Currently, there are several sites under the social media umbrella from Digg, Flickr and MySpace to Twitter, LinkedIn and Spoke. However, it seems Facebook is working hard to be the center of the social media universe.
What began as a gossip site for college students in a small geographic region has evolved into a worldwide cross generational and cultural phenomenon that is expanding to invade the domains of other social media networks. Facebook has stepped onto the business networking turf of LinkedIn and Spoke, loosened its former membership restrictions to encompass a demographic beyond current college students and included the musical networking originally of MySpace and photo sharing of Flickr.
Facebook’s most recent evolution allows businesses to have profiles that work and move in networks in a similar manner to personal profiles while the new “publisher” feature rewards information generators the way Twitter does.
While the rest of the social media sites have become stagnant in features and offerings, Facebook continuously refines its site to provide the services demanded by those who use its site.
All in all:
Brands attempting to stay on top of the new consumer-generated-content-based marketplace neglect those consumers at their own peril.