What the Past Can Tell Us About the Future of Social Networking

This blog post originally appeared in serialized form here on TechCrunch. This post has a bit more than the serialized version, but if you prefer an even shorter version I created the ADHD version, which is < 50% the length.

I recently spoke at Caltech at the Caltech / MIT Enterprise Forum on “the future of social networking,” the 30-minute video is here and the PowerPoint presentation is here on DocStoc).

What I want to answer with this post (long though it may be) is:

• Why did Web 2.0 emerge and are there any lessons to be gained about the future? [cheap accessible digital hardware]
• Why did Twitter emerge despite Facebook’s dominance? [asymmetry, real-time, curated RSS / link-sharing]
• Why did MySpace lose to Facebook & what can Twitter learn from this? [encouraging an open platform where 3rd parties can make lots of money]
• Does Facebook have a permanent dominance of the future given their 500m users? [chuckle. ask microsoft, aol/time warner & google]
• What are the big trends that will drive the next phase of social networks? [mobile, locations, layering of services, data management, portability & more]