Obviously the more popular ones have mainstream adoption but have also crossed the hype lifecycle of social products. In other words they are not the ‘ones to watch out’ as say the product on the left side of the graph.

If 50 pages of reading puts you off, I suggest you atleast go through the ‘User Advice’ section. This tells users or early adopters about things to look out for in the industry.

There are several good tips in the paper, for veterans and new users although, my favourite piece of advice in regards to Social Software Suites is:

“IT managers should resist the demand from users to simply install social software  tools without thinking through how they will be used. Early implementations should not only evaluate the maturity and usability of the technology but, even more important, they should be set up to answer questions about business value and relevance to specific business contexts. … ” (Page 24 – 3rd paragraph)

It is almost impossible to predict which social software will get maximum hype going forward. I predict with the launch of OpenSocial and Facebook Connect – Social Data Portability will be the future of several social networks, followed by Social Mining (i.e. application of analytics to social content).

Blogs are no more a novelty, it is more of a must have. Gone are the days when blog could be point of difference between the marketing strategy of two corporations. Saying that, a survey done in May 2008 by Fortune magazine shows only 12% of Fortune 500 firms have corporate blogs.

The paper overall is a must read for anyone vaguely interested in social software. Given the variety of social products there is something for everyone:

On the Rise
Alumni Community Management………………………………………………………………….7
Enterprise Internet Reputation Management………………………………………………….8
HCM and Social Software……………………………………………………………………………9
Social Networks for Sales…………………………………………………………………………..11
Social Learning Platform……………………………………………………………………………12
Social Mining and Social Intelligence…………………………………………………………..13
Social Data Portability……………………………………………………………………………….15
Activity Streams………………………………………………………………………………………..16
Crowdsourcing………………………………………………………………………………………….17
Idea Marketplaces…………………………………………………………………………………….18
Private Virtual Worlds………………………………………………………………………………..20
Ubiquitous Collaboration……………………………………………………………………………21
Community Marketing………………………………………………………………………………..22
Social Networks: Customer Service…………………………………………………………….23
Social Software Suites……………………………………………………………………………….23

At the Peak
Microblogging…………………………………………………………………………………………..25
Unified Communications and Collaboration………………………………………………….27
Mobile Social Networks……………………………………………………………………………..29
Social Search…………………………………………………………………………………………..31
Expertise Location and Management…………………………………………………………..31
Prediction Markets…………………………………………………………………………………….32
Social Computing Platforms……………………………………………………………………….33

Sliding Into the Trough
Social Bookmarking…………………………………………………………………………………..35
Open-Source Social Software…………………………………………………………………….36
Public Virtual Worlds…………………………………………………………………………………37
Immersive Learning Environments………………………………………………………………38
Folksonomies/Social Tagging…………………………………………………………………….39
Corporate Blogging……………………………………………………………………………………40
Idea Management……………………………………………………………………………………..42
RSS in the Enterprise………………………………………………………………………………..42
Social Network Analysis…………………………………………………………………………….44
Wikis……………………………………………………………………………………………………….45

Climbing the Slope
Blogs……………………………………………………………………………………………………….46