Fast Talk

Since social networking is basically a community built around a common interest, it would be easy to say that soon we will see social networks built around niche content ( i.e. technology, leadership and etc. ). Of course such communities will have to be powered by a personality or an abundance of content. We are already seeing such social networks on Ning. The more interesting convergence of social networking and blogging will be seen in the newspaper industry. Clearly print sales are down and more people are getting their news online, smart newspapers are starting to not only put the news online but are incorporating blogging and social features into their sites. For now it's merely the ability to leave comments on articles but soon I think we will these sites allow people to friend each other, follow certain writers and etc since it would increase the stickiness of the sites. People will be able to just get the news they want, from the writers they like and connect with other who have the same interests. The local nature of newspaper sites will allow for greater targeting of ad which will be the way they will monetize the eyeballs. It will be very interesting. There are going to be some missteps for sure but in the end it will succeed since it will follow the over arching content of allowing people to personalize their world more and more.

Well now that both Word Press and Moveable Type come with social networking features in their blogging platforms it's sort of easy to detect how this convergence is going to occur. What I'm more interested in seeing is ways in which conversations on Facebook, FriendFeed, Twitter, and the like move back-and-forth between blogs. Yeah sure, now there are widgets that enable folks to place comments from FriendFeed on their blog posts, and their Tweetstream as a conversation on their blog, but they're still two distinctly different conversations happening. It isn't fully integrated yet. This question just makes me think more and more about Charlene Li's statement that Social networks will be like air. She says: "There are four components of what I’m calling this idea of “ubiquitous social networks”: 1) Profiles; 2) Relationships; 3) Activities; and 4) Business models. These aren’t new -- I wrote about the first three in my original report on social networks back in May 2004. But in the context of ubiquitous social networks, they will develop into the following: 1) Universal identities; 2) A single social graph; 3) Social context for activities; and 4) Social influence defining marketing value. For more detail on each of these components, see the extended post (warning: it's really long!)." When you factor in universal identities and a single social graph, the idea of what will happen to blogging because more interesting. There are conversations all the time on Twitter and FriendFeed about whether these services are replacing blogging, and for the most part, they aren't, the are adding to it. Someone who creates a way for all of this to happen in one place is going to be a winner.

I believe that as social networking and blogging begin to converge this next year it will 'turn up the volume' on the virtual conversation. Social networking gives access in a whole new way to bloggers for understanding their audience. Virtual conversations are becoming richer, and more relevant.

The bigger question is: how will our entire web experience (blogging, social networking, e-commerce, search/find, etc.) consolidate and converge? http://is.gd/NKc

Of all people, David Hasselhoff might be the canary in the coal mine here. He moved his stuff off MySpace recently, citing the hampering of interacting with his fans his own way. Hoff's got over 12,000 fans shifted over to Hoffspace.com. I think he's on to something. I believe "velvet rope" social networks are the next thing. And I would look at potential content-networking mashups to become more the norm than the exception. But custom. Not facebook, not just an off-the-shelf Ning. This is the one to watch in some ways, especially with Automattic and Six Apart shifting in social features to blogs.

The major issues are going to be how to eliminate all those irrelevant noises

As much a I see Social Networking and Blogging crossing over to each others territory, I also see the main stream media utilizing social media sites and blogs to grab more attention of their demographic. Main stream media is now understanding that more of us get our news from the internet and not the more traditional media like Newspapers, Radio and Television. My wife and I decided almost 4 years ago to stop watching TV and to bring our 2 kids up with more attention to the computer. Both my wife and I have Blogs (2thenextlevel.com and momplaywright.com), Linkedin and Facebook profiles as well as Twitter accounts. I get more relevant content pushed to me via my Google Reader than I would ever get from any newspaper or television broadcast. If a site does not have a RSS feed attached to it, in my opinion they are missing the boat. The blur between blogging and social media is already upon us. We as users and content creators just need to make sure we better manage the use of these two new forms of communication so they don't give us a case of information overload.

Akin to the great public fora of Classical origin (with a few added degrees of freedom ) =), blogging and social networking make real a now and future "vox populi", a united front for social democracy taking place on a transnational scale anytime, anywhere. A space to explore and make popular media, popular governance, new business structures, new consumption patterns, a "colosseum" to combat global violence and corruption...More than ever, Pop culture, agenda (21?), and global self-representation are converging to realize revisionist logic and see and make cultural change happen. Simply having an opinion won't satisfy this convergence high...

I think the biggest change we’ll see will be users starting to demand a more interactive interface. Blogs need invested readers who contribute to content - and social networking sites can provide the community. But how many people who post comments on blogs go back after they’ve posted to read the ones below their own? The companies and individuals behind the blogs create conversations between themselves and the users, but it needs to be easier for everyone to talk. Sort of like a social network, instant messaging, Twitter and blogs all rolled into one social portal. This interface will be easy to use, fast (real-time) and be a host to other related topics and sites.

Reading these comments and reading a response I saw to this question on Twitter, I was reminded of Six Apart's Vox, a site that enables community and blogging and groups that blog on a group blog. This is somewhat close to what this future is -- community blogging, but then isn't this also a bit of what the past was with platforms like livejournal? How distinctly different will the future be now that we've seen the proliferation of medaiblogging - plurk, pownce, kwippy, identi.ca, twitter, et. al. -- and then sites like facebook and friendfeed and plaxo that enable parking all of your social activity in one spot to sort of present a lifestream -- the real question is what is the next phase of all of this? How will it happen? What's the next big move? It's more than putting a mybloglog widget on your blog and building community in that way. It's more than simply installing disqus enabled threaded comments on your blog and having those comments become part of a larger web discussion. I know it's more than these things, or perhaps even simply the integration of all these things. But what does that thing, or those things, look ?

The underlining idea here that must that will govern most of this stuff will be "Youniverse." Social network provide a clean, simple and elegant way of presenting all the information and managing all the relationships you want in your life. Blogs will simply become another piece of puzzle that social networks will allow us to integrate. More often than not blogs will just be another piece but the newspaper and magazine companies will be where we will see content blogging at the center of social networks. If I were to bet on it, it would be a financial mag or newspaper that will be the first to go all out and bring it together since money is a great catalyst. Barrons, Forbes or maybe Fortune?

First, the current blogging platforms must become drastically easier to use if social networking and blogging are to converge successfully. Even though they continue to improve, they still require more technical gymnastics than they should to share,post,etc. If I didn't have coding experience, I'm not sure how comfortable I'd feel with some of the tools. It is next to impossible to blog today without having to tweak one's HTML code at some point. That said, I think the reason social networking/lifestreaming/microblogging exploded in the last year to 18 mos. is because it has all the benefits of blogging (RSS,commenting,sharing,tagging,bookmarking) but none of the hassles. Currently, Tumblr comes the closest to the convergence "nirvana" Lynne asks about. I recently started blogging there, because sharing media or posts on there is "media neutral" - Tumblr's bookmarklet auto-detects what you are sharing and formats the post accordingly. If you want to add a widget, you just drop it in the Description field on your dashboard, Save, and you are done. They also have a decent start at networking with their 'Follow' function; once you choose to follow someone, you automatically see their updates on your dashboard. -- Krista E. Summitt http://obamaprops.tumblr.com http://friendfeed.com/kristasphere NOTE: These comments are strictly my own, and not that of my company or officers.

Its already converged with friendster.com, will take few days for google to converge orkut and blogger... facebook and myspace will start their own blogssites... period! People will go crazy with the free offerings and stop looking at the sunrise and smelling the flowers and taking a walk... :)

There appears to be a trend already which gives weight to the notion that, "Blogging Is Social Networking". When you consider that simple actions such as linking to "key influencers" or hot topic posts (to generate some visibility for yourself) is a strategy commonly employed in many circles today, it stands to reason that blogging and social networking have already converged. What I think will be interesting, is which particular circles this will have the most impact. This is certainly true for those who roam primarily in technology (and in a large part in political circles as well), but, what about the artists, writers, and other creatives. It is not clear whether or not blogging and social networking have converged in these circles.

I am completely confident that blogging will become the most popular way to communicate professionally and personally.

It will no longer be out of the ordinary for business professionals to blog or have active profiles on social networking websites. Instead, it will become so much the "norm" that one will be considered behind the times if they do NOT utilize these methods of networking and marketing.

I think with the influx of mobile technology, moblogging will take on more significance in the world of social networking. Case in point: Apple's new iPhone has downloadable apps to run FaceBook. So I can take a picture or shoot video on an iPhone, and upload it directly to my Facebook account. The possibilities here are endless.

In response to some interesting questions posed in this series, I believe a more progressive convergence means a transition from a current state of blogging and networked addresses, which I see as largely centered on more personal musings and individual personalities to a more collative set of affairs, inter-ACTIVE, network spaces which collaborate on transforming and realizing a variety of experiences (in industry, politics, commerce, media, multiculturalism, advocacy, philanthropy...) While I think the variety of blogs and social network addressed is a vital forum for self-expression, there is another dimension to be explored--- intentional, "industrial" loci within the expanding network. I think it would be interesting to see blogger nodes form, representing various capacities (industry, politics, commerce, media, multiculturalism, advocacy, philanthropy...) as internationally recognized agents for change and progress. For instance a global business node might form @ FastCompany, as a “go to” for start-ups looking to network, for mentorship , an open venue for their venture, and an open field of potential investors. Blogging becomes a more incorporated, multi-dimensional effort actively and collectively working to advance local and global industry. Such iconic nodes might “show up” in various media on the network, creating a synergistic evolution and less dead-ends on the circuit.

Great ideas so far! Realistically, I think the progress in the next year will just be the maturing and de-bugging of current portals. Strategic alliances might be made, but right now competition to be "the one" makes no one the true winner. Over the next 5 years though, I'd say the digital conversations that take place will more accurately reflect (and enrich) our real life conversations. You will have the ability to present yourself in a universal way (as mentioned already) and the movement between content, networking, and life happenings will be more fluid and natural. The next generation? Provoking conversations in real time with incredibly relevant or tangential user-created content. That'd be fun.

blogging will ease into the mainstream- lots of great sites coming up making it real easy to click and post. People will blogalize instead of socialize.

Blogs are very limited. They are indepth content created in isolation - video blogs, photoblogs, sound (podcasts) and text/multimedia all rely on the blogger being isolated and then presenting the finished product (complete with tone and subject) to respondents who have two choices - to go off and create a blog post or video post in isolation, in response, or to leave a comment, like students at the end of a lecture. Blogs are functionally one-to-many channel, and struggle with building distribution (audience) because of the isolated nature of the content creation - the social network sees nothing until the publish button is pressed, and then cannot edit that content. The move will be towards live content created in social networks, not in isolation. What a wiki is to a blog, so will other content. Wiki video, live podcasting (blogtalkradio, dial in and talk to citizen radio host at a set hour). Put is this way, video blogs on YouTube will be superceded by Qik/Mogulus live streaming, citizen vision switching and collaborative video making. The content of blogs married with the live true collaborative spirit of social networks. Live web is already here, it will just become more mainstream in the next year.

I think that once we see more of these two methods of learning rooted in our education systems there will be a huge change. As a professor I am using both as primary teaching tools with great success.

Is Barack Obama, the one seeking office of USA president. A "natural born" person as required by USA consitution. Where was Barack Obama actually "live born" as supported by hospital records for admission of his "birth mother", hospital billings, attending doctor(s)' reports, visitor(s)' records, etc. Once this "research topic/investigation will be in social networking matrix; such will "test" how that Web 2.0 feature will be used. World wide background checks by independent persons: is next use of social networking.

As big city print news desks all across the country shrink, more and more Pulitzer-Prize-nominated and Pulitzer-winning journalists will become the beat reporters of the blogs. Likewise community tipsters, who once telephoned the paper with something unusual or interesting that they had witnessed, now use social networking.

I see social networking becoming more specific for the user. I see the deign and navigation changing per user as well as the way to meet and find friends. For example a professional will have different theme then someone looking for dating.

They won't converge unless they first diverge - aka separation of functionality into unique standalone but integratable applications.