhone Book: How to Do the Things You Want to Do with Your iPhone

Price – $12.98

23 thoughts on “Will Social Media Change In 2010?”

  1. I agree that most social media will become mobile, it seems theres a new blackberry or iphone variation out every day!

    Its interesting that you think that women will start to rule social media, any reason why you think that?

    1. That’s not my prediction, James, that’s what the other lady said. I pretty much took a pass on this one because I don’t know what the actual numbers are right now.

  2. Very interesting predictions. I tend to agree with some of your responses to them, though I don’t think I’m enough involved in the social media sphere to have an informed opinion on some of these things. I think that to an extent, these changes will only be visible to those who are dedicated participants in social media. It will take more time for all the changes to really trickle down to the “mainstream” – people who just know what they use and not much more. For example, a lot of people I know use Facebook, some of them have a blog and some of them use Twitter. But that’s the extent of their exposure to social media and so they will only be exposed to (or aware of) a portion of the changes really occurring. But, I suppose you could say this about any industry, though most industries don’t touch our daily lives to the extent that web and social media do.
    .-= Dave´s last blog ..Storage in Allentown =-.

    1. Good points, Dave. Twitter is something that, to be truthful, I thought I was late in getting involved in, and yet I find myself answering so many questions about it that I realize I was fairly early in the game. When I got into it the most followers anyone had was around 12,000, and those numbers have exploded ever since.

      Sometimes we just hear news and that’s where we get our information from. I’m kind of an information junkie, so I figure I’ll hear about it somewhere.

  3. The key prediction for me would be “Social Media Will Become a Single, Cohesive Experience Embedded In Our Activities and Technologies”

    I long for this day where all our social activities are integrated across platforms and media sources into one easily accessible form.

    1. I think that’s coming, Glen, but right now, there are going to be some holdouts, kind of like me, who still like things separate because we don’t want to be brought into the total sharing mode. I think that’s actually a generational divide; I’m just not trusting enough of one entity to want one entity controlling my access to everything.

    1. Chandan, in a way men already rule because they’re the leaders of all these companies that are creating social media and the like. The numbers could easily swing back towards women, but at some point women are going to have to break through and grab some of those leads from men and make a name for themselves, and if that’s what her thoughts were, then she’s absolutely correct. It’s probably the one industry that really doesn’t have a discrimination line between sexes if women decide they want to get after it.

  5. Wow, that’s a whole lot of predictions. But will there be more social networking websites emerge this year? it’s getting in demand as I see…

    What do you think Mitch?
    .-= Jp Manching @ Beginners Blogging Guide´s last blog ..Advertisement Positioning Suggestions =-.

  6. Once they can find a tool that can really measure ROI on social media, a lot of business will jump on board, and social media marketing consultants will be in great demand. Great predictions!
    .-= Kikolani´s last blog ..2010 Social Media Wishlist – New Features for Facebook, StumbleUpon, & Twitter =-.

    1. It would be interesting to see what they come up with, Kristi. I figure it would have to be a combination of real visits and how much revenue each area generated in some fashion.

  7. Hi Mitch,

    Predictions can be so wrong and on occasion right.

    I wouldn’t want to be predicting that many things, especially going into such details.

    I think that social media is overrated and wouldn’t be surprised if it goes into decline if not this year then in the next few years.

    Not a prediction, just a feeling.

    I like your view on the point of the need for some old skills.

    Being able to do simple math in one’s head is becoming very rare.

    The skill of face to face interaction is one that will need to be dug out soon too.

    Vance
    .-= Vance Sova´s last blog ..Get Blog Traffic Increase With Blog Comments =-.

    1. Hi Vance,

      You’re right in saying that predictions can go in either direction, but I think it takes a lot of guts to make predictions and put them out there where everyone can see them and comment on them. Pretty much the same feeling I get for people who put their goals out there for everyone to see and critique.

      I would be drastically surprised if social media went backwards, because I’m of the opinion that the genie is out of the bottle. What I do think is that it’s going to be refined in a few different ways and that people are going to choose the one they like best and eschew anything else that doesn’t fit exactly what they want. Truthfully, when you think about it blogging is part of social media, and I don’t think blogging is ever going to go away because there’s too many of us who like to give our opinions and our thoughts to others. Blogging could modify itself to a point where it becomes totally video or audio, and I will be someone who will lament that day if it comes in my lifetime because I value the written word way more than the other two.

  8. I don’t know about social media but men appear to rule the blogging world.
    .-= Rose´s last blog ..Blog Post Ideas =-.

  9. I doubt very much that women will rule social media, especially not sites like Twitter. I reckon it must be driving them absolutely nuts trying to get a Tweet down to 140 characters 😀

    As to women and blogging, I wonder why the males rule this at all. I would have thought this was one venue where there was no glass ceilings.

    Man, there’s an interesting post for ya Mitch. Drop the bomb and then watch the sparks fly 😉
    .-= Sire´s last blog ..Why The The Struggle For PR Is A Waste Of Time =-.

    1. Heck Sire, you just went after women and their speech patterns; they’ll be flocking to your blog in droves by now.

      As for blogging, as I wrote above, I’m of the opinion that men took over from women once they realized they could make money from it. Not that women can’t make money, but it easily wasn’t their initial focus when it came to blogging like it was for men.

  10. I can only hope that social media will become “a Single, Cohesive Experience.” With WordPress, you can publish to twitter, and then onto Facebook. The more the merrier I hope!

    1. Lots of folks are looking for that, A; I’m not, because I always want to have choices for diversification if I want them.

Comments are closed.