Social networks of the future - personalized social networks...

In a near future, OpenSocial will come to a site near you. And this is how it will work:

1. You come to a social site because it's all about your niche interest. The site has great content in the niche, a professional editor picks the best of user generated content (blog posts, news, videos) and combines it with custom made material.

2. It's a great site, so you decide to join the network. When you join, you use your OpenId identity - no new password to remember, and you import personal data of choice from other sites that you use.

3. When your account is created, some standard third party applications are installed for you on the site. It's a messaging system, news aggregator, a forum, a niche marketplace, and a calendar, all picked out by the site editors.

4. Once in the network, you continue to take part of and create new niche specific content. When you create content, you can also share it on other sites where you are a member, but only if it's in the interest of that site and your contacts on that site. As you are registered, the niche site creates a profile for you, so that you get even better matched content (and probably better matched ads) each time you enter the site.

5. When visiting friends profiles on the site, you'll notice that some of the applications they have added on their profile page are of great usage for that niche. Some third party applications are used more broadly, and as on Facebook, you'll add some of them to your own profile. Applications spread viral, as on Facebook, but this time they are actually relevant to your interest rather than lowest common denominator applications.

Now the site is perfect for you, great content, relevant third party applications, and you only share with the crowd of your choice.

7. Four years later, your no longer interested in the niche (you don't play WOW anymore ;-)) and you choose to delete your profile from the site. You can save your settings to a private file, if you want to rejoin the site later without loosing your history. Your posts are still there, but once you delete your profile, the site owner can no longer access your personal data or email.

The next big thing - Not a single social network...

It's pretty obvious that Facebook has lost its charm of novelty by now. Superwalls, vampires and comparison tools aren't as interesting as they were for a few weeks back in 2007.

So what is the next step in social networking? Just as before, most people will continue to use Social networks based on the social site's niche. If you're interested in music, you'll go to a niche music site and communicate with your likes there, if you need to communicate to your real life friends, you'll be using a messenger service, and if you want to stay in touch with school friends you'll use a site as classmates.com.

What people don't want is to communicate to all contacts and friends in the same way. I don't want my professional contacts to see me in a picture drunk and I want to be able to create a online persona in my own niche not influenced on my status in say, High School. I also want to feel special and interesting, which I do on a niche network, but not on a very general network (lets face it, Facebook is as niched and interesting to be part of as the telephone directory). So the online behaviour of people will shift back to the one prior to Facebook.

At the same time Facebook and others has made us very spoiled - networks should be as easy to use as Facebook, people should be as easy to find as on facebook, and third party applications are great, even greater for a niched market.

OpenSocial and other related ventures are the answer - you'll get the best parts of the facebook / myspace phenomena, but you are the one in control. Simplicity with single login, single messaging tools, but different content, third party applications and active friends for each of your network. And even more important, not a single, powerful owner of all aspects of your social life!