Top 5 predictions for social in 2010

ReadWriteWeb recently released a great post on their predictions for 2010. It is a long list and definitely worth a read.  I thought I would share my own personal top 5 list distilled down from all the great insights they had to share.

#5 “A new social network will rise to join the big ones. It may offer the privacy that Facebook is moving away from; it may be mobile and location-centric; it may focus on personal content recommendations.”

There is no doubt that Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter will continue to be successful. The question is who is next and how will it impact the enterprise? Today companies are struggling to define their social media strategy and policies.  By the time companies figure out the current landscape it will have shifted.  Keep a close eye, not just on the new social networks that take a leadership position, but on the ones that can measurably impact business processes (hint: follow the path your customers/prospects take, not just the industry buzz).

#4 “Facebook will become the Borg. Its number of users will continue to climb until the network is as ubiquitous as Google and lay people confuse Facebook with “the Internet.” They’ll make more money and control more data than ever before.”

Translation – Facebook is here to stay.  Remember back when Google wasn’t the #1 search engine? How much were you investing in Google SEO or paid search? Probably not much.  Well just as the industry shifted to optimize parts of their business around Google’s algorithms companies need to do the same for Facebook.  The companies that are already there have a head start.  The companies that are late to the game have an opportunity to be fast followers.

#3 “Software as service becomes ever more popular, as businesses and governments choose to focus on their core business and realize the benefits of lightweight technologies in the cloud – including rapid deployment and the low cost of switching.”

There are countless examples of successful cloud-based services.  Examples include Salesforce, Google Apps (did you know that more than 2 billion businesses run Google Apps?!), NetSuite and hundreds more coming on the scene every day.  One important aspect of this prediction is that companies will start finding ways to adopt traditional consumer cloud apps for the enterprise.  Employees will demand it.  They are already using these tools in their personal lives and now they want to bring those great experiences into the workplace to help make them more productive at their job.

#2 “Social analytics features explode onto the scene in 2010. Twitter opens Pro accounts, including analytics and an API to access them. Google strikes a deal to integrate Twitter analytics with its Google Analytics product.”

There has been a lot of buzz around social media monitoring in 2009 and this trend will continue.  Enterprises need to be paying attention to what’s being said about them. More importantly they need to get involved in the conversation.  The other side of the coin that most have ignored is the concept of social analytics inside the enterprise.  What are your employees saying? What are the hotspots inside your four walls? Look for more in 2010 from Socialware on this topic.

#1 “Consumer-based social networks will make big efforts to gain wider access to the enterprise, as more companies seek to open up to the social Web. The information architecture of social networks will change to accommodate the greater degrees of control that the enterprise requires. This will bring on the rise of “social middleware” – services that act as a layer between social networks and the enterprise.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.  What’s interesting is that each of the other 4 predictions supports the need for social middleware.  Regardless of which social network comes on the scene next, social middleware will help enterprises abstract out this complexity.  For companies that haven’t integrated Facebook into their business processes they will need social middleware to help make that a reality.  And on the broader topic of embracing cloud services, specifically these open social networks, social middleware will accelerate the adoption for enterprises across all verticals.  Finally, social analytics focused on activity within the four walls of an enterprise will be enabled thanks to social middleware.

2010 will be exciting.  Here’s to helping make these predictions a reality.