As a follow up to my last post on “Why Now…” I would like to explore some of my thoughts on what’s in store for us, what’s happening now and the market forces behind instant messaging. I posted my last article in 2006 and haven’t published any new articles since. My intention was to post many articles as a way to learn how to build a blog site on Linux and integrate it with the various web-services and advertising providers. I’ve learned a lot and I have received over 40,000 comments based on my two postings. A good portion was spam however the majority was well received comments. I’ll write my next article about advertising on the web; as it also relates to IM futures. But let’s go ahead and explore the topic of what the future might be like all due to usage trends and capitalistic forces.
As noted in my previous article, integration of the instant messaging infrastructures has been very slow moving. Why so slow? Well, adoption has been slow along with integrating everyone’s infrastructures. It’s difficult to coordinate between corporations to set up federation or federate with major IM vendors like Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, AOL, etc. For example, if two companies want to “talk” to each other, someone in their management hierarchy has to approve money to be spent and the infrastructure has to be purchased and maintained. Then the infrastructure has to be integrated with a partner company which means the other company has to also approve spending time or money or both to federate. If the company wants to federate with Yahoo and Hotmail, Microsoft charges licensing fees. Now major IM providers can justify that they need to sell services to maintain infrastructure and for continued development efforts, but this model is clearly in need of being revamped. And for those that say there are also clearinghouses available to ease the integration, I would explain that the costs are high unless you have deep pockets and make money from IM’ing.
Google opens up their IM platform and for good reason. At some point, there will be the option to push advertisements to the sender or recipient based on the context of the conversation. Microsoft tried to just simply place advertisements into the client which has been widely criticized as obtrusive and unsightly. Facebook and Google has been much more successful at integrating their IM clients into their social networks. For Google, the user can log into their Gmail account and for Facebook into their page, all the while reading advertisements posted to their web application as they use the integrated IM client. This has been a more successful model. The next evolution would be to see advertisements stream to their social network based on the context of their conversation and geographic location data, not just the content of their email or randomness. However you see how more relevant ads are being targeted to an intended audience. And the model is, give people the services they need to collaborate and we will appear to provide this free of charge; all the while sending them advertisements to read and click on.
Now we see another IM player, Facebook. Do they intend to integrate with the other IM providers. Well, I noticed you see Skype integration when you install the client but then this would be a client side solution and would not fall under the fully integrated category. Facebook is the new AOL. They want to own all the content and provide all the services to keep you on their site so that you will click on advertisements. Facebook even integrates with Skype services. This is a step in the right direction but the real goal is full integration for text, video and voice across any network or client. This is important because everyone should be able to communicate and share in the advertising revenue. Facebook’s valuation is so high because they are more closed and share less, thus keeping most of the revenue.
Why should everyone share in advertising revenue? Is that just the most naive thing? Well, advertisers such as Google reward content providers by allowing them to place ads on their site and give them some of the click revenue. If a monopoly somehow develops then that social site has all the content and they dictate the rules. Facebook is dominating and probably won’t change unless there’s a strong competitor. Google is the only one I can see that can build the right platform. Yahoo no longer has the platform or the resources and will soon be sold off while Microsoft still wants to sell outlook and communicator for you to install on your windows PC. Microsoft is in the wrong game. If Google allowed everyone to collect revenue from their Google+ postings then the game might change. What’s really the difference between a blogger who creates content and get’s click revenue from it and a person who posts content and brings in thousands of readers? Popularity can and does pay the bills provided you understand the game and the rules.
Though it’s true that Facebook opens up their platform to application integration such as Twitter and other companies. But the content is still hosted at Facebook and with respect to instant messaging, they have a closed system. So, where is the innovation coming from?
Well, I say instant messaging tech innovations will be more widely utilized and available from social networks. This means Microsoft, who develops mostly for corporations will not innovate as fast as social networks. The fact is adoption of IM as a business communication medium is driven primarily by individual employees using consumer software at work, rather than by formal mandate or provisioning by corporate information technology departments. IM is still not considered strategic at most corporations unless you work at a brokerage firm where trading occurs over IM. Though surprisingly many of this trading communication is happening over major IM service providers.
According to the Pew report: Teens and technology (2005), “email is something you use to talk to old people”. Also, according to the national school boards association report, “…social networking is increasingly used as a communications and collaboration tool of choice…” This means email as we know it today will change dramatically and IM’s in some form will increase in importance. Email is inefficient and time intensive. Organizing messages in folders is a waste. Social network innovations and automatic categorizations such as Gmail will be the norm. IM integration will be seamless. The new store and forward technology will be built into social networks that also integrates the current instant messaging, email, and micro-blogging functionality.
What else will social networks do? Well, now that smartphones are the norm and will continue to be, we will have made it possible for anyone to keep track of others along with viewing their presence information. Facebook has a mobile app that has instant messaging, presence and location awareness. Mobile carriers have satellites and cell towers to pinpoint the location of cellphones. Your social circles will not only know whether you’re online but where you are, physically, on a map. Are you aware mobile carriers are selling locator services?
You will be able to find your friends anytime. A map will plot the location of each of your targets. You will be able to see their shared information, and possibly get advertisements sent to you based on your location a la Groupon or some integrated future coupon feature from Facebook. The idea is that the technology will increase social interaction, collaboration and most notably REVENUE. And the simple consumer question becomes, do you chose the premium option with no advertisements or the “free” option with advertisements? I’m not even sure if there will be a choice and advertisements will be required. Do you have a choice to turn them off now in Facebook?
Imagine you have an text message or IM conversation with your friend and plan to meet. But something comes up and you don’t know if your friend will show up or you have decided to go somewhere else with a different crowd. You will have the ability to leave an IM note only if they show up. This would make a great treasure hunting game or game of hide and go seek but on a much larger scale. Am I getting warmer?
Most of this type of functionality might not appeal to the slow moving, risk adverse corporation. However there is a ton of value for consumers, which is why innovations will be more rapid and adopted through social networks. A large network adds value since their is very little value if you can’t communicate with your friend from any IM client or social network of your choosing. Now that there are standard protocols, let’s demand integration to drive adoption and innovations further. I also suggest demanding revenue if you create content of any type.
