Tapping the Power of Social Networking ( at internet marketing ) part 2
Li is currently investigating why people move up and down this ladder of social technologies,
and what are the levers companies can use to encourage consumers to act. It is
critical for organizations to hone their understanding of groundswell
activities, said Li, because “in five to 10 years, social networks will be
everywhere.”
The New BlackGoogle’s Joe
Kraus agrees. Speaking at the Supernova conference, the director of product
management for the search giant acknowledged that social networking is the
latest fashion—“the new black,” as he called it. “But people have been
endlessly fascinated by one another for a very long time. Social networking is
not new; we just have new ways to do it.”
That is not to diminish the power of social computing. In fact, Kraus already sees it as the
force behind three major trends in the way people use the Internet.
First, “the process of information discovery is changing from a solitary activity to a
communal activity,” said Kraus, citing as an example his own recent behavior in
choosing an anniversary gift for his wife. He searched and found that candy is
traditional for a sixth anniversary, then set up a message on his G-mail
account, saying he needed ideas for a candy-based gift.
A friend emailed to tell him of an extraordinary baker who constructs specialty cakes and,
thanks to her suggestion, his sixth anniversary gift became an elaborate cake
in the shape of a colorful purse. So, said Kraus, he went from solitary
information discovery to social information discovery—and a much better result
than he could have achieved on his own.
Second, he said, how we exchange information is changing, from sharing information actively
(emailing photos to friends) to sharing it passively (uploading those photos to
Facebook and emailing notification to friends). “What’s happening is that we’re
separating access from notification,” said Kraus. This leads to more sharing
because people don’t worry as much about interrupting others with emails,
calling attention to themselves and appearing too self-important.
Third, and most important, Kraus sees the web eventually becoming entirelysocial. “Today,
social computing is something you do at a specific site,” said Kraus. “But
we’re realizing that being social is not a site. It’s a concept.”
We won’t get to that entirely social web, he added, until we find ways to allow users to do
three things: establish a single identity to log on to many sites; share
private resources such as photos or contact lists without handing out private
credentials (such as an email account password); and distribute information
across multiple social applications.
Google Friend Connect, a service that enables websites to easily provide social features for
its visitors, incorporates three standards that respectively address each of
those problems—Open ID, OAuth and OpenSocial, says Kraus. A preview version of
the service was released in May. He sees Google Friend Connect as a path to the
open web he predicts will arrive sooner than we imagine. “Already you can
browse a site like the New York Times or Amazon, then write comments and
reviews. Why shouldn’t I be able to go to the Ticketmaster site and see where
my friend is sitting at a concert I want to attend, providing he wants to
expose the information?”
What all
organizations need to prepare for, said Kraus, is a completely social web,
where “your users will simply expect to be part of the conversation.”
