What's the Future of Social Media?

Fred Wilson sparked an interesting discussion this weekend when he put forth his vision for social media. While it is hard to determine where social media will go he envisioned social media as “every single human being posting their thoughts and experiences in any number of ways to the Internet.” The main point of contention was whether or not most users will actually become contributors to social media.

As Charlene Li wrote in her recent book, Groundswell, Forrester research found that the majority of users will not write their own blog post let alone post a comment on a blog. Instead they will simply consume the content and move on to the next interesting thing that they find. While Fred Wilson may have an active base of readers, I can guarantee you that the majority of readers on his site simply read his article and move on with their day.

While I agree that we will see a continuing increase in the volume of contributors and content creators, social media will still be subject to societal restrictions. There is still a minority of people that don’t have access to a computer as well as uneducated individuals that are illiterate or face other disabilities. The day that everybody contributes to social media is the day that everybody in this country votes.

It is a beautiful vision but unfortunately I don’t think it is realistic. What do you think the future of social media holds? Do you think that everyone will eventually become content creators?

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.