Social media predictions from Gartner

It's been said that 2010 is the year that social media will go mainstream and Gartner, the research firm, seems to agree that consumer platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are driving enterprise adoption of similar collaborative technologies. 

Here are Gartner's key predictions:

By 2014, 20% of business application users will replace email with social networking services as the primary way to communicate with others.
Social networking will prove to be more effective than e-mail for certain business activities and over the next few years most companies will either build bespoke social networks or will allow the business use of personal social network accounts.

By 2012, more than 50% of enterprises will use aspects of Twitter-type applications but are unlikely to adopt standalone microblogging platforms.
Employees will use such functions to share insights and keep up to date with each other, but as an internal standalone system, the number of possible users will limit the value. It is the scale of Twitter that makes it popular; smaller user numbers reduces the appeal of a microblogging service.

Through 2012, more than 70% of IT-dominated social media initiatives will fail.
IT-driven platforms delivered instead of 'social solutions' will drive up failure rates and it will be a while before the shift of paradigm takes place as enterprises develop new skill sets.  Fifty per cent of business-led social media initiatives will succeed, versus 20% of IT-driven initiatives.

Within five years, smartphone applications will influence 70% of collaboration and communications applications designed for PCs.
As we move toward 3 billion phones in the world we'll see the lessons learned in the mobile phone collaboration space dramatically affect PC applications, many of which are derivatives of decades-old platforms based on the PBX or other older collaboration paradigm.

Through 2015, fewer than a quarter of enterprises will routinely utilise social network analysis to improve performance and productivity.
Social network analysis is a useful methodology for examining the interaction patterns and information flows that occur among the people and groups in an organisation, as well as among business partners and customers. However, when automated tools perform the analysis, users resent it. Issues of privacy and confidentiality must be addressed. Establishing the ground rules upfront will encourage more open and honest participation.

Mark R. Gilbert, research vice president, Gartner said, "Success in social software and collaboration will be characterised by a concerted and collaborative effort between IT and the business."