I will never profess to be a bona fide techie or even an advanced user of popular software or hardware. I am, however, at age 40, of the generation that grew up as technology grew up. I had my fist Commodore VIC-20 in Jr. High, and a Commodore 64 in college. I witnessed the birth of fax machines, laser printers, and cell phones. I began my real estate career in 1995 right as the Internet was gaining popular acceptance. I witnessed the dot com boom and bust, the land grab for domain names, and the cultural game changer inthe iPod.
While I grew up with technology, I wasn't always on the cutting edge of it. I had email and web access with the old AOL dial-up service in 1995, but don't think I owned a CD player until the late 90's. I was taking digital photos in 1997, but have yet to own an iPod (I think my daughter has three!) I've been using a BlackBerry for most of the decade, but just got our first Nintendo Wii last week (I won it in a drawing to my kids delight!) I've had a plasma HDTV hanging on my wall since '05 with a DVR, but have never rented a movie from Netflix or bought On-Demand, preferring instead to trek to Hollywood Video or RedBox.
I say all of this to build a framework for what this post is really about. I don't know how to create technology, and I may let some trends slip by unnoticed, but I do latch on to others when I see a potential to reshape the world. Web 2.0, while frighteningly young, is something to stand up and take notice of.
I only learned of blogging about 3 years ago and didn't begin my own until I started this space early last year. While I realize to some that that delay may seem to be an eternity, the surface has really only been scratched on the extent that blogs will eventually penetrate all levels of society. Blogging was really the beginning of social media as we know it today. MySpace took it a bit farther, followed by Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. There are dozens of social media sites out there that now allow anybody to share their thoughts, hopes and dreams with the world in every digital media platform. Twitter has emerged as the glue that ties the rest together with it's unique ability to rapidly grow a distribution list. Words, graphics, pictures, music and video have been incorporated into all of the major social sites, and while the younger generations were the first to jump on the bandwagon, businesses and professionals are only now starting to see the potential of this emerging technology. This is why I predict that all hell is about to break loose.
As business starts to realize the potential of being in front of countless thousands of "friends", "fans" or "followers", money is going to start getting dumped into commercial side of social media in exceedingly increasing rates. Hundreds of social media companies will be born and some that may not even exist today could be Fortune 500 candidates just a few years from now. Just like during the dot com run, we will see venture capital poor in once a profitable and sustainable business model emerges - and it won't be long.
As society becomes more tolerant to social transparency, more and more people will be sharing themselves more openly in the digital world. Advertisers will be able to focus their ads only to those who have expressed interests in their goods and services. Entertainment will be focused even tighter on market segments with digital delivery of content to the device of a consumers choice. The very way we communicate with others will blur as technologies continue to consolidate.
The company that has been noticeably absent from this conversation is Microsoft. Have they missed the boat and will they be over-taken by a start-up with a new angle and hip following? Don't count on it. While I've never been a big fan of Windows, I think the Office suite of programs sets the world standard. It won't be long before Outlook transforms into a social media tool with unparalleled power. Just think about this: You have an MS Exchange enabled version of Outlook on all of your devices. On your desktop you have an MS version of a Facebook-like wall showing current updates of everyone of your connected friends. When you open a contact window, a full stream of their recent posts is displayed, complete with video uploaded from their cell phone or Flip Video, and a history of every communication that you've had with them - including voice transcripts of your phone calls. You type out a blog post and it automatically sends to the desktop of the distribution list of your choice. Key words are all interactive, calendar items are scheduled automatically and contacts update instantly.
Plaxo and new products like redPear's Core Relationship Manager touch on some of these functions, but once Microsoft wakes up and builds them into Outlook you'll see many social media companies go the way of the Netscape Navigator. While the big will get bigger, the monetizing of social media will be the catalyst to bring the world out of our current recession and lead us into the next bull market cycle. Buy stock in any of the companies that have patents on the key technologies. Trust me, they are bargain priced compared to where they are headed.
If that is not enough, what do you think will happen when Google gets it figured out?
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