Naked Conversations 2.0: How Google is disrupting the social media starfish

October 31, 2007 By

When Shel Israel co-authored Naked Conversations with me we interviewed about 180 companies about how they were using blogs and how that usage was changing their business.

Today I’m watching companies and political candidates and seeing a new trend that I’ve written up as the “Social Media Starfish.” I just did two videos, one that defined the social media starfish and all of its “legs” and another that explains how Google is going to disrupt many pieces of that starfish tomorrow with its Open Social announcement tomorrow.

Some things in text. What are the legs of the social media starfish?

1. Blogs.
2. Photos. Flickr. Smugmug. Zooomr. Photobucket. Facebook. Et al.
3. Videos. YouTube. Kyte. Seesmic. Facebook. Blip. DivX. Etc.
4. Personal social networks. Facebook. BluePulse. MySpace. Hi5. Plaxo. LinkedIn. Bebo. Etc.
5. Events (face to face kind). Upcoming. Eventful. Zvents. Facebook. Meetup. Etc.
6. Email. Integration through Bacn.
7. White label social networks. Ning. Broadband Mechanics. Etc.
8. Wikis. Twiki. Wetpaint. PBWiki. Atlassian. SocialText. Etc.
9. Audio. Podcasting networks. BlogTalkRadio. Utterz. Twittergram. Etc.
10. Microblogs. Twitter. Pownce. Jaiku. Utterz. Tumblr. FriendFeed. Etc.
11. SMS. Services that let organizations build SMS into their social media starfishes. John Edwards is one example.
12. Collaborative tools. Zoho. Zimbra. Google’s docs and spreadsheets. Etc.

It’ll be interesting to see how deeply Google will disrupt the Social Media Starfish tomorrow.

What do you think?

Here’s the two videos:

Part I of Naked Conversations 2.0: defining the social media starfish. 22 minutes.
Part II of Naked Conversations 2.0: how Google will disrupt the social media starfish tomorrow. 18 minutes.

[kyte.tv appKey=MarbachViewerEmbedded&uri=channels/6118/67564&embedId=10008713]

Filed Under: Austin, BlogTalkRadio, Corporate Culture, Engadget, Excel, Facebook app, Flixter, Google Calendar, Microformats, Photoshop, podcast, PodTech, SmugMug, Social Media advertising, videos, wikis, YouTube
  • John Whitesmith

    You should add social music sites to the list, eg last.fm etc

  • John Whitesmith

    You should add social music sites to the list, eg last.fm etc

  • http://www.BriefEpisode.com/ Gib

    Looking forward to
    The videos!

    Thanks for the summary of points in text.

    –Gib

  • http://www.BriefEpisode.com Gib

    Looking forward to
    The videos!

    Thanks for the summary of points in text.

    –Gib

  • http://dbcohen.com/ David Cohen

    Surprised that Thomas hasn’t come and chimed in that you misspelled Zooomr :)

  • http://dbcohen.com David Cohen

    Surprised that Thomas hasn’t come and chimed in that you misspelled Zooomr :)

  • http://yellowpark.wordpress.com/ yellowpark

    Great video that I will be pinging over to a few customers. Still getting customers not wanting to look at even blog integration, let alone social networks.

    One thought – all this starfish and no mention of Second Life?

  • http://yellowpark.wordpress.com/ yellowpark

    Great video that I will be pinging over to a few customers. Still getting customers not wanting to look at even blog integration, let alone social networks.

    One thought – all this starfish and no mention of Second Life?

  • http://www.dariosalvelli.com Dario Salvelli

    Mmm for microbloggin: i think that Twitter is just a little bit different that Tubmlr. :-)

  • http://www.dariosalvelli.com Dario Salvelli

    Mmm for microbloggin: i think that Twitter is just a little bit different that Tubmlr. :-)

  • Christopher Coulter

    Oh gawd, you should really stop this, it’s only Valleywag fodder.

  • Christopher Coulter

    Oh gawd, you should really stop this, it’s only Valleywag fodder.

  • http://webcommunityforum.com/ Teresa Valdez Klein

    I was just talking about this the other day on Web Community Forum.

    Facebook for Self-Promoters.

    I think we may see a freemium service for Facebook that unlocks special features.

    Also, they should come out and play on Open Social!

  • http://webcommunityforum.com Teresa Valdez Klein

    I was just talking about this the other day on Web Community Forum.

    Facebook for Self-Promoters.

    I think we may see a freemium service for Facebook that unlocks special features.

    Also, they should come out and play on Open Social!

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Christopher: someone has to give Valleywag something to write about.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Christopher: someone has to give Valleywag something to write about.

  • peter huesken

    …so where does this leave:

    - all the social bookmarking(-sites),
    - commenting (co-comment anyone ?)
    - social TV (Joost, babelgum etc)
    - location/map based social tools (dodgeball, navizon buddyfinder etc)
    - crowdsourcing (amazon mechanical turk etc)

  • peter huesken

    …so where does this leave:

    - all the social bookmarking(-sites),
    - commenting (co-comment anyone ?)
    - social TV (Joost, babelgum etc)
    - location/map based social tools (dodgeball, navizon buddyfinder etc)
    - crowdsourcing (amazon mechanical turk etc)

  • http://siliconvalleymusings.com/ steve

    .. and
    - reviews and recommendations (yelp, angie’s list)
    - gaming (xbox live, playstation network, ea online)
    - im (aim, instant messenger,…)
    - web based events (webEx, genesys)

  • http://siliconvalleymusings.com steve

    .. and
    - reviews and recommendations (yelp, angie’s list)
    - gaming (xbox live, playstation network, ea online)
    - im (aim, instant messenger,…)
    - web based events (webEx, genesys)

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  • http://andybeard.eu AndyBeard

    Robert

    When you sign you name to something such as the “Open Social Web” Bill of rights, you should also defend the concept, trademark and all from being taken over by a single corporate entity.

    Having the ability to own your data and move it from one site to another isn’t the same concept as Google’s platform which is all about Google having access to that data because all the services will be using the same API.

  • http://andybeard.eu Andy Beard

    Robert

    When you sign you name to something such as the “Open Social Web” Bill of rights, you should also defend the concept, trademark and all from being taken over by a single corporate entity.

    Having the ability to own your data and move it from one site to another isn’t the same concept as Google’s platform which is all about Google having access to that data because all the services will be using the same API.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Andy: good point. But so far I see a whole industry playing with Google on this and Google is playing back. That’s far different than Facebook.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Andy: good point. But so far I see a whole industry playing with Google on this and Google is playing back. That’s far different than Facebook.

  • http://www.broadstuff.com/ alan p

    Heck Robert, a starfish has only 5 “legs” – you’re describing an Octopus (or more accurately a duodekapus)
    :)

  • http://www.broadstuff.com alan p

    Heck Robert, a starfish has only 5 “legs” – you’re describing an Octopus (or more accurately a duodekapus)
    :)

  • http://fakebillgates.spaces.live.com/ Samir Shah

    To be a platform, any entity needs two things Metcalfe’s Law (each network addition affecting the outcome as some non linear function of total) and an API. OpenSocial has the API but it is not clear how a member addition on one site non linearly affects the whole. See my website for posts relating to the Metcalfe’s Law and Social Networking.

  • http://fakebillgates.spaces.live.com Samir Shah

    To be a platform, any entity needs two things Metcalfe’s Law (each network addition affecting the outcome as some non linear function of total) and an API. OpenSocial has the API but it is not clear how a member addition on one site non linearly affects the whole. See my website for posts relating to the Metcalfe’s Law and Social Networking.

  • http://orville.chomer.blogspot.com/ Orville Chomer

    I thought that the videos were great and they got me hoping… I posted my comments on this in Kyte at:

    http://www.kyte.tv/ch/18877-chomer-com/67784-on-google-social-network-disrupti

    We’ll see (hopefully) what Google has up its sleeve today!

  • http://orville.chomer.blogspot.com Orville Chomer

    I thought that the videos were great and they got me hoping… I posted my comments on this in Kyte at:

    http://www.kyte.tv/ch/18877-chomer-com/67784-on-google-social-network-disrupti

    We’ll see (hopefully) what Google has up its sleeve today!

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  • http://www.kylehealey.com/ Kyle Healey

    Thanks, I learned a lot from this post. Stumbled!

  • http://www.kylehealey.com Kyle Healey

    Thanks, I learned a lot from this post. Stumbled!

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  • http://www.mexicoboutiquehotels.com/ Sylvie Laitre

    Good afternoon,

    I wasn't sure where exactly to leave my comment but hope it'll find it's way to the proper reader. I just finished reader Naked Conversations (probably later than most) and am excited about blogs and how they can help both my career and my business. I'm a newbie to say the least (my blog has been up for only a few months) but truly believe in the communications revolution coming about. What I wanted to bring up is the 'cultural' reasons some countries may be blogging more than others. On p.124 you speak about “Siestas in the Blogosphere' and it got my attention as my business is in Mexico (I have a SPanish and English blog. Not necessarily mirrored of course) and I see alot of potential here given that blogs have not really been embraced yet. When I brought up the cultural aspect with friends and colleagues here (all latin) several mentioned the 'fear factor'. The thought of publicly publishing your success, lifestyle ,and knowledge scared most of them in a very real way. In Mexico, as in other Latin countries, kidnapping rates are incredibly high and expressing your views is often considered life threatening. I didn't see this mentioned in your book but thought it might be an important point to consider when writing about blogs (or social media in general) and culture. Has anyone mentioned this before?

  • http://www.mexicoboutiquehotels.com/ Sylvie Laitre

    Good afternoon,

    I wasn't sure where exactly to leave my comment but hope it'll find it's way to the proper reader. I just finished reader Naked Conversations (probably later than most) and am excited about blogs and how they can help both my career and my business. I'm a newbie to say the least (my blog has been up for only a few months) but truly believe in the communications revolution coming about. What I wanted to bring up is the 'cultural' reasons some countries may be blogging more than others. On p.124 you speak about “Siestas in the Blogosphere' and it got my attention as my business is in Mexico (I have a SPanish and English blog. Not necessarily mirrored of course) and I see alot of potential here given that blogs have not really been embraced yet. When I brought up the cultural aspect with friends and colleagues here (all latin) several mentioned the 'fear factor'. The thought of publicly publishing your success, lifestyle ,and knowledge scared most of them in a very real way. In Mexico, as in other Latin countries, kidnapping rates are incredibly high and expressing your views is often considered life threatening. I didn't see this mentioned in your book but thought it might be an important point to consider when writing about blogs (or social media in general) and culture. Has anyone mentioned this before?