The business of social media is morphing, which is no surprise.  What is interesting to note is the growing importance of what I’d label “filtration and curation” (not just because of the Jesse Jackson ring it brings to the title!).

In the “early days” of social media, we focused on aggregation - picking up the crumbs of commentary wherever it can be found and blending it to amass some scale of commentary.  As the world gets more and more conversant, aggregation hatches a new problem, in its quest to solve an old one. Every day, the problem of scale is being solved naturally, via the sheer volume of user participation. Context and interaction form the mantra, replacing more.

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web 2.0, social, local social, local guides, strategy, OpenSocial | 1 Comment »

Adding on to my recent post about Twitter, check out the NY Times excellent article which puts Twitter into the context of the social media landscape, and relative to Facebook in particular.  When you get a chance, do take a full read - it’s one of the best pieces I’ve seen for a layman understanding the consumer shift towards a world of “ambient awareness”.

In my Twitter post, I intentionally left out two things which the NYT pulls together well: One, the context of Twitter versus Facebook (who really pioneered the concept, and continues to consider the status update central to their evolution).  Two, it explains the side of Twitter which is “sideline” to my current usage - the emerging world increasingly referred to as “lifestreaming”. Read Write Web did a great primer on Lifestreaming a few months back, also worthwhile reading if you’re interested.

local social, IM, OpenSocial | No Comments »

I’ve long believed that neighborhoods represent a key ingredient in how local search and media evolves. Back around 1995, Brad Inman held a brainstorming retreat for online real estate people at his redwood forest home. I still remember Brad’s passion about the importance of neighborhoods in the fabric of online real estate - and community in general; as a former real estate newspaper writer Brad used to love doing neighborhood profiles. While the concept has stuck with me, the content gap made it an impractical pipe dream.

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local social, local shopping, strategy, OpenSocial, facebook | 2 Comments »

Greg Sterling previewed our new 3-week old beta of GuideSpot.com in his blog yesterday, with an appreciated nod “Over time the site could evolve into something very interesting and valuable.” At Local Matters, we certainly would agree. Here’s a little more on the site, and how we see it positioned in the social-vertical-search triangle of local.

Clearly, the growth momentum is there for social participation - consumers are more comfortable with self-expression and interaction every day. Sites that align with this trend generally outperform those that center on search, and create more fundamental pull and engagement. When we looked at this space, we centered our energy on the concept of a consumer’s list at the core of a social engine.

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social, local shopping, local guides, publishing, OpenSocial | No Comments »

We’ve long differentiated between searching and browsing. I like the new term “Discovery” because browsing is about to be expanded in bold ways by the newly forming connective tissue known as the “social graph”.

Consumers have been using the internet more and more frequently for information exploration; Building on this behavior, Discovery will emerge to become an increasingly critical dimension of consumer shopping and purchase behavior. Far more personal than search, Discovery can smartly traverse paths forged or suggested (directly or indirectly) by people you know, trust or admire. (more…)

social, local social, strategy, OpenSocial | No Comments »

The concept behind Facebook’s recently announced “Beacon” is really quite brilliant. Extend the reach of newsfeeds - Facebook’s single most strategic feature - so that your friends can see what you reserve, what you buy, what you do, all over the web.

Direct from the Facebook description, here’s the pitch to website owners: “add 3 lines of code and reach millions of users”

Simply determine which user actions you would like publish to Facebook and add a few lines of code to your web page. Facebook Beacon actions include purchasing a product, signing up for a service, adding an item to a wish list, and more. When a user performs the action, they will be alerted that your website is sending a story to their profile and have a chance to opt out. No additional user action is needed for the story to be published on Facebook, and users remain in control of their information.

Strategically, this is a BIG IDEA. (more…)

social, OpenSocial, facebook | No Comments »

I wanted to find a pic of the Pied Piper to depict Google’s newly minted leadership role for “openness” - last week for social apps, this week for mobile apps. I ran across this image (via the piper’s image search, natch). It just seemed so darn, umm, relevant!

Is this mystical creature just too good to be true? Can’t you just taste the candyland of opportunity just over that rainbow? Can we trust the piper to do good and not evil?

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mobile search, strategy, OpenSocial | No Comments »

Google fired a shot across the bow of serious proportions, with the rushed announcement of its’ platform approach to social apps. It was an intriguing, smart move. Instead of the obvious move of just taking their mediocre Orkut network, and putting Google muscle behind it, it also chose to align with (and lead) other social networks in support of a an open social api. NY Times coverage here.

An open model was always the holy grail, and developers have been concerned over the diffusion of effort to maintain and distribute into multiple networks - on the surface this begins to solve this challenge. The appeal is obvious to “second tier” networks, which at announcement includes LinkedIn, Ning, Plaxo, Friendster, Oracle and Salesforce.

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social, strategy, OpenSocial | 2 Comments »