Here is my strategic outlook on the evolution of online technologies: past, present and future. Please see the table below. Commentary follows the table…
|
|
Content |
Communication |
Collaboration |
Community |
Commerce |
|
1980’s
The Net
|
Desktop Publishing
|
Phone, Fax, Email |
Database Applications |
BBS’s & On-line |
Phone, Fax, Early EDI |
|
1990’s
The Web
|
Web Publishing & Web Sites
|
PIM’s, E-mail & IM, |
Groupware, KM, and Intranets |
Web Portals |
Web Stores & Marketplaces |
|
2000’s
The Metaweb
|
Weblogs & RSS
(“Microcontent” and “Personal |
E-Mail, Webmail, IM, VOIP, Video |
Wikis, Decentralized |
Social Networks & “Friendsware” |
XML Web Services & Web Services Exchanges |
|
2010’s
The Semantic Web |
K-logs, Lifelogs & Personal
Microcontent becomes primary enterprise KM medium. All information |
Unified Communications
Persistent identity and |
Group Minds & Collective Intelligence
Anyone can know what everyone New levels of collective |
Emergent Communities
Communities spontaneously |
Intelligent Marketplaces
Intelligent commerce agents |
What we see is that “Social Networks” are the current-day entrant in the “Community” category. As the 1990’s taught us, the Community category did not prove to be a big money-maker — except for organizations that focused on becoming portals and eventually marketplaces, such as Yahoo!. Organizations that focused primarily on providing online communities became “features” rather than “stand-alone businesses” over time, and were either acquired or went out of business.
Communities can generate revenues from advertising and in some cases, paid subscriptions, however incremental revenue growth was primarily attained through commerce and classified advertising. If Social Networking services are to “make it” as businesses they will have to trend in this direction — those that do not will go the way of the 1990’s-era community sites.
Similarly, companies that sell “Social Networking Software Platforms” are simply the current-day equivalent of companies that sold “Community Platforms” in the 1990’s. Those companies morphed into Web conferencing and collaboration companies, or were acquired, or went out of business. The key lesson here is that mere “Community Platform” companies did not become big businesses in their own right — those that survived had to either verticalize or focus on enterprise collaboration. The same will be true of companies that provide platforms for social networking in the enterprise.
More commentary to come soon…
Social tagging: Collaboration Tools > Knowledge Management > Microcontent > RSS and Atom > Semantic Web > Social Networks > The Future > The Metaweb > Weblogs
It would be interesting to see what the next row of characteristic will end up being. My guess is something like:
Content: All the above, plus real-time video/audio/photo blogging content via ubiquitous internet access.
Communication: All of the above, plus real-time video/audio/photo content.
Colloboration: ??
Community: location-based services enable ad-hoc, transient communities of shared interest/barter to emerge in real-time based on locational proximity.
Colloboration:
2010
Minding the Planet Nova wonders where we might be by 2010. Considerably more imaginative than Nokia! Lifelogs & Personal Portals All information about a person and their experiences is automatically logged for their personal use. Semantic routing of co…
2010
Minding the Planet Nova wonders where we might be by 2010. Considerably more imaginative than Nokia! Lifelogs & Personal Portals All information about a person and their experiences is automatically logged for their personal use. Semantic routing of co…
Your forward-thinking perspective on “community” technologies is rich and compelling. I look forward to what your mind focuses on next…
Nova, great addition. You articulated the coming wave much better than I could have. 🙂
Thanks for the commments Paul!
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