All about social networks. Development Prospects [2/4]
The second part of a large study on social networks, which is devoted to development prospects in the next 3-5 years. At the request of the administration publish a topic, and not a link as the first. The research itself turned out to be quite voluminous, so I’ll do a brief extract on it here, the full text is available on our website:
The first part of the report (rus): “Everything about social networks. Impact on a person [1/4] " ;
First part of the report (eng): “Everything About Social Networks. Impact on a Person [1/4] ” ;
The second part of the report: “Everything about social networks. Prospects of development [2/4] " ;
The third part of the report: “Everything about social networks. Technologies [3/4] ” ;
The fourth part of the report: “Everything about social networks. Monetization [4/4] " .
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This is one of the most notable trends in recent years. All popular sites and software are beginning to socialize actively. This process occurs in 2 directions:
There are quite a few examples of integration, the simplest is the creation of corporate groups in social networks, social blocks from Facebook, VKontakte and other networks, authorization through social networks (for example, a price processor for iShopERP online stores - there are links to official groups in the bottom of the site). social networks), a bit more difficult is integration at the application level (for example, the well-known Skype is recently actively integrating with Facebook, and this integration is two-way).
Creating social functionality is already a more complex mechanism of socialization, it is mainly used by large projects, often thematic portals, which have already exhausted most of the channels for attracting and retaining users, for example, a special section “communication” on the city ​​portal of Yekaterinburg .
In the coming years, the trend of socialization will only increase, popular social networks will offer new tools for socializing third-party sites, thereby automatically gaining more power over them, and large projects will create their own social functionality. All those who do not keep up with the trend will lose their positions at best, and at worst they will simply disappear.
Another very noticeable trend is the development of thematic social networks. Today, the Internet is full of “for everyone and everything” networks, the market is already full, and there is not much room left for new players. However, there are still few highly specialized networks dedicated to various special topics, and this market is just beginning to fill up.
Today you can find social networks for IT employees , tourists , music lovers , photographers , athletes , book lovers , politicians , scientists , etc. Virtually every topic can make a popular social network. In fact, these are good old “portals” with thematic content, but with social functions for communication and content creation. A list of the most popular social networks can be viewed on Wikipedia.
In the next few years, we expect a rapid growth of thematic networks of the most diverse orientation, both worldwide and in individual countries. Now is the time to start creating similar projects in free niches.
A rather obvious trend is that social networks have almost completed the quantitative set of users and have entered a stage of serious competition among themselves. This is evidenced by the rapid qualitative development that we are now seeing - the development and improvement of its own functionality, the introduction of new and new technological solutions.
Communication tools, tools for creating and selecting high-quality content, including professional content, tools for e-commerce within social networks, tools that allow you to fully work without leaving the network are developing now and will continue to develop. The same applies to the personalization functional, which allows the user to demonstrate high-quality content to the user, which is of particular interest to him. The development and improvement of advertising tools, geolocation services and, of course, personal data protection technologies will continue.
Today, many companies use social networks for work, both within the company (corporate communication, creating closed communities, communicating in thematic networks for advanced training) and outside it (advertising and sales, creating an image and loyal users). It is clear that this will in the very near future lead to the development of specialized tools for business.
Within companies, networks serve as work platforms, often referred to as “corporate portals,” which, in essence, are closed-type social networks. Similar information systems are in Microsoft Corporation, Google, IBM, Apple, Cisco Systems and many others. Employees have profiles, communication tools, their own blogs, knowledge bases, corporate magazines, etc. In the coming years, such products will become readily available to all companies, regardless of their size.
Outside of companies, mostly popular social networks are used, in which companies search for clients, employees, create an image, etc. You can use the network for anything, because networks are large crowds of people, and people are the basis of business.
In recent years, tools have begun to develop the integration of social networks among themselves, cross-platform technologies have emerged, such as FOAF - http://www.foaf-project.org/ , XFN - http://gmpg.org/xfn/ , OpenSocial - http: //www.opensocial.org/ , Google Social Graph - http://code.google.com/apis/socialgraph/ , etc. In the coming years, this trend will increase, especially between non-competing projects.
Every year mobile technologies penetrate deeper into our society, which, of course, leads to their active use in social networks. The networks have long begun to appear mobile versions (for example, the mobile version of the Odnoklassniki social network - http://m.odnoklassniki.ru ), some make special functionality and even services based on mobile technologies (for example, Foursquare geolocation services).
In the foreseeable future, a significant part of social network users will switch to the use of primarily mobile devices, to which most large-scale projects are ready.
In the foreseeable future, the social network will become a kind of standard of living. Already, with the help of social networks, people solve many pressing problems - such as choosing products and services on the recommendations of "friends", sharing photos and videos, exchanging momentary thoughts and impressions, reading news, participating in contests and events, obtaining the necessary thematic information first-hand (exchange of recipes, interesting links), etc.
No one has learned to predict the future at 100%, one can only predict, and any forecast cannot cover all possible paths of development of the object of forecasting, it covers only the most probable ones. Therefore, tomorrow a new type of social network may appear, which few people have thought about today. In this section, I will rather fantasize, relying on indirect facts and my own logical conclusions, I invite all readers to share thoughts about this in the comments.
In the past decade, a lot of talk was about operating systems in the browser and their bright future. I think there is a chance that modern social networks may, to varying degrees, follow this path of development. Networks already cover many areas of life, and their penetration into our world is going very fast, with new technological opportunities every year. Many users no longer know all the possibilities of large social networks, such as Facebook, although they spend dozens of hours there every month, but on the other hand, networks are only at the very beginning of technological development. Therefore, I conclude that there may soon appear some Web-based social networks that can not only run applications and allow them to be managed, as modern operating systems do, but also largely control human life. It will be the center of all its communications, the shopping center, the training center, the center of many entertainment, the center for work, etc. Great management system of human life. And I don’t just know one such development, I participate in its creation.
Slightly less global way of development, but also very interesting - the introduction of augmented reality technologies in social networks. This technology can be attributed to geolocation services that are already in use. The meaning of technology: additional virtual information is superimposed on the real image. Today there are separate geolocation services that work with existing maps and new developments on augmented reality. Tomorrow we can expect the combination of these ideas and the emergence of new social networks.
In unobvious ways, you can say, while there is enough imagination, first of all I propose to discuss this question in the comments !?
Contrary to popular belief, I believe that social networks have a very bright and long future. In the coming years, the networks will become full-fledged platforms for various spheres of life.
Author:
Nikita Semenov ( Facebook , VK , LinkedIn )
CEO
SECL GROUP / Internet Sales Technologies
The first part of the report (rus): “Everything about social networks. Impact on a person [1/4] " ;
First part of the report (eng): “Everything About Social Networks. Impact on a Person [1/4] ” ;
The second part of the report: “Everything about social networks. Prospects of development [2/4] " ;
The third part of the report: “Everything about social networks. Technologies [3/4] ” ;
The fourth part of the report: “Everything about social networks. Monetization [4/4] " .
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2.1. Socialization of third-party sites and programs.
This is one of the most notable trends in recent years. All popular sites and software are beginning to socialize actively. This process occurs in 2 directions:
- a. Integration with social networks
- b. Creating social functionality
There are quite a few examples of integration, the simplest is the creation of corporate groups in social networks, social blocks from Facebook, VKontakte and other networks, authorization through social networks (for example, a price processor for iShopERP online stores - there are links to official groups in the bottom of the site). social networks), a bit more difficult is integration at the application level (for example, the well-known Skype is recently actively integrating with Facebook, and this integration is two-way).
Creating social functionality is already a more complex mechanism of socialization, it is mainly used by large projects, often thematic portals, which have already exhausted most of the channels for attracting and retaining users, for example, a special section “communication” on the city ​​portal of Yekaterinburg .
In the coming years, the trend of socialization will only increase, popular social networks will offer new tools for socializing third-party sites, thereby automatically gaining more power over them, and large projects will create their own social functionality. All those who do not keep up with the trend will lose their positions at best, and at worst they will simply disappear.
2.2. Development of thematic networks.
Another very noticeable trend is the development of thematic social networks. Today, the Internet is full of “for everyone and everything” networks, the market is already full, and there is not much room left for new players. However, there are still few highly specialized networks dedicated to various special topics, and this market is just beginning to fill up.
Today you can find social networks for IT employees , tourists , music lovers , photographers , athletes , book lovers , politicians , scientists , etc. Virtually every topic can make a popular social network. In fact, these are good old “portals” with thematic content, but with social functions for communication and content creation. A list of the most popular social networks can be viewed on Wikipedia.
In the next few years, we expect a rapid growth of thematic networks of the most diverse orientation, both worldwide and in individual countries. Now is the time to start creating similar projects in free niches.
2.3. Technological development.
A rather obvious trend is that social networks have almost completed the quantitative set of users and have entered a stage of serious competition among themselves. This is evidenced by the rapid qualitative development that we are now seeing - the development and improvement of its own functionality, the introduction of new and new technological solutions.
Communication tools, tools for creating and selecting high-quality content, including professional content, tools for e-commerce within social networks, tools that allow you to fully work without leaving the network are developing now and will continue to develop. The same applies to the personalization functional, which allows the user to demonstrate high-quality content to the user, which is of particular interest to him. The development and improvement of advertising tools, geolocation services and, of course, personal data protection technologies will continue.
2.4. Social networks in business.
Today, many companies use social networks for work, both within the company (corporate communication, creating closed communities, communicating in thematic networks for advanced training) and outside it (advertising and sales, creating an image and loyal users). It is clear that this will in the very near future lead to the development of specialized tools for business.
Within companies, networks serve as work platforms, often referred to as “corporate portals,” which, in essence, are closed-type social networks. Similar information systems are in Microsoft Corporation, Google, IBM, Apple, Cisco Systems and many others. Employees have profiles, communication tools, their own blogs, knowledge bases, corporate magazines, etc. In the coming years, such products will become readily available to all companies, regardless of their size.
Outside of companies, mostly popular social networks are used, in which companies search for clients, employees, create an image, etc. You can use the network for anything, because networks are large crowds of people, and people are the basis of business.
2.5. Integration.
In recent years, tools have begun to develop the integration of social networks among themselves, cross-platform technologies have emerged, such as FOAF - http://www.foaf-project.org/ , XFN - http://gmpg.org/xfn/ , OpenSocial - http: //www.opensocial.org/ , Google Social Graph - http://code.google.com/apis/socialgraph/ , etc. In the coming years, this trend will increase, especially between non-competing projects.
2.6. Mobile technology.
Every year mobile technologies penetrate deeper into our society, which, of course, leads to their active use in social networks. The networks have long begun to appear mobile versions (for example, the mobile version of the Odnoklassniki social network - http://m.odnoklassniki.ru ), some make special functionality and even services based on mobile technologies (for example, Foursquare geolocation services).
In the foreseeable future, a significant part of social network users will switch to the use of primarily mobile devices, to which most large-scale projects are ready.
2.7. Introduction to everyday life.
In the foreseeable future, the social network will become a kind of standard of living. Already, with the help of social networks, people solve many pressing problems - such as choosing products and services on the recommendations of "friends", sharing photos and videos, exchanging momentary thoughts and impressions, reading news, participating in contests and events, obtaining the necessary thematic information first-hand (exchange of recipes, interesting links), etc.
2.8. Unobvious paths of development.
No one has learned to predict the future at 100%, one can only predict, and any forecast cannot cover all possible paths of development of the object of forecasting, it covers only the most probable ones. Therefore, tomorrow a new type of social network may appear, which few people have thought about today. In this section, I will rather fantasize, relying on indirect facts and my own logical conclusions, I invite all readers to share thoughts about this in the comments.
Operating system life
In the past decade, a lot of talk was about operating systems in the browser and their bright future. I think there is a chance that modern social networks may, to varying degrees, follow this path of development. Networks already cover many areas of life, and their penetration into our world is going very fast, with new technological opportunities every year. Many users no longer know all the possibilities of large social networks, such as Facebook, although they spend dozens of hours there every month, but on the other hand, networks are only at the very beginning of technological development. Therefore, I conclude that there may soon appear some Web-based social networks that can not only run applications and allow them to be managed, as modern operating systems do, but also largely control human life. It will be the center of all its communications, the shopping center, the training center, the center of many entertainment, the center for work, etc. Great management system of human life. And I don’t just know one such development, I participate in its creation.
Augmented Reality
Slightly less global way of development, but also very interesting - the introduction of augmented reality technologies in social networks. This technology can be attributed to geolocation services that are already in use. The meaning of technology: additional virtual information is superimposed on the real image. Today there are separate geolocation services that work with existing maps and new developments on augmented reality. Tomorrow we can expect the combination of these ideas and the emergence of new social networks.
In unobvious ways, you can say, while there is enough imagination, first of all I propose to discuss this question in the comments !?
Contrary to popular belief, I believe that social networks have a very bright and long future. In the coming years, the networks will become full-fledged platforms for various spheres of life.
Author:
Nikita Semenov ( Facebook , VK , LinkedIn )
CEO
SECL GROUP / Internet Sales Technologies
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/125942/
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