The Future of Social Networking

Where do we go from here?

The purpose of SN Guide is to track and analyze the present state of social networking websites and to study their successes and failures in the context of current trends in popular culture and public demand. The resources found at SN Guide allow for a more complete understanding of what drives and motivates social networking success, which will in turn lead to more informed judgments about the future of the industry. In order to make these judgments, SN Guide must consider the future of social networking over the next several years.

Predicting the future of any industry is by nature an inexact science. Moreover, attempting to consider the five-year outlook of an industry that hardly existed five years ago is bound to be even more inexact. Social networking websites represent the most dynamic front of the Web 2.0 movement , wherein the mantras of collaboration and connectivity dominate the World Wide Web experience. Just as the Web in 2007 has echoed previous years' trends of increased interest and innovation in social networking, the future holds great and exciting new prospects for the industry. Foreseeable improvements to existing technology will allow for new areas of social networking to develop. Predictions about the future of social networking websites can be made based on considerations of existing technologies as well as human psychology, a far less dynamic field. Social networks will likely follow improvements in computer technologies, resulting in increased mobility of social networking as well as a potential shift from written to multimedia form. Extrapolation of 2007 trends also point toward the development of stronger niche marketing of social networking sites as well as large-scale consolidation of social networks. Meanwhile, concerns about privacy and security will likely plague the industry as developers strive to find a balance between features and user comfort levels.
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Advances in cellular phone technology will enable users to access social networking websites from anywhere.

The proliferation of multimedia-enhanced "next-generation" cellular phones is leading to the establishment of the mobile device as a platform for Internet-enabled applications. These highly interactive applications have previously been limited to use over the World Wide Web on personal computers. Social networking websites have already begun to make a shift to the mobile medium. For example, social networking giants Myspace and Facebook respectively offer services for users to access their profiles over their mobile phones. As advances in mobile technology offer users increased access to web-based applications through bigger displays, more powerful high-bandwith information retrieval, and smoother interfaces, the personal mobile device will see an expansion in the availability of compatible social networking applications. Already, mobile services like Loopt, a Palo Alto, California-based startup are exploring the mobile platform for social networking. Potential features of future mobile-based social networking include:

• Global Positioning System (GPS) location tracking - users will be able to highlight points of interest based on their own locations, offering anything from restaurant reviews to pictures, personal stories, and event planning.
  
• Extended access from anywhere - with mobile access, users will be able to check in on and interact in social networks from any location in real time. No more having to wait to get home to discuss your trip with friends over the Internet!
  
• Real-time alerts - users will be alerted immediately of interesting changes or developments within their social networks. This represents a paradigm shift from user-initiated contact to proactive technology, a hallmark of "ubiquitous computing," which will drastically change the face of human-computer interaction.

Google's popular video upload site YouTube is leading the charge for video-based social networking.

Hardware technology looks to be moving toward integration; notebook computers that include built-in microphones and cameras are swiftly becoming the production standard. The effects of this trend already have begun to crop up with the major success of the video networking website YouTube, in which users can interact with each other using uploaded response videos as opposed to written comments. It is likely that other social networking sites will follow to suit in the video trend; offering video communication improves the quality of creative expression on the network. Self-expression continues to be one of the main motivating forces behind social networking. The popular "wall" feature of 2007 social networking sites, in which users can interact with each other's profile spaces, will be updated by integration of multiple media formats, including images, audio, and video.
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Social networking is rapidly approaching a fork in the road; one direction leads to an interoperable consolidation of social networking websites, while another points toward small, tight-knitted niche communities that could become the basis of future social networking. The case for consolidation stems from users' psychological desire for simplicity. One website with all aspects of social networking put together would be the most simple and straightforward form of social networking. While such a site would make things easiest for the user, it is questionable whether consolidation can sustain itself from a business standpoint. For the most part, social networking websites are businesses that are primarily sustained on advertising revenue. It would be contrary to the nature of business competition for a universally consolidated social networking site to gain the total market share of social networking.

Closely related to the prospect of consolidation is the concept of interoperability. Web 2.0 is founded on the bases of collaboration and open-ended development.  Social networking sites appear to be eager to allow for third-party interaction with their applications. For example, Facebook offers an extensive API for developers which allows them to create applications for users to add to their profiles. Third-party "widgets" such as these inevitably are making their way into the realm of social networking as users seek open-ended customization to their social networking experiences.

Digital change blogger David Beisel addressed the idea of "vertical social networks" in February, 2006, suggesting that the newest generation of social networking sites involve people who are connecting about something, rather than simply connecting with people. A logical progression from vertical social networks is the proliferation of a massive number of social networks that establish small communities in the context of specific foci. The question that remains to be seen is whether these niche markets will have enough inertia (that is, a sufficiently large amount of interested users) to sustain themselves as lively social networks. While it may seem unlikely that small networks could offer the dynamism and excitement of a larger network, the user base of social networking is very large and will only grow. Smaller clusters of networking websites may survive as a direct result of more people accessing the Internet for the purpose of social connectivity.
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Concerns about security and privacy on the Internet will continue to influence social networking trends.

The September, 2006 release of Facebook's News Feed and Mini-Feed features and the ensuing backlash among Facebook users prove an excellent point about the future of social networking: users do not like it when websites sacrifice user privacy for "improved" features. Facebook users were outraged by the features, which allowed other people in the network access to continuously-updated feeds of information about them. Development in social networking technologies will likely be tempered with an undercurrent of caution. In a world where identity theft is facilitated by easy access to personal information and employers judge potential employees by analyzing their social network profiles, users will be uncomfortable with features that readily offer up too much of their personal information. This is precisely why Global Positioning System-based information may not catch on; many users simply will be reluctant to disclose their physical location to the public on the World Wide Web. Video networking could face similar roadblocks if users decide that they do not want to share their physical appearances on the Internet.
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The future of social networking is very much up in the air. Unforeseeable technological developments and the unpredictable nature of the course of trends in popular culture make predicting the next big thing in social networking very hard. Movements toward consolidation, niche markets, video networking, and increased mobility all seem viable, but only time will tell whether these or other features come to popular fruition.
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