Blogging at 20? The Future and Potential of Social Media

If social media are the defining advance of Web 2.0, whereby the network-as-platform enabled users not just to download content but to create it, tag it and share it, what will the next decade hold? Many of the social media businesses whose tools we rely on have yet to make a profit, whilst concerns about privacy, security and possibly even dignity suggest that our online habits may have to change. The technology press has for some time been heralding the oncoming arrival of Web 3.0, as an era where the web gets 'smart', and research on the developing semantic web suggests that this is no idle prediction. But what will happen to social media in the interim? Will the next ten years see our fascination with blogging, wikis and social networks replaced by a re-focusing on the enhanced informational capacity of the Web or will we continue to Tweet?