As my boss, Pam Edstrom, is famously known for liking to ask in many situations, “What is the business problem we are trying to solve?”  Solving problems is the main driver of innovation, and when it comes to social media the problem today is simply keeping up with all the new social networking sites that are cropping up.  The giants are still MySpace and Facebook, but many of you will have seen the emails that appear daily inviting you to yet another site wanting to usurp that status.  Social networking is community based and odds of survival for any new site depend on attracting a critical mass of users, so they focus their energies on making their site viral and sticky.

Thus, the new problem to solve becomes helping users manage the number of sites that they already subscribe, by allowing them to amalgamate feeds from several sites, or post to several sites simultaneously.  FriendFeed is great for that, and I’ve recently tried Posterous which I also like.  Posterous also makes it easy to post via email, which neatly bypasses the problem that international users like myself have of not being allowed to SMS to US sites. 

We’re all familiar with blogging, and five years ago blogging was usually the only self-publishing you did online.  Now we have Twitter, which I must admit I post to a lot more simply because micro-blogging appeals to my fast-paced style.  Sites like FriendFeed and Posterous also make it easy to cross-pollinate the various blogging channels that we use. I’ve looked at other blogging possibilities, but I must admit I am hitting my limit for how many social media sites and blog platforms I have time for.

For all the sites, including Facebook, FriendFeed, Posterous, etc. the business problem is how to make money.  I know advertising is the obvious answer but a part of me does wonder is that it? Whoever licks that problem will set the tone for innovation on the Internet for the next decade.