I continue to think it’s interesting to draw parallels from natural sciences and what’s happening to the social industry, and also how communities behave and grow. From the five eras of the social web (my inspiration was the stratification of this beach cliff), and watching the enterprise software players (my inspiration was spending a day at a tropical aquarium), there’s yet a third metaphor to explore.

The Cambrian explosion is still hotly debated between creationists and evolutionists, a period of time when millions of species proliferated in a relatively short period of time. This explosion, in theory, gave a tremendous amount of deviation of species that paved a way for the creatures who developed the right features to quickly adapt to the changing environment. Despite the millions of species created, only a few survived and evolved to the modern species we now know.

There’s a lot of similar things happening within the startup space, we saw an explosion of startups appear in this second wave of the web, yet this graphic shows that many are going extinct, and a few were acquired by other organisms. What caused this explosion? At least two factors: Injection of VC money into the developer community, and the low barriers to entry for startups to get going. Opensource development software is virtually free, there are many platforms people are building on top of (Facebook platforms is like an operating system, with instant users), and the need for a large data center can be ‘offshored’ to the cloud.

As the industry matures, we should expect some of the few startups to mature, take the lead and become the dominant species, same as what we saw in the first web wave with weather.com, ebay, craigstlist, google, yahoo, and others. There were thousands of companies that didn’t make it (I saw this first hand as I worked at the massive web host Exodus in Santa Clara). Going with this metaphor, it’ll be interesting to see which companies develop the features of long term monetization –something we haven’t fully seen across the industry –that will foster an increased chance of survival.

Back to you: Aside from generating revenue, what are the key features these young species/companies need to develop?

Above Video: John McCrea and long term friend Joseph Smarr (He knew me way back when I was Hitachi’s community manager) and I…ahem yes, Mr Spock too, chat on Social Web TV at Plaxo, one of the companies I interviewed for the report.

The Viddler player is social in itself, you can leave comments, tags, or hyperlinks in the segment itself, yup, I’m Viddler’s evangelist Colin Devroe’s baby daddy, you won’t be surprised to find out that is one ugly baby.

The blog post covering the recent release of the report The Future of the Social Web continue to radiate across the web –with interesting discussions, questions, and comments.

Also, I was asked do I keep track of the accuracy of my predictions? The answer is yes, we self-graded our predictions from 2008, and are keeping ourselves accountable in this transparent world. It’s important to note that no one can predict the future, so that’s why we did research and interviewed the top minds at the top companies, what we compiled is the most accurate lens to what’s going to happen that anyone’s been able to package into a report. I’ve also started a running list of examples in the five eras of the social web, so we can watch how it unfolds.

I write to you from Amsterdam, as I trek the globe sharing the five eras of the social web research, I look forward to coming to your conference or company to present.

Social Technographics Reveal Dutch Adopt More Than Neighbors
I’m an American social computing analyst in the Netherlands –which gives me a unique perspective to peer into the adoption and culture of social networks.

I’m here in the center of Amsterdam, overlooking a canal. Yesterday, I presented the above social technographics of the Netherlands at the Corporate Social Networking Conference, and talked about the future of the social web, MarketingFacts live blogged it in Dutch, but you can try the Google Translator (although I’m told the translation gives some comedic interpretations). Although the Netherlands are a smaller country compared to many, their adoption of social technologies is significantly higher than their neighbors –and many other cultures across the web.

Last night, I met Patrick, the founder of a European social media blog The Next Web, (smaller, but similar to Techcrunch), and Raymond, the founder of Hyves, the most popular Dutch social network. We discussed why the Dutch have an affinity towards social technologies on the local news (called BNR) listen in to this 23 minute clip of social networking in Netherlands. Apparently, I was the first to bring this program to be spoken in English rather than Dutch, I wonder how the loyal listeners will react.

Test Driving Hyves, A Dutch Social Network
For my research, I interviewed Raymond last night, one of the Hyves founders, I learned this SNS was founded in 2004, and was inspired by Google’s Orkut, he mentioned Cyworld a few times, also a regional SNS from South Korea. I learned that up 50% of the Dutch population could be on Hyves (although some may have double accounts) for a total of 8 million accounts of a total population of 16 million, and 60% of the Dutch population visits the site at least monthly. Brands are waking up to this, and there have been marketing efforts from Unilever, KPN, Vodafone, and Bacardi.

I’ve created a Hyves account (Hyves, like in bee “Hyve”) to learn more about how these tools are being used, if you’re already on, you can add me as a friend and I’ll add you back. A few key features that are interesting: There’s a way to enter your license plate number, and search for others. Secondly, a premium feature you can pay for is to have some abilities to have analytics, and see who’s looking at your profile. This network appears to be geared towards a younger generation that wants to socialize and connect, although the numbers suggest it’s gone mainstream across many age groups.

Potential Factors to Social Technology Adoption
With the Dutch population being so active with social technologies, I have to ask why, and make some comparisons to cultures like Japan, South Korea, and US where adoption continues to grow. Not being an expert at Dutch culture, I have to wonder if the following factors come into play to any culture:

Strong web based infrastructure, availability of high speed networks and access to wireless.

Mobile based culture where most citizens have smart phone devices with web surfing ability.

A culture and government that encourages independent thought and freedom of expression.

Social acceptance of sharing, learning and collaboration.

It would be rude for me to assert any cultural observations, so if you’re Dutch, I’d like to hear your opinion. What else would you add to these proposed criteria, or does each culture have a unique set of factors that governs its social technology adoption?

Left: Dr. Urs Gasser of Harvard’s Berkman Center, who focuses on Digital Natives.

I’m live blogging from Corporate Social Networking Conference in Amsterdam, and listening to Dr. Urs Gasser of Harvard’s Berkman Center, his website and twitter account (works with friend Doc Searls) who coined the term “Digital Natives”. In my opinion, the Berkman Center is the leading think tank in academia focused on the internet and impacts to culture.

The kids born after 1980 are often thought of as Digital Natives but age doesn’t always matter as the generation is defined on: access to digital technologies since birth, age, and have the skills to use the digital technologies. Those who come before these digital natives are referred to as digital immigrants. For what it’s worth, I’m right in between both, giving me a perspective of both worlds.

Key Characteristics of Digital Natives:

They interact with the peers across the globe: This impacts employers, brands, teachers, parents, as this first generation enters the workforce.

Always online: By age 20, kids will have spent 20,000 hours online –the same amount of time a professional piano player would have spent practicing Urs Gasser, paraphrased
Multiple identities, personal and social, shared online and offline (blurring): Online representation is the same as physical representation: what your clothes, friends, vehicles say about you.

Extensive disclosure of personal data: 35% of girls in US are writing a blog vs 20% boys. Opportunity for HR departments to learn more about their employees, but guess what? They Google you too.

Culture of sharing: The default behavior is information sharing, not only do they have the right to speak, but to be heard. Risk: breach of confidentiality is hip, digital natives are fans of wikileaks.

Creators, no longer passive users: This generation creates their own content and shares their opinion online, see the Forrester’s social Technographics to learn about the data.

Information processing habits: Pointed out that the second most popular social network was YouTube. They often ‘graze’ the headlines and don’t often read the full article. (I guess few natives will read this far? Prove me wrong in the comments). Opportunities: companies should allow natives to increase creativity to rip, mix, burn content to encourage interaction.

Peer collaboration, online activism: They often experience work with community builders, and are responsive to intrinsic motizations.

Learning through browsing: Yes wrestles with amount & quality of information, generational “multitakers”. They may not be able to identify qualified and expert sources. “If it’s online, it must be true!”

On a related note, this month, I’m starting a research paper on Social Behaviors of Generation X, which is a bit older than Generation Y, if you’re a brand or agency that has case studies of how you’ve reached Gen X using social technologies, I want to know. Email me at jowyang at Forrester.com

Pics from the event, at a converted industrial complex westergasfabriek “Western Gas Factory”, extremely hip venue.