As we can see from the graph below toward the end of January 2009 Facebook will become the most popular social networking website on the internet.

I think this is primarily due to the fact that Facebook is grabbing all of the ‘MySpace graduates’.

Social Networking is all about the demographic and what that demographic does with the tools it has from a social networking standpoint.

I have seen this before from personal experience when I founded a small niche social ‘community’ back in 2003 it grow tremendously (for the niche) for a couple of years.  When MySpace came around it grabbed 80% of the audience from my small community website (currently over 30,000 members). Now Facebook has been growing because users of MySpace are ‘graduating’ from MySpace and moving on to the social networking community that the rest of their peers are utilizing.

Ask anyone who is in college if they use MySpace. More than likely their response will be that MySpace is for ‘kids’ or high schoolers.

Next Social Network Graduate?

My question is what or who will be the next social networking website that will draw in the graduates of ‘Facebook’?

As we can see from the visual to the left, social networking utilization is primarily for communication and conversation followed by multimedia activites such as music, video, and photos.

The lesser percentages is that of actual ‘contributors’ or ‘creators’ of content.

I wonder if social networking websites such as LinkedIn.com or even Tagged.com will become that next step for graduates of Facebook.com?

Or perhaps users will become so overwhelmed by marketers and advertising on Facebook that they decide to leverage the micro-blogging genre such as Twitter.com or Plurk.com?

My thought for a successful social networking website is one that will be a merger between P2P and a Microblog. Based on statistics known in visual. There is a need for such a service that will provide multimedia content without a user having to contribute or create the content themselves and at the same time be able to add their own photos and be given the opportunity to have conversations with those that they gauge as their most valuable ‘friends’.

Could a service like this pull the next graduate class from Facebook?

As Social Media is about communication and discussion in its raw definition, how can this information be tracked on a daily basis as the ‘buzz’ of a brand or event is measured not by days but by hours in some cases.

That is why software  (and typically SaaS) company to measure social media are establishing themselves. These following companies are ones that have been highly recommended by my peers and I would recommend as well. Of course there are many others that are beginning to make waves these 3 are ones to review.

1. Radian6

Below are excerpts from the product page of the Radian6 product.

Radian6 software is quick and easy.  The user simply sets up topics using keywords.  Keywords could include names of brands, companies, products, competitors, issues, campaigns, spokespeople, executives or anything else that requires monitoring.

Once setup is complete, the solution automatically collects and tracks content for the topic.  It monitors all forms of social media including blogs, top video sharing and social networking sites, forums, opinion and review sites, image sharing sites, microblogging sites, online mainstream media and other sites as they become available.

Analyze your topic with a number of user-friendly widgets – mini-applications accessible through a dashboard that provide quick access to specific information.  As content is discovered, the solution automatically and continually tracks comments, viewership, user engagement and other metrics, 24/7, so that you can clearly see the reach and affect each post has on the community.  Know immediately which content is making an impact and what needs to be managed.  Uncover the influencers online by topic, based on user-determined formula weightings.  Listen and learn more about these influencers and decide on a path of engagement tracking the steps along the way.

Easily export data and analysis for use in your reports, presentations and spreadsheets.  Radian6’s social media monitoring solution can export reports using any variety of formats.

The company allows for demo signups to review and test drive their software.

2. Cymfony Orchestra (TNS Media Intelligence)

Below are excerpts from the product page of the Cymfony Orchestra product.

TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony’s Orchestra breaks new ground by enabling organizations to view traditional and consumer-generated media in one application, providing more comprehensive and complete real-time consumer and market insights. The convergence of multiple media sources enables a broader range of groups across the organization to benefit from the media analysis and discovery functions, including real-time “side-by-side” analysis of mainstream and consumer-generated media.

TNS MI/Cymfony’s Orchestra platform consists of two applications:

1. Our proprietary Natural Language Processing engine automatically aggregates, classifies, quantifies, and benchmarks both traditional and consumer-generated media.

2. The second application is a Web-based interface that provides a dashboard to analyze these multiple media sources. The Orchestra online dashboard provides access to real-time data at any time from any web browser. Orchestra requires no IT development and it easily integrates with your current workflow

TNS also has a call to action on their website to schedule a demo of their product or to contact one of their sales representatives to get more information on the product.

3. Sm2 (Techrigy)

Below are excerpts from the product page of the Sm2 product. What I like personally about Sm2 is the instant account creation that allows you to have a limited ability to test drive their application for your social media initiative.

SM2 is a social media monitoring and analysis solution designed for PR and marketing professionals. With SM2 you can track conversations, reviews and positive/negative sentiment for your brands, clients, competitors and partners across the eco-system called social media: blogs, wikis, microblogs like Twitter, social networks, embedded video and more – in real time.

SM2 doesn’t just return keyword search results. You get complete analysis tools including charting with comparisons, demographics, geo-location, sentiment and drill-down reports. It’s easy to use and, because it’s hosted, cost-effective to implement. With our Freemium Account you can run tests on your brands to manage risk, track trends, understand market reach and manage reputation. With our paid plans you can track one client or hundreds- SM2 scales with your needs.

Information is power and there’s a lot of information in Social Media. Adding SM2 capabilities to your practice gives you the ability to offer enhanced services and expertise to your clients including brand sentiment and conversation tracking, risk management and trend development in social media.

As I mentioned, the great thing about the Sm2 product is the fact that you can get your feet wet with their product instantly after creating an account with Techrigy.

blog post photo credit: www.masternewmedia.org