one little cog

I’ve been thinking for a while that there are waaaay too many social media / web 2.0 sites springing up. While many people group web-based applications with these sites, I distinguish these sites from social media / web 2.0 sites because I regard web-based applications as a little more focused on a task.

Social media / web 2.0 sites focus on human interaction with one another and after reading blogger and web designer Shey Smith’s post on why We Need Social Media Interpreters, Not Evangelists, I thought that I would point out my perspective from an online marketer’s standpoint or perhaps just marketing in general. I don’t necessarily consider myself an evangelist as Shey points out, but I do take on some aspects of evangelism by promoting the use of particular social mediums for marketing purposes. At the same time, I also do a lot of what Shey points out as interpreting.

Part of my job (and probably a lot of it) involves tracking and monitoring online trends. Sure, management hears about Facebook and blogs all the time in the mainstream media nowadays but they still do not necessarily understand the underlying basis for all of these mediums — they are still trying to catch up with classic question of: How does the internet impact our business model?

So what do I do? I act as a filter — in fact that’s how we all act more or less to some degree. I don’t need to tell them every bit of detail about the Internet and social media. Most of the time, people tell me to stop talking because their head is hurting from all the information!

5 Questions I Ask Before Telling Management About (Yet) Another Web 2.0 Start-up

1. Would any user would even bother with this?

2. Is there something else out there that does just as good or a even better job?

3. Is there a point for any business to get involved?

4. How? How? and Really … How? I want steps outlined.

5. Is it simple enough?

This is really just touching the surface of the whole issue but I guess my question about simplicity is focused on the general purpose. Just as web-based applications exist for a purpose, what is the purpose of social media / web 2.0 sites? Human interaction is the reason I often receive.

I hear review after review of social media aggregators such as friendfeed and socialthing! The purpose of these sites are to bring together all of our social networking data into one place but from what I can see after I begin simplifying the whole idea down to its underlying role — these sites do exactly what almost all other sites already do — draw data from other social mediums and place it on their own. Everyone is trying to become a social media aggregator! The only difference is in presentation and interaction of that data. Aside from early adopters like myself who may leap from one site to another, I don’t see how that helps most users who remain on a few.

Image from Dion Hinchcliffe

The only aggregator of a user’s online social networking data should be the user, not another web 2.0 start-up. I’m mainly pointing at the failure of social aggregators to actually do something useful, but if you want to read more about them, Dion Hinchcliffe has a very thorough article on social aggregation online.

Emphasis on Consumer Control (aka. The USER)

Those who regard social media aggregators as the key to dealing with the problem of so many web 2.0 sites are seriously mistaken. The whole social web/2.0 idea was never about the centralization of data, it was about decentralization and sharing. I think human interaction is a lot more complex and that the social media aggregators are not focusing on those linkages, but rather the the information and data that is flowing from these people through different social mediums.

The first step towards social simplification is data portability. While not the ultimate solution, I think it is important for any user to be able to take his or her data with them and decide what to share or not share — it is integral to any social medium and it will be a defining point for the marketing industry.

The next step is for everyone to have their own “website” where they can define themselves online. The public policy side of my brain (from working in government) asks … does that mean all citizens have the right to an online presence of their own? With data portability — I think the possibilities are available.

At this point you maybe wondering, “And how does the topic of social media interpreters relate to social media aggregation?” — simple: as individuals, we are the aggregators and we are the filters and we are the interpreters. If we want to control our lifestream, it begins with where we decide to interact. If you are a web worker like myself, our lifestream begins on our own website or blog. Forget the aggregators, what better system is there than one that is open source and that you can completely customize on your own?

Now the major question would be: HOW can we help people who aren’t as web-literate to do the same?

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