The Next Twitter or Facebook is the Open Web

Photo Credit: Open on Flickr by Mag3737 

The following is also my column in this week's issue of Advertising Age.

As Edelman's crystal ball guy I can't go to a meeting without being asked what will succeed Twitter or Facebook as the future king of community. It's unfortunate, but it's just how history has conditioned us to think.

Remember, however, that Second Life was digital marketing's Vietnam.

Communities come and go. Hubs seem to lose their innovation edge just as consumers grow more fickle, new venues emerge and viable monetization options remain scarce. If history repeats itself, Facebook and Twitter will one day be replaced by something else. However, this time it will be the open web.

A group of standardized technologies are emerging that will evolve social networking from destinations we visit into something bigger - a federated address book that makes every single web site that chooses to adopt them entirely social.

Jeremiah Owyang at Forrester Research has been thinking about this deeply. This week Forrester is releasing a paper that outlines a five year vision for how the open web, thanks to connective technologies like OpenID, will become one giant social network. This global brain will follow us everywhere and influence every purchasing decision.

While Forrester doesn't get this tangible, here's a fictional scenario to consider.

Today online shopping means visiting Amazon.com, reading reviews from strangers and conducing a transaction.

Tomorrow, as everything becomes social, you will be able to shop Amazon directly from within your iGoogle page without ever having to visit the site. What's more, Amazon will show you what your Gmail address book friends have publicly said about a product and/or its category in any one of thousands of online communities. Finally, to help you further Amazon will offer an aggregated view of your friends' friends opinions in a way that protects their identity.

So how should marketers prepare? Owyang advises to focus on advocates, evolve models from push to pull and adapt internal cultures. I think, however, it starts with something more fundamental.

Marketers need to really embrace the fact that it's peers and their data, rather than brand, that will become the primary way we make decisions. The greatest rewards will go to those who embrace and participate in as many communities as they possibly can in credible ways.

Comments

[Steve Rubel]

Hi Erik. The photos aren't mine. See the credit below it for more.

[Rick Burnes]

Dave, I agree that "social media has largely failed to create a meaningful platform for advertisers," but I think that's a good thing. Social media is different from media. It's not designed to "target" or "reach" audiences. It's designed to build relationships and let quality, useful content bubble to the top.

The most successful marketing in this new environment embraces this structure. It does not target or attempt to reach, but offers such valuable content that it attracts.

[Val King]

So while the web is dividing itself into hubs now, ultimately the ultimate hub will ultimately be the web with witch this all began, we will just have smarter links?

My take may be in the weeds, but the article is great none the less.

ValSalesLaundry.com

[atul chatterjee]

Advertisements will remain to build awareness of products. Shoe polish will be bought without consulting a community in FaceBook. Yes when a decision about a costly purchase has to be made groups will be available to help better informed decisions.

[mcluhead]

Do you have any examples of your work? Sounds like a sales pitch and i-legions.com doesn't show examples at all.

What makes you think MySpace, SecondLife, or Facebook are fads? I think someone once argued that telephones, cars, and email were fads too.

[Con Frantzeskos]

Steve, I completely agree. This was the sort of evolution we dreamed about when the web was first invented 20 years ago.

It's not unlike the second Industrial Revolution, when people thought that electricity would drive machinery - we know that in the medium term and beyond, it drove a hell of a lot more than simply industrial machines!

My question though - who is using the open web the best right now? Google are ahead in leaps and bounds, currently ticking the boxes by ensuring that their own services are linked together, but who is doing it beyond their own corporate walls? Who has successfully utilised APIs and open IDs for real life products and services, not just linking social media sites?

[Con Frantzeskos]

Steve, I completely agree. This was the sort of evolution we dreamed about when the web was first invented 20 years ago.

It's not unlike the second Industrial Revolution, when people thought that electricity would drive machinery - we know that in the medium term and beyond, it drove a hell of a lot more than simply industrial machines!

My question though - who is using the open web the best right now? Google are ahead in leaps and bounds, currently ticking the boxes by ensuring that their own services are linked together, but who is doing it beyond their own corporate walls? Who has successfully utilised APIs and open IDs for real life products and services, not just linking social media sites?

[Steve Rubel]

Con, I think it's early but I would keep an eye on Facebook, LinkedIn,Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. The question to ask (in my view) is who is bestpositioned to allow you to leverage your address book across the web?

[Con Frantzeskos]

Good point - right now, GMail and Apple leading that front - integration into Mac Address Book, MobileMe, etc.

One would have thought that it would be easy for Google, Yahoo!, Facebook or MySpace to develop a comprehensive "Life Book" that would allow a one stop shop for contacts, dates and times - independent of the platform/OS it was entered into? And most importantly, avoid "entry fatigue" - where people have to enter information that they've already entered elsewhere.

In my mind, that's the key mass market motivator for Open Web at this point - avoid typing your info into various websites many times over - integrate it easily. Another step may be an online version of Apple's Keychain - Open Login.

[www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?]

Display advertsing will not fail - every magazine and billboard is about to be digitized. It is the metric not the method that is failing here.

Ever seen a display panel advertsing something when you are in the toilet in the pub? DId it make you think...

Social ads "can" take display, just have to be clever about it.

[Dean Donaldson]

Microsoft Live already tracks across games, communities and web communication. Google Android alreads links mobile with the web via Open ID. I could point a phone at an outdoor display ad displaying containing a QR (Quick Response Code) and link outdoor to web. RFID promises to create the "internet of things" and develop Ubiqutous computing - home automation is already very much a reality in Korea.

And when we have linked everything to everyone and saved brands a few dollars, what will be left of the basic human right of privacy?

[Dean Donaldson]

Microsoft Live already tracks across games, communities and web communication. Google Android alreads links mobile with the web via Open ID. I could point a phone at an outdoor display ad displaying containing a QR (Quick Response Code) and link outdoor to web. RFID promises to create the "internet of things" and develop Ubiqutous computing - home automation is already very much a reality in Korea.

And when we have linked everything to everyone and saved brands a few dollars, what will be left of the basic human right of privacy?