The Rise of the Social Media Oligarchy

On Superbowl Sunday 1984, Apple Introduced the Macintosh with this commercial:

Last week, Facebook introduced curated search, which will allow them to advertise on people’s walls according to what they ‘Like’ on other people’s wall. In late 2010, Google introduced Google Hotpot, and yesterday they introduced Google Circles. Both give search results based on recommendations by friends. Guest blogger Paul Greenberg wrote on BrianSolis.com:

“While between 72% (baby boomers) and 89% (Gen Y) have an account on some social site, 70% of them use them for personal reasons, while only 23% use them to interact with brands. Notably 39% of them use them for reviews – meaning peer trust when it comes to a brand or specific product or service.”

According to Greenberg’s findings and estimates based on my calculations, Facebook’s curated search and Google’s social search will lead to an estimated 16.56% return on relevant search results for baby boomers and 34.71% return on relevant search results for Gen Y users (No results for Gen X).

Facebook’s and Google’s innovations will create a social media oligarchy of users who interact with the Social Web through a stream of ‘Likes,’ posts, and recommendations, using computers, smart phones, tablets, and other technological devices. It will cause people and businesses to either interact with the Social Web according to these new rules of the social media oligarchy or become part of a social media caste system.

All in all, the future of social media will compartmentalize into the ‘interactive’ and the ‘non-interactive,’ causing the Social Web and the Semantic Web to merge and evolve into the Synergistic Web.

Stay social my friends,

Erick