The Future Of Social Networks:Where We Are Today

Charlene LiAltimeter Group

January 22, 2008

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Social networks will be like air

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This more than just about “social networking sites”

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Your friends will be where ever you need them

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Friends’ Reviews

Social media content appears in other channels

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Current TV added Twitter posts into its coverage of the presidential debates as well as the Inauguration

Universal identity and sign-in

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Eliminates “re-friending”

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TheInsider.com allows users to bring in their Facebook friends

Avoids building yet another siloed social network

Profiles where they are useful

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LinkedIn plug-in for IBM Lotus Notes integrates profiles directly into email

Your friends’ activities in context around “objects” with GetGlue

The same toolbar appears on IMDb

The toolbar shows Chris’s comments from Wikipedia

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Two sets of rules/standards exist

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Facebook Connect includes protocols for sharing identity, contacts, and content

Consortium of players including Google, MySpace, Plaxo, and Yahoo! are following standards, for example:

• MySpace ID• Google Friend Connect• LinkedIn Applications

But how do you make money?

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How marketing and advertising has evolved

• Content targeting to reach demographics– Sports = young men in their 20’s

• Search marketing to uncover intent• Behavioral targeting to build a rich profile

across sites– You’re a car buyer if you visit multiple car sites– So you’ll see more car ads while reading news– E.g. Tacoda

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The current state of social networking advertising

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Traditional ads, standard IAB units

Ads tucked in to push “fanning”

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How advertising will innovate

• New ad formats within social networking sites• Rich social profiles identifying “Influencers”• Tapping communication patterns to find

“network neighbors”

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New ad formats within social networking sites

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Facebook virtual gift, social, and engagement ads

BuddyMedia social app-vertisement SocialVibe profile sponsorships

The Perfect (Data) Storm feeds rich profiles

• Social graphs and interests– Explicit friends

• Culture of sharing– Content creation, tagging, and lifestreaming

• Behavior– Location, browsing and search history, purchases,

interests

• Basic communications– Email, IM, SMS, Twitter

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Extract social graph data

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- Figure who in a network responds to an offer- Create rich profiles, including demos, interests, behavior- Find others like them in the network- Can also target outside social networks themselves- Also identify “Influencers” who connected AND share- Vendors include:

- 33Across- Lotame- Media6 Degrees- Unbound Technologies

Communications can also fill in the social graph profile

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Google already tracks who you email the most

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Media6 identifies who is closest to you – your “network neighbor”

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“Lisa” buys on NineWest.comMedia6 maps “network neighbors” based on visits to profile sites via browser cookies (no PII involved)

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NineWest ads are shown to Lisa’s closest friends, without identifying or involving Lisa

Privacy and permission considerations

• People will demand greater control over when, where, and how their social profiles, contacts, and content can be used

• Detailed permissions – sometimes on a friend-by-friend basis – will be required– A usability nightmare– Need to “retrofit” old friends numbering in the

thousands

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How things will develop in 2009-10

• Experiments in social media advertising, waiting for turnaround

• Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft/Hotmail will test social media integration with Webmail products

• Facebook Connect gains traction w/media cos and begins to monetize with an ad network

• Social shopping experiments start (retailers integrating social network data)

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How to prepare

• Identify where social network data and content can/should be integrated on your site

• Leverage existing identity and social graphs where your audience already is, e.g. Facebook Connect

• Get your privacy and permission policies and processes aligned with an open strategy

• Find your trust agents– “In Google I trust”, or will it be Facebook?

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Summary

• Social networks will be like air• Open networks will be the new norm, so

consider how you will open your business

Charlene LiAltimeter Group

charlene@altimetergroup.comblog.altimetergroup.com

Slides available at slideshare.net/charleneli

Copyright © 2008 Altimeter Group