A different social circle

The ‘inefficiencies of scale’ in a social business scenario is something I keep writing about – wrote about it recently in the context of Google vs Facebook too. So I found this article, which was about the demise of Facebook in 5 years, very interesting. Though predictions are dime a dozen and are many a time used as traffic boosters, this one comes from a person who predicted the decline of MySpace four years back. What interested me even more was that he said the single social networking platform concept will give way to smaller networks.

Meanwhile, after all the hype Google Me generated, and expectations of launch in Fall 2010, our knowledge remains at a ‘social layer’ level and its internal project name – Emerald Sea. So, when i saw Google’s foray into fashion – boutiques.com, and its working, I wondered for a moment whether this could be another rendition of Google Me. After all, a common interest is a great context for social interaction too. And over a period of time, search would be honed better and be social too, with a curation (like shown in Boutiques’ case) that goes beyond algorithm and crowd.  This interest could be a place (say hello to Google Hotpot), or an interest that aggregates people, like books. (yes, Google’s store is coming soon) That would be changing the social landscape quite a a bit. Add to it shopping and say, a GroupOn integration by context/location and Google will have fun, not to mention local advertising revenues. It would also have a better grip on aspects like privacy, influence, and would be smaller networks rather than an all encompassing one. Its a bit of wild and far fetched thought specially when we know that Google Me is now slated for Spring 2011, but interesting, you think?

until next time, off for a fortnight 🙂