So the Wispa is going back into production thanks to campaigns on various social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

The really big question for me is how did Cadbury’s come to the conclusion to discontinue the Wispa in the first place? Everyone I know loves them!

Social media websites have been in the news a lot, mainly with regard to how people’s privacy is compromised when they sign up to one. However the big sites, although slow off the mark, do seem to have realised that their future depends on getting people’s trust with regards to holding their data.

Both MySpace and Facebook have agreed to over 40 steps to protect users. What these steps are I haven’t been able to find out and therefore can’t comment on whether I think they are likely to make any real difference (if anyone has any more details give me a shout).

Google of course has been trying to get onto the social media bandwagon with OpenSocial and recently announced another initiative called Friend Connect which looks to allow people link up all their social media applications online.

Sounds great! But this of course is assuming all the data is held is way that protects to user. Google to be honest seems to have a good record for this kind of thing which is why I was very surprised to hear that Facebook had started to block Friend Connect. It would seem Facebook aren’t entirely happy with the amount of user data available to application developers which therefore breaks their own terms and conditions.

I’m very impressed with Facebook as this shows the kind of attitude needed to protect people online. This stance could be seen by some as negative as it’s inhibiting the free transfer of information in the social universe but clearly the technology is not mature enough to be main stream in my opinion.

Google won’t stand still on this of course and I’m sure the issues will be addressed and Facebook will come back on board but good on Facebook for taking this stance. More of the same and privacy issues might not be such a thorn in the side of social media.

I’ve read a fair bit about how social networking is going to replace search but I’ve been pretty sceptical about this so far. You have to meet my friends to understand this - we’d have trouble at a pub quiz (I’m joking guys honestly)!

Of course in actual fact it’s not the more closed social systems that this is referring to and therefore it wouldn’t just be a small group that would be suggesting how to perform open heart surgery if that’s what takes your fancy.

I can see that social networking could benefit search side by side almost acting as a checking algorithm against adverse manipulation. This already happens to a certain extent and I can only see this spread increasing. It’s is all well and good for apps like digg and del.icio.us but this has more far reaching consequences when it comes to Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. Privacy issues have been highlighted a lot in the media at the moment so the data within these walls should remain private and therefore unavailable to tap into.

However imagine the power of all this hidden information if a way of anonymizing the data could take place.

I’m still interested to see the next Google and social media might well spawn it so keeps those eyes pealed maybe it might be The Mechanical Zoo which when it launches claims to be a “social search”?

In any case there are still issues here with fact, fiction and opinion. Rumours spread like wildfire on the Internet so theoretically relying on the even less formal conversations within social media sites might actually end with less accurate information returned?

There are loads of social media applications floating about in the vastness of the Internet. Most will disappear into obscurity but a select few will hit the mainstream and will become a household name.

Now I must separate my interpretation of popular and mainstream. Facebook, MySpace and Bebo can truly claim to be mainstream purely from the perspective that they are heavily used by many varying groups of people. Generally speaking here mainstream needs to include people who aren’t just linked with technology and the Internet in some way. This is not to say that these people don’t use these applications of course (although there is another post to come here about the relative coolness to popularity of social media within some quarters). Quite often however people involved with online industries are aware of many more social media tools than Joe Public and this is where the popular social media applications come in.

Twitter is a good example of a popular application that hasn’t as yet gone mainstream. There are many evangelists of Twitter including colleagues of mine and a large number of the Birmingham Bloggers however I’m not sold that Twitter will be able to go mainstream. Sorry guys.

So back to the original question - why the difference? I think this purely has to be judged from the perceived advantages to people over existing technology. Technologists (if that’s a good term to cover them) are always interested in the newest technology and for the most part will try out far more applications than your average Internet user. They are also to a certain extent likely to be more forgiving of growing pains within a service. Your average user is more likely to be inpatient and want to see instant advantages without a lot of hassle and what’s more they want to feel like it something completely new otherwise why bother?

Going back to the Twitter example I can see some excellent uses for the system even for people outside of the technologists camp (thanks to Mark and Kev here for the discussion on Friday). One of Mark’s examples was Universities using Twitter as a broadcast system for cancelled lectures or similar. Certainly Twitter could handle this well but the issue here is that the current user-base isn’t large enough for this to be an effective answer. Now Universities could insist that students are registered for Twitter and have tweets sent to their mobile phones in much the same way as I was required to regularly check my emails for announcements (as reminded by Mark such a long time ago - cheeky get). However there are a couple of missing links here in my opinion.

Firstly someone has got to be enthusiastic enough about the service to sell this to colleagues to even get to the point of deployment. Secondly and most importantly they’ve got to evaluate the additional hassle to get students to register (and chase the ones that don’t). Now again Mark stepped in to say that this could be bundled into the various induction activities which is true. But deep down I know for the most part that this is a lot more long and drawn out process than just taking the student’s mobile number (that is probably already known from enrollment) and using an SMS service to send announcements direct.

Of course I’m sure there will be exceptions to the rule from people particularly enthusiastic about a service but generally speaking there must be a major perceivable benefit to the end user. For this reason many applications remain used by a niche group.

I’d be interested to see other people’s opinions (possibly to change mine) not just about Twitter but also other applications currently not mainstream. Although I would be interested in any suggestions for Twitter uses that might swing my opinion.

As usual I’m bound to change my mind a couple of months down the road and if I do Mark will be waiting!