The Web is Dead, Social Media is Saturated, and Social Business is Our Future…
At least this is what George Colony, CEO of Forrester Research, thinks. He unveiled these predictions during his presentation at LeWeb in Paris this year. I caught this story through the Logic & Emotion blog, and decided to include it in this week’s episode of Social Media: Cheap and Easy.
You can watch George’s presentation and read the transcript on his blog.
According to George, the web is moving away from a network/browser model to something that leverages devices, apps and the cloud in a more powerful way. Not exactly an earth shattering prediction, but I think George misses what the future really is.
My prediction: Apps become our electronic servants – ever more sophisticate and specialized. Vivint is one current example. Apps are the precursor to software that will operate robots in our homes and businesses.
George’s second thunderstorm is the saturation of social media. He thinks we’re running out of hours and people to provide audiences for all the social media sites out there. He even predicts the demise of sites such as Foursquare.
Obviously George vastly underestimates our ability to find creative ways to waste time. Not to mention the more than half of the world’s population who have only just begun to access social media.
If a service like Foursquare dies, it won’t be for a simple lack of audience participation. It will be because they fail to engage business owners and show them the power of Foursquare as a rewards program for customers.
And finally, George predicts businesses will make use of social media tools to increase productivity with employees and for making better business decisions. It’s an interesting prediction that smacks of utopia.
There will certainly be some businesses – such as Dominoes – that use social media well and profitably. But the vast majority will simply add it to their business model, overlay it with bureaucracy, and end up wasting more time and effort than ever before.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I think George has some interesting ideas but missed the boat completely. For the guy in charge of Forrester Research, I expected him to have a much better understanding of human nature. Listen to the whole story on Social Media: Cheap and Easy.