My views pretty much echo cosguru’s post above – it’s all about microblogging (on the web and within corporate walls) these days. Yammer took off like wildfire at my company, but our corp. intranet is still struggling. As well, the LinkedIn Q&A forums are really picking up speed and seem to be a great way to build reputation.

Traditional blogging, and even Facebook, seem to be on a bit of a downswing, or at least taking a backseat.

Looking forward to seeing you at the event and hearing your thoughts!
Amanda

2008: Microblogging seems to be covered here, but what I have seen more is a continuation of the gradual mainstream acceptance of social media tools, with Twitter leading in terms of hype and perhaps NYT mentions. Also, more and more people are getting sucked up by the great social Networking Hoover; I have noticed an influx of people from high school on Facebook, for example (class of 1986, by the way- we’re not talking about Millennials here).

2009: Look at some of the retrenched technologies. Virtual worlds seem to have disappeared, but companies and people are leaking out stories about how they are using them with purpose. If a more pervasive virtual world tool comes out (along the lines of Google lively, maybe?), we could see 3-d virtual worlds catch on again.

And for more mainstreaming? the Careers 2.0 meme will take
off, fueled by an unfortunate glut of innovative job seekers. Perhaps the resume 2.0 (which I think will settle around LinkedIn) will start to replace the standard resume a bit more. Technology advances during wartime, and careers innovations jump when more people are thinking about them.

I’m interested in learning more about the integration of social media into business communications and business processes as a whole. I’d love to see a conversation on case studies from the past year of what has worked really well and what hasn’t.

Looking forward to seeing you in Ottawa.

I think you’re right on with the growth of microblogging as a key development 2008. Corporations tend to be a year or two (or more) behind the early adopters in putting social media tools to use within the enterprise, and I think that’s just what we’re seeing now with the arrival of Yammer, Present.ly, etc.

Thanks for the contribution.

Sorry about your difficulties with the captcha on the LiveWorld blog. I’m alerting our tech team to it.

You’ve made some good, thoughtful points. My general approach is to use social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to build and strengthen my personal and professional networks. These are just the tools of my trade. I certainly haven’t become a millionaire with them, but they have enabled me to build meaningful relationships and have good discussions with people like you!

In one case, a connection I made through Twitter eventually led me to my current job at LiveWorld. The tool helped, but it was the human relationship that really made the difference.

We, at IDRA, met you about a year ago, although you knew us through editing and producing our podcasts. I asked some very rudimentary questions about how social media could be useful to our advocacy mission.
Since then I’ve joined Linked IN and now have over 1200 connnections there; I have two blogs that I post in several times a week; I’ve begun groups in Linked IN, Google and several other sites; and I am in probably a half dozen other networking sites.
It feels as if I’m floating around an entrepreneural and business world and I’m trying to use it for advocacy and networking purposes that for the most part are not the mainstream of users. I’ve learned much and I do have some ideas about the social media network as a source of income.
It seems that there is more hype than actual fact of people making a living off of the internet. I see much enthusiasm, much selling, hucksterism, promises of riches, invasive selling and proselitizing of online products and services, and quite suspicious of the whole lot.
Some of the online gurus seem to make sense but I’m not sure what actual impact on people’s bank accounts all this has had.
For each concrete success, there might be thousands of frustrated but hopeful online users/workers/searchers/sellers.
On TWITTER I’ve made some good connections, but I’m also tired of the weekly followers with some jive scheme. I’ve learned to spot and block them quick enough, but it reminds me of the predominant hucksterism that pervades social media. I realize it’s also that I have a very low tolerance for the market place. I don’t like being sold things, and I also realize that if I don’t like heat I should get out of the kitchen.

I’m curious about what seasoned business people and successful marketers thinks of social media and it’s many uses.

Great question. My take is the following:

1. The most significant business devlopment/events/trends was the emergence of micro-blogging as tool to influence social media. there are been a few cases already where sites like Twitter, Pownce, Plurk, and others have emerged as a way to instantly generate buzz and influence. This was fueled by the Election as people clamored to the Obama twitter account and the special section on Twitter on the election.

2. Where is Social Media heading for 2009? My opinion is micro-blogging will begin to penetrate not only early adopters but casual web users and therefore micro-blogging will break up into niche sites as Social Networks did a couple of years ago. This is evident with the emergence of Yammer as a business oriented micro-blogging site and just as Ning.com helped spread niche social networks instantly companies and sites such as Twingr.com will generate numerous niche micro-blogging communities.

hope this helps.

with respect:
cosguru
http://SocialMediaCore.com