Here comes another bubble...

Here_Comes_Another_Bubble_-_The_Richter_Scales
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Is it really coming?

Via TYPO3 unleashed

Facebook vs. MySpace

I found interesting article on YahooNEWS about 2 biggest social media sites.

The most interesting part of the article is when they make a comparison of social media market with search-engine market:

"Is Facebook to MySpace as Google was to Yahoo?"

The growth of Facebook, in the last year, answers this question in positive way. The growth rate is telling us, that Facebook will soon be in the first social networking site on the planet.

And because of this huge number of users, he is becoming a target. And who will buy Facebook?

Will it be the IPO (Initial Public Offering) way? I think not. (Andrej is gonna be soooooo disappointed ;-) ).

I got a hunch ;-), that it will be one of the big players.

So who's the potential buyer?

As News Corp owns MySpace, they are not an option.

It will be one of the BIG 3: Yahoo, Google or Microsoft?

For Yahoo there are possibilities that they will acquire Bebo (so the Facebook is not an option for them) - but they would push themselves a few steps in front of Google (in terms of social networking) and they would keep the dominance on the photo market (as they already own the Flickr).

But my hunch goes more in the direction of Google or Microsoft.

I would put my vote on Google. Facebook is something what would make their portfolio almost complete. Till now they have acquired Youtube (this gave them the dominance in video) and Doubleclick (which gave them the link to the classical online advertising) - if we mention just two biggest acquisitions. But Google is missing the successful story in social networking sector (as their Orkut is not doing very well). And this is why is Google almost logical option.

But let's not forget Microsoft. They are also big enough to acquire Facebook. And they have already bought $240 million piece of the Facebook (via Businessweek).

One thing is sure: This will definitely be the biggest acquisition (estimation ranges from $3-$6 billion). Some are mentioning even higher figures.

As there are predictions that the acquisition will happen in 2008, we can say (again!!), that 2008 is really gonna be the year of the social media.

Google/OpenSocial

Want to know what Google's new standard - the OpenSocial - can bring to the social media?

Check this video, with David Glazer from Google/OpenSocial (interoperability between Bebo and Facebook).

Try this one too (incorporation of Flixter social movie review into Myspace using OpenSocial).

Via ZDNet

What will 2008 be about?

Last couple of years it was all about blogging. We can see that blogging is changing the nature of journalism. Bloggers became so powerful that even old-media started to cite them. The phenomena of citizen-journalism emerged. Bloggers even get the press credentials for various events (from political to commercial).

But through this year something else started to move and it is moving fast. We definitely can see it as a snowball effect.

What is the ball bringing?

Social Media. Social Networking Sites. Sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Friendster, LinkedIn, Hi5, Bebo, Orkut or Tagged. And many other (smaller ones) who fight for their share.

Social media are all over the press (in the old media and in the new media). This new services are getting a lot of publicity and attention.

As comScore revealed with it's study, there is a good reason for this huge attention. Figures which were revealed by comScore show that the ball is rolling (Facebook increased the total number of unique visitors, from Jun 2006 to Jun 2007, for 270%).

What is the answer to question from the subject of this post? You definitely know it by now.

Yes. Bingo.

2008 will be about the social media.

And we should go out-there and explore the functioning and engage, because we will need them.

Why? Sunny Smith from Spontana wrote in a comment, where some other statistics for social media was posted, that:

"the applications to marketing would be limitless - especially since these sites really lure folks into sharing all of their interests and preferences - movies, sports, and all of their vitals - age, location, education level. There will be a certain amount of falsification, but overall I think that the majority of people are truthful and genuine. The data from these sites have huge potential both in the aggregate, as well as the micro-level, for both mass media, and direct marketing - it's just a matter of time until the big business gets rolling!"

Let's roll!

Valleywag's 25 predictions for 2008

After I posted a ZDNet's threat list, I sensed a great desire, to find list of more positive predictions for 2008. Valleywag (Sillicon Valley's tech gossip rag as they sign themselves) posted this 25 predictions. Their direction is absolutely more positive & funny, something I was looking for. ;-)

Ten threat predictions for 2008 by Richard Stiennon from ZDNet

Richard Stiennon from ZDNet gave us a list of 10 predictions - a list of possible web threats in 2008:

1) Facebook widgets (misuse of Facebook applications)
2) Google's OpenSocial (new social networking site)
3) Salesforce.com (data loss)
4) China (their attacks on western governments and institutions)
5) Ex-Soviet states (weapons of cyber-extortionists)
6) Cyber crime (getting up close and personal)
7) Disruption of financial markets (by phishing attacks)
8) Storm Trojan
9) Use of DDos (by terrorist organizations)
10) Game console (network games can bring network attacks)

Via ZDNet.

We definitely need to be aware of possible threats.

But we are more interested in positive aspects of new technologies and therefore ask:

What are 10 web opportunities in 2008?

P.S.: Some points from Richards's list can definitely appear on opportunity list (as we would claim the positive/opportunity aspect of the point and not the negative/threat aspect). E.g.: Facebook.

How to handle growth?

Number of websites is increasing rapidly (much of the growth is in the recent period coming from blogging sites). Total number of sites had, according to Netcraft, increased for 0.7 million in November 2007 (reaching 7 billion).

Others may be claiming different figures - stating that Netcraft's figures are too low. Possible. We don't want to debate about the different methodological approaches. We just want to show that the web is growing. Non-stop. With every minute (when I will publish this post the we will again grow for one additional site). ;-)

So what are the options, the ways to handle and cope with such amount of data, which is coming from various sources: from personal websites, companies, news sites, blogs,...

One option for dealing with this information-overload is: SEARCH ENGINES. Yep! They handle this for us. We just querry and they offer us a solution. And we usually get what we were looking for.

It's always: Let's Google or I'll Google you (in some cases people even Google somebody before going on a date with him). ;-) Google as a strategic tool. ;-)

But this is today's state-of-mind of the search. What will be the future?

iJustine pointed to a fantastic & inspirational video of Jonathan Harris:





Jonathan demonstrates the features of two projects (one is We feel fine and the other is Universe). Both projects are visualization of web - drawn with the help of API & numerous "footprints" which are left behind by web-users.

The future of search & visualization of data, which exist online, will have to go into this direction. There is no other way!

P.S.: And the visualization of data is definitely more beautiful than the Google's result page. ;-)

Thanks iJustine.