What Social Media Tools Are on the Rise and Which Are Leveling or Diminishing?
Shel Israel used the nifty LinkedIn Q&A feature today to ask that question of others in the community. Some responses he’s gotten so far:
Ron Vos, CEO of Fan2Band:
There will soon be too many social networking site choices for marketers to try and deal with as a whole.. at some point, marketers will want to consolidate their efforts and information via wigets based systems .. CRM / FRM (Fan Relatiohship Management) to provide strategic organized efforts.
N. Cody McKibben, student:
I think Myspace has actually maxed out its growth potential for now (at least in the US; they’re concentrating internationally right now), unless they introduce something new and innovative. But since News Corp picked them up there has not been much interest in adding innovative new features, only in optimizing the advertizing. I think it’s been around long enough few people care anymore — still the same tweeny demographic.
It’s fitting that Shel posted the question on LinkedIn, since that service is clearly on the rise — a classic case of the network effect finally kicking in. LinkedIn was founded WAY back in 2003 — before YouTube, before Facebook, even before MySpace — but now is arguably hotter than any of those services.
Why? Because in an environment where most popular social networking sites are geared for personal use, LinkedIn is a business tool. As the others scramble to identify business applications, LinkedIn is already there.
Oh, and as if to prove my point: when I went to the Wikipedia entry on LinkedIn to find the year the company was founded, it wasn’t there. And because of Wikipedia’s “conflict of interest” policy, if someone from LinkedIn decided to add this info, Wikipedia would strike it out. Can any system be more business-unfriendly than that?
Of course, Wikipedia is still the place to go to find out every detail imaginable about your favorite video game or porn star.
