Monetizing Social Networks - The Future of Personalized, Contextual, Semantic Search Engines
http://entrepreneur.pro/articles/13/1/Monetizing-Social-Networks---The-Future-of-Personalized-Contextual-Semantic-Search-Engines/Page1.html
Constantine Giorgio Roussos
By Constantine Giorgio Roussos
Published on 09/9/2008
How can you monetize social networks such as Myspace, Facebook and Bebo? What is the future of personalized, contextual, semantic search engines? Is there privacy concerns that can limit innovation that would deter monetizing social networking via advertising?
Is there a future of social networking and mobile?
Social networking has been a hot topic since the inception of Friendster, Myspace, Facebook and Bebo. Interest is now switching to mobile versions of social networks and two recent studies suggest a bright future for keeping track of friends while on the move. ABI’s “Mobile Social Networking” report forecasts that by 2013, more than 140 million mobile phone users will subscribe to “anytime, anywhere” services, generating subscription revenues of over $410 million.
eMarketer predicts that in the US the category will reach 44.3% of Internet users by the end of 2008. According to Google Insights, related searches are up 3,000% since 2004. However, tt has a ways to go before it's truly mainstream on a global level.
Search will be the next frontier for social networking. Before Google came along 10 years ago, web search was not monetized efficiently. Yahoo, for example, would rely on its directory-driven site to generate revenues. A company called Goto.com changed the whole online advertising landscape with the introduction of its pay-per-click keyword advertising business model. Search will become a core feature of the social network experience, add in social elements, and in the process revolutionize advertising just the same way Google has.
What does the future of search hold for us? Is it Social Search?
Google is the undisputed market leader in search. Its search dominance has enabled Google to rake in $48 billion from Internet ads since 2001. The company has paid $15 billion in commissions to the Web sites that run its ads in the same period, helping to support major online destinations such as AOL, Ask.com and MySpace as well as small website owners and bloggers. The real question is do you trust Google more than you trust your social network? The numbers speak for themselves. as of July 2008, Google owns 62% of the search market according to comScore. Yahoo owns 21% and MSN 9% of the industry.
The future of search is semantic and personalized based on user behavior, trusted social network interactions, search history, geographic localization. Search will get embedded deeper into the personalized user experience and be mixed with the user's social networking activities to create a balance between trusted and untrusted search.
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are banking on social networks for future monetization. Google and MySpace have a $900 million advertising agreement going back to 2006. Facebook and Microsoft have a similar arrangement worth $240 million for a 1.6% equity stake in the social network. Yahoo has done the same with Bebo. So the search engines clearly view the social networks as future cash cows for monetization venue.
Social networking advertising today has not been very fruitful to advertisers but all the top networks are tweaking their advertising systems to incorporate a more contextual search experience for their users, as opposed to throwing random ads with limited targeting. New advertising models will emerge where contextual ads are shown based on what content is created created and recommended by users.
Barriers to Social Search
The only barrier to improving social search is privacy concerns. If users start worrying about their privacy, more and more of them will opt out of providing the search engines with the data needed to generate personalized search results. That will mean the end of personalized search. An example is Facebook's Beacon. Beacon is a part of Facebook's advertisement system that sends data from external websites to Facebook, for the purpose of allowing targeted advertisements and allowing users to share their activities with their friends. Beacon was launched on November 6, 2007 with 44 partner websites. It wasn't until December 5, 2007 that Facebook announced that it would allow people to opt-out of Beacon, with founder Mark Zuckerberg apologizing for the controversy. The basic principles of future social search are two-fold: (1) Users should have complete control of their private information and choose what and how to distribute it (2) Users should have access to information that other users have opted to share
Social networking has been a hot topic since the inception of Friendster, Myspace, Facebook and Bebo. Interest is now switching to mobile versions of social networks and two recent studies suggest a bright future for keeping track of friends while on the move. ABI’s “Mobile Social Networking” report forecasts that by 2013, more than 140 million mobile phone users will subscribe to “anytime, anywhere” services, generating subscription revenues of over $410 million.
eMarketer predicts that in the US the category will reach 44.3% of Internet users by the end of 2008. According to Google Insights, related searches are up 3,000% since 2004. However, tt has a ways to go before it's truly mainstream on a global level.
Search will be the next frontier for social networking. Before Google came along 10 years ago, web search was not monetized efficiently. Yahoo, for example, would rely on its directory-driven site to generate revenues. A company called Goto.com changed the whole online advertising landscape with the introduction of its pay-per-click keyword advertising business model. Search will become a core feature of the social network experience, add in social elements, and in the process revolutionize advertising just the same way Google has.
What does the future of search hold for us? Is it Social Search?
Google is the undisputed market leader in search. Its search dominance has enabled Google to rake in $48 billion from Internet ads since 2001. The company has paid $15 billion in commissions to the Web sites that run its ads in the same period, helping to support major online destinations such as AOL, Ask.com and MySpace as well as small website owners and bloggers. The real question is do you trust Google more than you trust your social network? The numbers speak for themselves. as of July 2008, Google owns 62% of the search market according to comScore. Yahoo owns 21% and MSN 9% of the industry.
The future of search is semantic and personalized based on user behavior, trusted social network interactions, search history, geographic localization. Search will get embedded deeper into the personalized user experience and be mixed with the user's social networking activities to create a balance between trusted and untrusted search.
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are banking on social networks for future monetization. Google and MySpace have a $900 million advertising agreement going back to 2006. Facebook and Microsoft have a similar arrangement worth $240 million for a 1.6% equity stake in the social network. Yahoo has done the same with Bebo. So the search engines clearly view the social networks as future cash cows for monetization venue.
Social networking advertising today has not been very fruitful to advertisers but all the top networks are tweaking their advertising systems to incorporate a more contextual search experience for their users, as opposed to throwing random ads with limited targeting. New advertising models will emerge where contextual ads are shown based on what content is created created and recommended by users.
Barriers to Social Search
The only barrier to improving social search is privacy concerns. If users start worrying about their privacy, more and more of them will opt out of providing the search engines with the data needed to generate personalized search results. That will mean the end of personalized search. An example is Facebook's Beacon. Beacon is a part of Facebook's advertisement system that sends data from external websites to Facebook, for the purpose of allowing targeted advertisements and allowing users to share their activities with their friends. Beacon was launched on November 6, 2007 with 44 partner websites. It wasn't until December 5, 2007 that Facebook announced that it would allow people to opt-out of Beacon, with founder Mark Zuckerberg apologizing for the controversy. The basic principles of future social search are two-fold: (1) Users should have complete control of their private information and choose what and how to distribute it (2) Users should have access to information that other users have opted to share