This is a very detailed article about what our near future will be on social networks. The author likens social networks to air, that we can't live without it and it will be everywhere and easy to access. What we will be looking for is an ubiquitous social network. It will take around five years to bring it around, and the four components of social networks now is profiles, relationships, activities, and business models. But the future will be universal identities, single social graph, social context for activities, and social influence defining marketing value.
Universal Identities: There won't be tons of profiles that have to be maintained over many sites, but it will be easy to maintain them all like OpenID has done. It is a federated approach, where each person will have an ID that will connect them to all of their sites.
Single social graph: It basically helps you keep track of everyone you communicate with and how close you are to them. So if you only phone a certain person or just email, then you can make that happen. The graph explains this pretty well.
Social context for activities: Social networks will be integrated into everything that you do. So when you want to do shopping, you can do that on Facebook, and such and so on. Right now we can only scratch the surface of how much can be done on social networks.
Business model where social influences defines marketing value: Right now advertisers don't do a great job on social networks. What they need to do is reach the people that have a lot of influence and get them endorsed to advertise, or just get them on board. This is done in real life with public relations reaching out to key influencers. But if they can do that online, which they will in the near future, they will be doing a much better job.
http://forrester.typepad.com/groundswell/2008/03/the-future-of-s.html
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