It seems that the debut of Google Plus last July has triggered all the activity. Facebook and now Twitter have come forward with major revamps to 1) do what they do best even better and 2) fill any "gaps" in their product offerings that they have noticed in trying to keep up with the competition. To gain any measure of meaning from this, look back to these once-dominant social media "leaders": MySpace, Yahoo (remember how portals were all the rage?), AOL (they truly ruled the world in the 1990s), and what about the "news" sites that triggered the cool-at-the-time debates about "push vs pull" technology? we don;t hear about any of those discussions any more. And we don't talk about these and many more Internet "roadkill" in dominant terms. Their day ahas come and gone. It was hard to imagine when they each had their turn at the top of the mountain, but it happened.
That's my point about all the fuss over Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, you name it. lt is downright silly to pronounce any of these "dead"or "the winner" because there are many miles to go in this journey and anything can happen to tilt the wheel in any direction. The Internet is too fluid and the audience for social media too "transient"to place bets on how the social media wars will shake out.
I believe "who will be standing" is a lame question. The real questions is how will the landscape look when the fighting is over. Frankly, Idon't believe there will be any "loser," and instead we'll see a different pecking order in which all the principal players in the social media survive and carve out a niche of some sort. I am enjoying watching the transition.
