Social networks are the new Internet "walled gardens" as more and more online consumers are spending the majority of the time on social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Orkut and Hi5.
The Growth of Social Networks
All the market research numbers point in the same direction - social networks are huge. According to a Dynamic Logic survey, 51% of Internet users ages 18 to 34 reported visiting a social network site at least once every few days. eMarketer estimates that in 2008 nearly 80 million people, 41% of the US Internet user population, visited a social network sites at least once a month (an 11% increase from 2007). By 2013, an estimated 52% of Internet users will be regular social network visitors. These numbers pretty much come to the conclusion: 50% or more of all daily Internet traffic in the future will be the spent on social networks.
The New Widget Economy
The good news is that most social networks now support some sort of "open" API that allows companies to build and deploy social apps and widgets. I like Advertising Age's Bob Garfield notion of using widgets to essentially package "Websites-in-a-Can". eMarketer predicted that US-based companies would spend $40 million in 2008 to create, promote and distribute widgets (up from $15 million in 2007).
"Some people believe that social networks are becoming 'walled gardens,' So many advertisers are experimenting with widgets as a way to penetrate them."
As a sign of how much widgets have intrigued the marketing community, 58% of attendees at last December's iMedia Agency Summit said they thought widgets would play a bigger role in their strategy than mobile. Investors have taken to widgets as well. In my previous post I talked about how widget companies have raised more than $160 Million over the 12 months.
Widget Predictions
It is probably safe to assume that in the probable future Internet users will continue to spend more and more time on social networks. Expect to see companies increasing their spending on widgets as well as other social media application that allow them to "penetrate" the social networking walled gardens. You can also expect to see new types of widget platforms emerge (including Metablocks' own Widgetmatic WCM Platform) as marketers make widget a standard component of their social media marketing mix.
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