For my final project for the class “Social Networks and Virtual Worlds” I gave myself the task to analyze what the future has in store for Social Networks. I wanted to know what would be the themes students would discuss in this class a few years from now. Although I couldn’t quite predict which Social Networks would still be around and which would be the new ones that would have “crossed the chasm”, I found very interesting insights conceptually about the direction in which these systems will develop.
During the semester-long course we read Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, both Forrester analysts. This post by Charlene Li helped me understand the 4 conceptual components that Social Networks will pursue in order to become “like air” for us. The last of these points, “Market Value defined by Social Influence” is key when trying to make sense of the monetization strategies that Social Networks have in place today and will seek to implement in the short-term. As this Business Week article points out, Google has an ambition plan for this already, developing a sort of “PageRank” for people, based on the influence they have in their social media surroundings.
Below are the slides I’ll use for the presentation tonight. I must say that I really enjoyed this “virtual” class and I learned a lot from fellow students and the keynote speakers we had the privilege to have during the course. A big thank you to Prof. John Bourne for making this course a (virtual) reality at Babson.
