December 5, 2012

9 social media predictions & business recommendations for 2013

Scrollmotion’s enterprise sales tool for tablets.

Mobile, social, geolocation, big data, marketing — Socialmedia.biz’s strategists eye the future

The social media landscape has undergone enormous changes since the current Socialmedia.biz team of strategists partnered up in 2009. With the end of the year fast approaching, we thought this would be a good time to offer our forecasts into what the next year may hold in store for social media, mobile, social businesses and more. Here are nine fearless predictions — including a look at the current state, predicted future state and our recommendations.

When in doubt, think mobile — and especially tablets

Current state

1While mobile usage has been rising for years and a majority of Americans’ cell phones became smartphones during 2012, tablet usage is now eclipsing the smartphone numbers by threefold in the case of the Apple iPad to iPhone adoption (source: 2012 KPCB Internet Trends). Now, 55 percent of adults access the Internet from their mobile phone, double the rate of what they did only three years ago (source: Pew Internet & American Life Project). Along with bandwidth improvements, visitors increasingly access your organization’s page from a mobile device, with 13 percent of global traffic coming from mobile (source: 2012 KPCB Internet Trends).

Future state

The computing environment – along with our lifestyles – is moving away from the desktop and even the laptop, with users relying more heavily on their smartphones and tablet devices to do business, stay connected and share. Increasingly, even the road warrior is ditching a laptop for a tablet, Bluetooth keyboard and a set of apps to get through the work day or while attending a conference. User expectations are exceedingly high in terms of navigating a site for informational purposes, to complete a task, to make a purchase or a donation. They expect a browsing experience akin to the simple, intuitive navigation found in buying a book on Amazon or the crisp visual experience of inhaling your Facebook stream via the Flipboard app. Continue reading →

August 29, 2012

Remove those regrettable online reputation tattoos

The way you feel now about all those photos of you at the beach, in your suit, body-proud, tanned and drinking — liberation and joy — may end up making you feel completely different in your near future — trapped and ashamed. No matter how young you may be, reading these words, you need to start thinking long-game when it comes to your online reputation.

You’re at the mercy of the Panopticon: networked cameras are almost ubiquitous

Your online reputation on Google Search is a culmination of all your separate, discrete (or indiscreet) choices — sort of like tattoos — and it’s always easier to not get inked in the first place than it is live with the consequences or go through the pain and expense of having all of your tribal, prison, lower-back, ankle, neck, and face tattoos removed. Continue reading →

June 13, 2012

Facebook will remain king, but social pure plays will fade

Facebook collage by Jennifer Daniel

Look for the rise of sites with deep social features

This is second of a three-part series on Facebook as an investment. Also see:
• Facebook’s biggest barrier to enormous wealth? Trust
• Brands: How to cut your exposure to Facebook business risk

Facebook will remain the dominant popular social network in many markets for many years, and it won’t have to worry about being “displaced” by another social network the way that it displaced MySpace. In the near term, this lack of competition will give the company some breathing room, but a more daunting threat awaits: the waning of social network pure plays’ influence by 2017. Nonetheless, the fate of pure plays should be top of mind for serious Facebook investors: to produce the fabulous returns that current investors expect, Facebook will have to move far beyond adverts.

In part one of this series, I argued that Facebook had a significant trust gap with users that would inhibit its ability to monetize its most unique and valuable assets, and that the trust gap was recently compounded by its “IPO irregularities.” Below I’ll take a different tack and analyze the investment prospects of Facebook the platform.

Social networks’ disappointing investment results

Pure play social networks (Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn) have not lived up to investors’ ROI aspirations, despite the fact that people (‘users”) have loved the networks and lavished mind-boggling amounts of time on them. The Web 1.0 logic behind investor expectations held that the more time people spent on the sites, the more ads they would see and the more they would click. #fail

In retrospect, it is understandable that pure plays’ management and investors didn’t appreciate social networks’ social context. It turns out that very few people understand the intricacies of “sociality,” much less how to wire it into a value proposition or a business ROI. Continue reading →

May 7, 2012

Big Data in the visual age

How Mobli can take virtual experiences to a new level

As we all know, there’s a huge amount of data on the internet– the biggest challenge is sorting it all and finding what’s relevant for you. This is such a big challenge that there’s a whole branch of the tech industry, called Big Data, that is dedicated to finding, sorting, and doing something with all this information.

If you’re wondering how big “big data” is, Microsoft’s R&D center in Israel is focusing on finding new ways to use it.

I’ve written in the past about mobile service Mobli, but today I want to focus on a different aspect of the product and what it means for the future of social media. So what does discovery and big data have to do with Mobli? The coolest feature about Mobli is not how you take the photo or edit it but how you find and discover content on the app, and on the flip side how you get your content to the people who are most interested in it. Continue reading →

January 23, 2012

O’Reilly Strata: Why big data matters

A presentation at the 2011 Strata conference.

The leading big data conference, Strata 2012, the leading big data conference, is coming up fast! And you can save 20% with the Socialmedia.biz discount code below.

Strata debuted to a sold-out crowd last year and has become the top event in the field for the people and technology driving the data revolution.

What: Strata delivers the nuts and bolts of building a data-driven business — the latest on the skills, tools and technologies you need to make data work.

When: Feb. 28 to March 1, 2012

Where: Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, Calif.

Discount: Register now and save 20% with discount code SOCIALBIZ

From the conference organizers:

Get control of the new data opportunity at Strata — immerse yourself in three full days of hands-on training, information-rich sessions and an Expo Hall filled with the key players and products. Strata’s topics and programs include Data Science, Business & Industry, Visualization & Interface, Hadoop & Big Data, Policy & Privacy, and Domain Data. Plus, new for 2012 are two all-day Intensive Programs: Jumpstart – the missing MBA for Big Data; and Deep Data – a no-holds-barred program with advanced technical content.

The Strata experience is made up of intensely practical sessions for both business users and hardcore technologists; success stories (and cautionary tales) from startups making data their business and established companies that are saving millions and creating new revenue streams; great networking opportunities; and keynotes that snap the big picture into focus. We hope you will join us at Strata to explore emerging data tools and technologies that are shaping the future.