Social Media -‘LeeDictions’ What I would like to see in 2010

It’s that time of year where everyone makes their predictions for next year. Rather than guess and be shown wrong, I’m instead going to describe what I would like to see happen in the social media world. If it happens, man do I look smart. If it doesn’t, well maybe ‘they’ just didn’t get it..yet :–)

OpenTable, Zagat and Foursquare become one

GeoSocial will be the thing for 2010, but not everyone cares to be the mayor of a bar. Take OpenTable’s awesome mobile reservation system, Zagat’s revered critical reviews and Foursquare’s social system and mash them together into something truly great!

Easily send a beer to a friend at the bar with my iphone

Sure I could paypal them the amount, or even Facebook them a virtual Wawa coffee, but shouldn’t we be able to see that a friend is at a bar, send a beer to the bar’s POS system (from home) and have the bartender surprise the person with a beer.

Twitter gets acquired by something more useful

Twitter is great for 140 characters, but somebody full of smarts and cash should take it and integrate it into a better social content structure. You should be able to really explore a tweet, its sender and related content without leaving ‘it’.

The terms ‘viral’ and ‘internet sensation’ go the way of parachute pants

These terms are used by morning show knuckleheads who don’t have access to their own Twitter account. These terms also continue the perception that social networking is ‘cute’ or a novelty. Hopefully 2010 will be the year that more people see the true value of social interactions.

Value becomes a unit of social measure

You can tell how many twitter followers, facebook fans a company has, but that is often disconnected from the social value that brand offers through social. A tweet stating ‘Good morning’ from a major financial institution helps no-one except the person at the bank, resume padding as the ‘social guru’. Integrate some digg type social voting system into the posts to give more visibility to posts or social actions that are more meaningful.

I hope everyone has a great end of 2009 and a super 2010!