First I would like to wish everybody a happy New Year. A new year with all sorts up its sleeve I’m sure!
For anyone that doesn’t know I am rather partial to a cream tea breakfast. This has developed into a needless obsession with jam. Yes, I love scones and jam. I rather sadly take great pride in selecting the finest jam I can get my hands on and then enjoy the delights of a beautiful scone filled with fresh clotted cream and jam.
To the philistine out there, let me assure you there is a variety of fruit preserves available for your delights - jams, jellies, compotes, conserves, chutneys and more but all with their own little je ne sais quoi. They share some very major fundamentals with one another - similar flavour, similar smell. You use them all in very similar ways but each have their special place and time.
In the same way that jams have developed and changed, I can see this is how social networks plan on delivering updates throughout 2012. They’ll slowly become more similar to one another but becoming ever more bespoke in their purpose.
The new iPhone Twitter app and web update suggests such a thing. Twitter wants to start delivering the news it thinks we want to read (via the #Discover section), follow the people we should be following and grasp a better understanding of our relationships through interactions, not just @mentions. This is a fundamental change in how Twitter is becoming more like Facebook.
Likewise Facebook is trying to imbed itself even deeper into our daily lives by offering features such as Timeline. Within Timeline we can add life events that will no doubt prove valuable to a marketer. By Facebook giving the ability to add milestones in before your Facebook account was created, it really intends to own your online identity. Wholly. LinkedIn is an interesting jam indeed. It has a specific purpose and clientele. I can’t see too many disruptive developments going on here in 2012.
So what about Google+? The touted ‘ginger child’ of the social networks. I expect to see Google to continue to implement Google+ compatibility across its suite of tools which will benefit the hardy Google guy and girl but no serious growth in 2012 for Google+ (sadly). The mainstream is still very much in bed with Facebook and will continue to be whilst Facebook keeps innovating.
So like jam, I will continue to use a variety of social networks. Use them with certain people and use them at certain times. I have favourites. I have fads. New ones will come along that I will try and never go back to. Enough of the jam analogies…
Happy New Year everybody!
