Social Media Redundancy – Do We Need 10 Different Social Platforms?

Duplicate Sites with Different Names?

With it being 2012 most people (and most businesses) are now socially active on a number of different networking sites. Most will be on Facebook or Twitter, but then the more savvy will also have a profile on Linkedin, Youtube, Foursquare and Google+.

But do we really need to have a presence on each of these sites? And more importantly, when will a time come when full functionality is integrated into one site?

Well, what is hindering the merger of Facebook with Twitter or Google+ with Linkedin? Read below to find out:

At the moment there is a competitive element to the development of social media sites, for instance Google+ wants to outperform Facebook. This has created a lot of excitement for users as when each network lands a new blow, they are exposed to glorious (and sometimes not so glorious) new features. But is this all necessary?

Social networking control panels are in abundance, one of the most popular being Hootsuite. So, we know that people want to integrate their profiles together and in most cases these sites have enough functionality to allow activity to take place, that at present is only available with a competitor.

Take the latest social media site to emerge, Pinterest. This site is an online pin board, where users can link to some of their favourite pictures on the web. This site has become extremely popular with fashion students and interior design students, I’ve even used it to post SEO diagrams. But I find myself asking, “Couldn’t I just do this on Facebook?”.

Apps have now been developed to allow you to integrate one online profile with another, for example you can now add a Pinterest tab onto your Facebook Profile. However, when will the time come when the following toolbar (see below) is something that you see on Facebook or Twitter? 1 year, 5 years or even longer? Only time will tell. I suppose we will have to wait for multiple mergers or until Facebook has enough capital to buy out its competitors.