Social media exists not only on Facebook.com or Twitter.com. Advancements in social media tech, in particular Facebook, enables users across the web to have the utility of their favorite social networks without ever visiting its URL. This social media ubiquity creates a seamless connection to third party sites and enable users to always be connected to their favorite social network — whether they’re at a train stop or reading their favorite blog.
Every year, Facebook pushes closer to creating a seamless social web. In 2007, it was the Facebook Platform. In 2008, it was Facebook Connect. “Yelp is mapping out the part of the graph that relates to small businesses. Pandora is mapping out the part of the graph that relates to music,” Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg said at this year’s 2010 F8 conference. “If we can take these separate maps of the graph and pull them all together, then we can create a Web that’s smarter, more social, more personalized, and more semantically aware.”
In 2010, Open Graph aims to tie these disparate corners of the web together. Users do not have to be on Facebook to interact with it. Part of Open Graph is its “Like” buttons. In 24 hours, Facebook served up 1 billion of these buttons across the web. Therefore, if you go to Mashable, you can become a fan without going to Facebook. “This is a really significant step for Facebook. For years we’ve been saying that FB is an open platform, but now for the first time, the likes and interests of my Facebook profile link to places that are not Facebook.com…My identity is not just defined by things on Facebook, it’s defined by things all over the Web.”
Beyond traditional social communities, such as Facebook, geo-location services are the hottest up-and-comers on the social scene. While Facebook creates a seamless social network on the web, FourSquare does so using location-based tech — connecting your digital and real-world social lives. Both Facebook and FourSquare are blurring the lines between our digital browsing and real life by creating seamless social networks.
What Facebook is doing for the web, FourSquare is doing for geo-location social networks. Gaining over one million users in its first year, FourSquare is a clear leader in location-based social networks. FourSquare utilizes the GPS in mobile phones to approximate the position of its users. Users can then “check in” to their favorite hang out spots to earn points and ultimately earn Mayorship status. To create a more seamless experience, anticipate FourSquare to automate its “check ins.” Multi-tasking smartphones, like iPhone OS 4, make this a definite possibility.
“Social media is embedded in our lives. It’s why people go to a restaurant and check Foursquare before they sit down with their friends,” says Advertising Age’s Beth Snyder Bulik. And Facebook strives to be the ever-present social network throughout the web with its Open Graph. Social media is increasingly becoming ubiquitous in our every day lives. As such, there is a call for social networks to create a seamless experience by connecting us with the world around us — whether that’s on our favorite cafe website or buying a coffee in that very cafe.
Read the 2010 social media report:
