Thursday, October 25, 2007

Launch of mEgo and Other Adver Widget News

Last month mEgo.com launched at TechCrunch40 in San Francisco to strong reviews. You can experience a mEgo by clicking on mine, posted 9/18 to this blog. mEgo is a portable profiling application for use across multiple social networks. And as such, it's part of a major trend sweeping the interactive landscape: ubiquity. In other words, being able to place an application in multiple social network environments, and transfer it virally. Adver-widgets are one expression of this trend, and in some ways mEgos are adver-widgets, although they are of far greater complexity and functionality than any others that I've seen.

The key insight here is, how will users, social networks and advertisers react to the growing proliferation of social networks? Over the next few years, I anticipate that most adults between 18-34 will be on an average of 5+ social networks. Those that acknowledge that trend and plan for it will be the winners of the social network world, while those that try the "walled garden" approach of keeping their users on only their platform will end up like...well, like AOL. We remember them, don't we? Web gardens were not meant to be walled! Are you listening, MySpace?

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