Outsmarting Social Media: Profiting in the Age of Friendship Marketing

7. The Possibilities of Social Data

This chapter is about the what-ifs and the what-will-be’s. It is different from the other chapters in this book in that it does not offer practical tips that you can put into action today. However, its true use—and for the most entrepreneurial among you, this will be the most exciting use of all—is helping you to understand what our reality will look like in the next 5 to 10 years.

The phase of the Internet we’re currently in, which is all about using social data to experience the world in a more human way, is slowly giving way to the kind of future we’ve been seeing portrayed in the movies since the 1980s. Picture waking up in your bedroom to the sound of your phone’s alarm clock ringing. But instead of that ...