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In the not-too-distant future, we will look back on the evolution of social media suites in a manner analogous to how we can already look back on the evolution of the world wide web (web 1.0 morphing into web 2.0 morphing into web 3.0).

Social Internet v1.0 will be viewed as operating within the “friend everything, share everything” philosophy. The leaders such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn survive and evolve mainly because they were the innovators, form the backbone of the evolving social media landscape and have a certain familiarity to them. But casualties of this evolution abound including platforms like Blippy, Apple’s “Ping” and the most notorious social media failure of recent times, Google Buzz. Their failures are in part because the “friend everything, share everything” model is starting to give way to a newer model, a model that will perhaps pave social media’s evolution to Social Internet v2.0 - the “group dynamically, share selectively” model. The new model is based on the reality that many people out there don’t want to share all their information with all their connections, especially the 80% or so of those you are connected to who you’ve never met in real life.

Sites are emerging, such as Path.com and Color.com that will make your connections with friends a whole lot easier by limiting you to only 50 of your closest friends or contacts with whom you feel comfortable sharing content. These sites aren’t set up to combat Facebook or Twitter but rather to enhance it by enabling you to share information more comfortably without worrying about who might see it.

A site that hasn’t even launched yet but is challenging Facebook - Diaspora - offers an enhanced version of the “group dynamically, share selectively” model that enables you to create multiple groups that you have the option of sharing certain information with; your information only gets to the people you intend it to get to. Diaspora is VERY concerned about privacy rights – they won’t host any of your information on their own servers; it’s hosted through a local network that enables you to protect your content and also lets you keep the rights to your pictures and other items.

So there you have it – Goodbye Social Internet v1.0, Hello Social Internet v2.0 with options including collapsed social networks, privacy and content sharing selectivity.

Up next, how you might use collapsed social networks for business, stay tuned!

- Alan N. Glazier, OD, FAAO
Author: Searchial Marketing: How Social Media Drives Search Optimization in Web 3.0
Founder/CEO
Shady Grove Eye and Vision Care
Rockville, MD

Twitter Handle: @EyeInfo
Blog: http://www.youreyesite.net
Website: YourEyeSite.com

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