The social communities opens doors

Just as Google launches their realtime search - Twitter, Myspace and Facebook, announces that they're releasing all their data flow. The flow of realtime data will thereby increase dramatically on the web. The realtime data is for example "tweets" from Twitter.

Last week Europe´s largest internet convention "Le web" took place in Paris. Realtime became the word of the week. Platform executive of Twitter Ryan Sarver was met with applause when he announced that Twitter will release their "firehose" open to all developers. That means that all the data that Twitters users produce will be released unfiltered. It's a big difference from today were users have to write search questions in their applications to get data, for example everything a certain user writes or everything about a specific subject.

Twitter´s hoping that more companies will build their business on the datastream. "We're building real stores. Today there's over 50 000 applications that uses Twitters data", says Ryan Sarver. A couple of examples are Cotweet, Oneriot and Tweetmeme, that helps companies find relevant information in the data flow. This might also be the future business model for Twitter, whom are known for not having any real incomes. In the future Twitter wants a part of the income that the companies using their data makes.

So why are the companies interested in this data? We're yet to see the widespread applications that makes use of this data flow. But one thing is for certain: the social communities are great places for trend spotting. Millions of viewers everyday post opinion on everything and nothing. If the companies learns how to filter this data they can come in direct contact with their costumers and potential costumers.

Not long ago every self respecting company were building their own communities and had their own social functions. Consultants and it-companies have made a lot of money on project that have rarely succeeded. Even if that thought still lives on to some extent it's beginning decline. Services like Facebook Connect makes it possible for any company to create an easily accessible communication tool for their clients and web visitors, using Facebook's technical platform and data.

"How many times haven't we seen companies creating their own community only to fail?", says Ethan Beard, platform executive at Facebook. Connect is partially an identification system that allows users to log in to their Facebook account on the companies websites, to that the companies can tie functions like chat, comments, recommendations or games.

On Facebook you are who you are and that is very valuable for companies. It's also important that your friends are there and that you together create content and value. More and more companies tie themselves to services like this every day. Ethan Beard sees potential for the future: "Look at the e-commerce. Before the web, how did we shop? - Together. If we can recreate that social experience there's a great value in that."

Karl-Oskar Janzon.