"We gotta have our own Social Network"..

... don't we?

The Economist has recently produced a great article on the current state (and potential future) of social networks:
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10880936

It initially comments on the revenue and partnerships these new environments (e.g. Facebook) have:

So it is entirely conceivable that social networking, like web-mail, will never
make oodles of money

However it brings us back to reality (removes some of the hype) and argues that with email still the ubiquitous communication medium and with open standards for portability of your social graph:

Social networking may end up being everywhere, and yet nowhere

I personally think that in the future there will be a tangible social space but that these areas will be focused far less around building freinds/contacts in each environment and more around the features & functionality that each environement provides (made possible by Open Social?).

The big issue (and one I have not full got my head around yet) is potentially having to decide which of my friends/business contacts/associates fits into each particular environment (and having to tell some that "well I like you, I just don't want to know you in that online space").

What is potentially going to be even harder... is finding the path amongst the blurred lines between individual and the company communication. An organisation, potentially made up of many individuals, will have its own social graph. However, if it decides to have two different conversations in two different functional area/places..... how will it maintain the consistency of approach and still retain the human and transaparent qualities required in modern extended corporate communications?

Your own Social Media site.. too late or Open (Social) season?

I have previously asked the question whether the door has shut on the opportunity for companies to build their own Social Media site.

A month or so on and the decison to do so is now looking less and less valid. There are growing examples of very good sites set up that just haven't attracted users to build up the required critical mass.

E.g. Conde Nast's flip.com project:
http://www.sexywidget.com/my_weblog/2008/03/its-hard-to-bui.html

However, all is not lost... potentially due to Open Social...
This common way of interfacing with multiple websites now makes it possible to have all your Social Media data separate from the site you are using. In effect this could make the barriers of site sign-up and subsequent usage a thing of the past.

It may therefore mean that having some form of Social Media on every company website is soon so easy to implement and manage that it will become the next 'must have' bit of functionality.