What's next for social networks, where's the benefit?

Facebook, Twitter and the countless hundreds of other social networking sites that have popped up in their wake have transformed the internet. There is no debating this fact. But have you stopped posting, re-tweeting and commenting long enough to ask where is the benefit?

Now don’t get me wrong, business, guru’s and even the Hollywood crowd has bought in and are seeing results derived from social networks. Facebook recently announced their 200 millionth user. Twitter’s popularity is growing at a massive pace, potentially beyond useful, at least in the short term.

I read another article the other day talking about the social networking craze and how critical mass and dominance of different networks all competing for the cherished user reduce the benefits of social networking to users; you know, the persons and individuals that made Facebook the enterprise it has become.

So I ask what is next for social networks? Where is the benefit? We thought it was time that someone spent some time analyzing these questions. We asked ourselves, what does social networking really do well? What’s inherent to social networks that’s currently being overlooked, and how could it be leveraged to benefit users?

What was most interesting to me as we delved deeply into these questions is how obvious some of the answers were. Once the light came down from above, I was even more amazed at the fact nobody, not even the biggest boys online, had addressed it.

What is inherent to social networks is an incredibly effective tool for building large groups of like-minded and connected people. I know, I know. You are sitting there reading this saying Duh, right? Stay with me for a moment…

Now ask yourself, what should a tool that can achieve massive groups so efficiently be doing next that would bring a previously unknown benefit to users? The answer is buying power. It's so obvious.

We asked ourselves what would happen if social networking could be leveraged by creating a hybrid of collaborative and social systems? The answer was buying power that could be used to deliver products and services to users with a pricing advantage given to purchasing agents at the largest retailers.

Still need an example? You need to buy a new laptop computer. You gather 400 other people that want the same or similar item and go to the manufacturer or retailer and tell them to make the group an offer. Do you think the company is going to be able to get the group to buy their product at the same price they are advertising on their site for a single purchase? Think again!

What about the companies? If they did not have to spend excessive advertising and marketing costs and guessing on demographic and geographic targeted of consumers and could just go right to the people wanting their product, isn’t that worth something? You better believe it is. A lot!

The idea? Revolutionary! The task of designing and developing systems that would be able to do this? Daunting!

What you will see over the next several years is social networking migrating from building thousands of “friends” comprised of your elementary school mates, and guru marketers clogging up your network feeds into something that delivers benefits that positively impact your life financially.

Intrigued? Check out fondalo and see how this revolution of bringing power to the people is changing everything!