Social Platforms For Dummies
Social Platforms For Dummies (May 2010 Edition) on Prezi
I am happy to share this Prezi with you all - Social Platforms For Dummies.
It's a little training session I have been working on and the first in a series of Social Communication Training sessions from Biss Lancaster.
What I have sought to do here is not to tackle every social media platform out there, as it would be impossible to do so, but to group them into what I currently see as the big 5:
- Blogging Platforms
- Microblogging Platforms
- Content Hubs
- Discussion Boards & Forums
- Location Based Services
You may ask yourself - what about Social Networks? Well you are right to ask that. The primary reason I have not included them in this list is because there is something bigger going on with the primary social platforms such as Linkedin, Facebook and in a sense Twitter.
As we have seen from the recent announcement from the big 3, these "social networks" are moving in a different direction - that direction is platforms. What developments like Facebook Connect and @anywhere show us is a movement by these companies to a platform model, one where you don't visit their site, they come with you as you surf the web.
This difference is key, and a departure from what many of the services I mention in this Prezi are trying to do, they remain destinations rather than conduits.
During the discussion at Alfred Place that ensued after I delivered this presentation to the staff here at Biss on Friday, and interesting quesiton arose, how many more platforms / hubs can the web truly accomodate. This not entirely is do with size, but more around the need for so many different hubs and spokes.
I don't think we really have an answer right now to that question, but what I think I see happening is very similar to what happened in the world of commercial radio, and to a certain extent cable television and the newspapers before them.
Some of you will know this is a question that I have been exploring for a while, something I call "The Gutenburg Effect", where a technological change users in a communication explosion, followed by a period of consolidation. I think we still are going through a period of mass expansion at the moment, which we will soon see contract and consolidate. How and when that will happen, well I suppose that's up to you...