Say Bye to The First Decade of The Millennium…10 Things to Remember in The Social Web

This decade is gone.  But for the social web, there are many things to remember.  I wanted to do a brief summary of the 10 most impactful things that have influenced me deeply during the past ten years.  Here they are:

• Goolge
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Apple
• Microsoft
• YouTube
• Amazon
• Blogging
• The Long Tail
• Freemium

1. Google

“What Would Google Do?” seems to become a popular question asked by small, medium, and large companies alike in America today.  In the past 10 years, Google strived to create brilliancy and innovation in multiple possible areas that we couldn’t imagine.  Here is a quick recap of Google’s milestone events in 2009.  Overall, Google has succeeded big time.  Most importantly, it created a habit for the majority of Internet surfers, which is to “search when in doubt.”

2. Facebook

Facebook is getting huge these days.  The company grows exponentially in countries especially outside of the US.  In a recent Mashable report, Facebook was compared with Myspace.  The following graph was the result of the comparison.  TechCrunch recently published an article which claims that Facebook is likely to go public in 2010.

3. Twitter

How can we write a blog post like this without including Twitter?  The microblogging platform made great inroads into our daily life in 2009.  To read our Twitter coverage, click here.  Watch Even Williams‘ talk in this Ted video on how Twitter has evolved in the past.  Then try to imagine what’s going to happen with it for the next ten years.

4. Apple

There is no question in what directions Steve Jobs is taking Apple with all the new features and products the company is rolling out.  Apple’s stock price keeps going up.  Most importantly, Apple continues to innovate in every area possible.  I couldn’t wait to see the new Apple tablet that the company is likely to announce in January of 2010.

5. Microsoft

Well, Miscrosoft is not the biggest winner for this decade.  But the company sure has tried its best to catch up with its competitions.  The new Bing search engine has ‘not gained tremendously large search market share yet.  But the game should be interesting to watch for the years to come.

6. YouTube

Nowadays, everyone can be the director of their own movies.  Since 2005, YouTube has been democratizing the video distribution system and cutting down the layers.  What is resulted is a free marketplace where brilliant movie clips are produced every single minute by ordinary people like you and me.  That’s right.  As long as you have good content, anyone can become a shining star.  This trend is likely to continue for the next decade.  Click here to watch our YouTube coverage.

7. Amazon

Amazon is probably one of the most successful Web 2.0 companies ever.  This online retailing behemoth now has nearly three times the Internet sales revenue of the runner up, Staples, Inc.  In some ways, it’s Amazon that invented things such as the electronic reader (Kindle),the free two-day shipping program (Amazon Prime), etc.  Its customers are loving it!  Moreover, Amazon is one of the pioneers for adopting the online review system, meaning product users can rate and review all the products sold on Amazon.

8. Blogging

The printing media is dying in comparison to the rising of new publishing tools such as blogs.  Nowadays, who is going to buy a newspaper just to find tech news when they can get it free in the earliest time possible from blogs such as TechCrunch or Mashable?  Blogs are here to stay.  You will see even more people embracing different blogging platforms in the next decade.

9. The Long Tail

The “Long Tail” concept was originally introduced by Chris Anderson in his book with the same title.  If you haven’t read the book, read the following description from Chris Anderson (Graph included):

“The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.”

In my opinion, the tail is only going to grow longer as time goes.  The benefits coming with this is our ability to pursue our own interests in different niches (tails).

10. Freemium

Free is good. If we browse through the 9 items listed above, most companies, such as Facebook, Twitter, & Google, offer free services or content.  In fact, the entire business model for these companies is built on freemium.  If you are writing a blog, you are offering your content for free.  As a result, you earn your readers’ trust and establish relationships with them, which subsequently lends you the right to sell product/service to them.

Now, we are near an end to this incredible decade.  What are the most cherishable things for you as far as social web is concerned?  Let us know.

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