Social Burn Out

If Social Networks were a client of ours, we would be in full-on crisis management mode this week. The entire concept of social media has been under scrutiny, but the media is just reflecting the growing frustration felt by a large number of people. We are all busy – we have work, families and actual friends. We don’t have time to monitor the comings and goings of our acquaintances across multiple channels. We also have limited time for an inbox full of can’t-miss deals.

So what does this mean for the future of social media? And daily deals? And geolocation services?

It means the same thing it means for every new industry. Remember the dot.com craze of the 90s? When tons of people see a gold rush, a few will strike it rich and many go bust. Remember the sock puppet dog? I can’t even remember what he was selling, but I know it wasn’t something people needed. For several years now we haven’t seen that much competition in social media. Now that we do see competition, we are going to see failure. And success.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Facebook and Google+. Facebook should win hands-down because people are so entrenched, but they keep monkeying around with their service. Can they aggravate people enough that they migrate to Google+? Google+ is more organized and better integrated with Android devices. It could happen.

It will also be interesting to see if daily deals are sustainable, or if they are driving down the price of services so much that the services themselves fail. Customers may never pay full price if they can hop from deal to deal. If that is the emerging model, why would a company start down that road?

It will be interesting to see what happens with geolocation services. Will consumers keep playing games? Are there deals to be had through these services? Apparently Facebook doesn’t think so. But maybe that clears the decks for Four Square to dominate.

Next year there will be clear winners and losers. In the meantime, we hedge our bets and listen.