The Center of Gravity is Shifting

If there was a common question that ran through all of today's social media tour interviews it was this - what's next, Steve? One of the themes I kept hitting over and over is that the blogosphere is not where all the action is going to be in the months ahead. Yes, you read that right. Don't adjust your set.

For sure the b'sphere will continue to remain the largest galaxy in the social media universe in the short term. It's a major center of gravity that pulls people toward it. However, over the last few months a number other social media galaxies have rapidly risen to prominence. Take YouTube, digg and MySpace. These are just three examples, but they are drawing huge audiences. Richard Edelman is gushing over a fourth - StupidVideos.com.

As these constellations grow, some will become larger and more influential than the blogosphere. We're already seeing early signs of this and the power brokers will shift. For example, mobile jones notes that Technorati's coverage of MySpace is sorely lacking. Technorati also does little to help us mine and track YouTube, digg, StupidVideos.com and countless other smaller galaxies of consumer generated media. They focus on blogs.

With this important shift, there is a burgeoning need for tools that help us cement all of the content that we want to track from our favorite galaxies into a unified interface. Technorati and memetrackers like memeorandum play in this space, but they better evolve if they want to keep up. Search, RSS, and social tagging will be at the heart of this next great stage of Web 2.0 growth because they are enabling technologies. That's why if you're placing bets in this space, don't bet solely on blogs. Keep your eye on the expanding universe.

Technorati Tags: Digg, Memetrackers, Technorati, Blogs, Tags, Tagging, memeorandum

Comments

[makethelogobigger]

It's also likely youtube, myspace and flckr will become total brand-spam viral havens, forcing the center to shift back.

The funny thing is how these sites have added life to one niche though: the former star. Used to be they went on Carson to get a boost, now they just sign up on myspace.

[David Sifry]

We're on it, Steve. :-)

Dave

[Pete Blackshaw]

From a brand reputation perspective, these new sites have the potential to "trump" other expression venues (including most blogs) because rich-media is more impactful and emotionally engaging. This is why brands have such a hard time weening themselves away from TV advertising. The challenge for the PR community is balancing high-impact, well-networked, TV-like "add water and stir" consumer expression (along the lines Richard Edelman volunteers in his 3/2 blog entry) with the harsher, more sobering reality of multi-media brand-implicated expression. Important to note, for instance, that some of the most viral videos distributed across the web in the early days (well before MySpace, YouTube, etc) were highly cathartic complaints toward brands in multi-media formats (e.g. www.ipodsdirtysecret.com). As barriers to expression decrease (and frustration with advertising continues to increase), we'll see more than a few brands heavily exposed by what I sometimes refer to as CGM2 (consumer generated multi-media). What brand stakeholders (and their PR firms in particular) need to start thinking about NOW is how to retool their own business and listening processes to capture and manage rich-media expression. How many Fortune 500 companies, for example, allow consumers to attach photos or videos (or even send links to their blogs) via existing CRM or "contact us" infrastructure. Few, if any. We (all of us) push every dimension of corporate blogging activity to help companies become better listeners, but are we also priming their existing ears for richer-media future? Yes, as you note, the stakes now are MUCH higher. - Pete Blackshaw

[kalbzayn]

Isn't MySpace just a collection of blogs? So wouldn't that make it part of the blogosphere like blogger and all the others?

[Michael Martine]

The human-mediated/filtered content experience will, I think, always be with us. One thing about social media sites is that they're always popularity contests. People will continue to be attracted to human aggregators because software has no taste and groups operate at the lowest common denominator (or at the very least, they represent the "big head" rather than the long tail).

[Aaron Savage]

Hi Steve

I'm seeing a lot of coverage given to MySpace at the moment, with endless possibilities being talked about. I'm a little surprised though that Typepad, which you are obviously familiar with.

I'll quickly add that I am not associated with Six Apart other than being a customer, I'm just interested why you think it isn't getting the same amount of coverage.

Their user base is enormous now and approaching 10 million, and for my money the interface and marketing potential has more scope than MySpace. Was it a conscious decision you made to pick and cover one of this type of Blog community or do you not think LJ has the same potential?