With the year drawing to a close, it’s only appropriate that we take a look back at what’s occurred in 2010. The theme goes a bit like this – social, social, and more social. Nearly everything this year seems to have some kind of social element, from checking in to your hotel for points to giving Farmville credits as a virtual holiday gift.
1. Search: Social search became popular this year. Wowd’s free, client software and sites like Bing.com and Google added real-time social search features to their offerings to make your search experience more personalized.
2. Location-Based Services (LBS): Are you checked into wherever it is you are right now? Wherever that might be, there’s a good chance the person next to you is checked in to their favorite LBS. According to the Mobile Marketing Association, one in four U.S. adults uses mobile LBS. It’s human nature to want to be connected to people and LBS have made this possible. LBS, like Gowalla, Google Latitude and Facebook Places allow us to know where our friends, family and complete strangers are hanging out. Foursquare took the lead in 2010 with 4.5 million users. LBS went a step further by becoming integrated and utilized by various companies. This summer, for example, Virgin America customers had to check into a local taco stand through Loopt for a free ticket to Mexico. In 2011, we should expect to see the amount of people using LBS increase even more.
3. Gaming: Does anyone need help watering their crops on Farmville while they read this post? According to AllFacebook.com, 56 million people play Facebook games on a daily basis – that’s more than the population of England. Social gaming exploded this year with games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars taking the lead.
4. E-Commerce: As social gaming continued to rise this year, social commerce did as well. Discount sites like Groupon and LivingSocial came on the scene letting us purchase cupcakes, spa treatments, trips and more at insanely reasonable prices. As we mentioned in Wowd’s December 3, 2010 blog post, e-commerce and social good went hand in hand this year with new sites and applications that allow you to donate to your favorite charities. Don’t know what to get your loved ones for Christmas? Well, why not buy them gaming credits? Virtual goods – think Facebook gifts circa 2009 – became very popular towards the end of 2010. We can expect to see more e-commerce integration across social platforms and applications.
5. Social Networks: Facebook went through various facelifts this year and modified its news feed, personal profile page, messaging system, added groups and added its own LBS. What’s next Facebook? Twitter exploded this year as well with a massive 25 billion tweets sent in 2010. Users turned to Facebook to protest, celebrate, and unite during life-changing events in 2010. With the plethora of social networks and the copious amount of updates we receive on a daily basis, there is definitely an increasing need for applications that cut the clutter and help us manage our online social lives – a la Wowd.
What was your favorite social trend from 2010?
Happy Holidays from all of us at Wowd!
P.S. Check out our new home page at Wowd.com
Comments