In the thought-provoking PaidContent.org post “Building A Social Network In A Facebook And Twitter World,” Geoff Cook posits that his startup company, myYearbook, is poised to be a winner in the “stream wars.”
He makes the case that Twitter’s and Facebook’s social-media dominance won’t last forever. Twitter isn’t for everyone (although it is, he says, “the morning paper.”) Facebook, on the other hand, is for everyone, but “it can’t be everything to everyone.” Hence the need for social-network diversity if we’re to get the most from the medium.
At first blush, myYearbook seems to be a mashup of the “chatter” of Twitter, the multimedia enhanced streams of Facebook, the network/meet-new-people aspect of LinkedIn and the teeny-bopper feel of MySpace (myYearbook’s tagline is “Friends. Flirt. Fun.”) It has yet to be seen what kind of implications a platform like this might have on business, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.
Along the way, however, Cook gives marketers like us a primo takeaway. His team surveyed users of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and myYearbook on why they used the various services. The four graphs he shares are invaluable to marketers trying to figure out — or fine-tune — their multi-platform strategy. If only the last one were LinkedIn …
Regardless, as emerging platforms like myYearbook throw their hats into the ring, it’s interesting to consider the social streams we use now and how they will evolve.
What’s your take? Is Twitter your morning newspaper, as it is for Geoff Cook? What do you foresee as the next generation of social media?
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