Where did it all start? How did we get here?

Most likely the earliest original social media was memorized song, dance and chants performed around ancient fires. Writing soon followed as we etched in stone and clay. The first credible claim for the development of a real postal system comes from Ancient Persia but the point of invention still remains in question and debate. With the advent of the industrial age came Pneumatic Systems still in use today like at your banks drive through. With harnessing of electricity the telegraph was born then in rapid succession telephone and radio. ArapaNET the infant internet we know today appeared in the late 60’s and by the late 80’s Compuserve, AOL, and IRC had taken hold and the World Wide Web was preparing to explode into the early 90’s. By 2000 billions of people all around the world are online Chatting and Instant Messaging. Jump ahead to 2003 MySpace and Facebook come onto the scene and within a few years their users rival the populations of nations. 2005 brought us YouTube which has quickly become the world’s second largest search engine and last but definitely not least Twitter which recently surpassed 1 billion queries a day. Smart Phones, laptops and WIFI insure you access to the internet’s global social network everywhere. The world is plugged in and ready.

I just came across an old grade school project on the Masai warriors. Did it ever take me back. I can remember the house I lived in and the friends I'd walk to school with. With the volume of content being produced on the Internet, it was so different to see old sheets of paper stapled together with handwriting on them - writing that has stayed as is for years.

Then I gave some thought to the announcement made by the Library of Congress that they would catalog tweets. Imagine looking at your tweets from decades ago. How about looking at your grand dad's from 50 years ago? We may just get there. The library of Congress says it will catalog tweets made on Twitter from now on – all of them. Talk about looking back.

My attention span is not infinite and like anyone else is limited in this fast paced world. And that's without adding in my desktop at the office, laptop at home and Blackberry attached to my body. Then add the Internet which is seemingly infinite while busting that wide open with social networking that has in no time created life in an entirely new galaxy. I previously wrote about practical ways to protect your business name given the huge number of social networking sites -- by some accounts over 350!

So of course there is a tremendous focus on real time search. This will just put more emphasis on Twitter tweets and other social media especially Facebook Fan Pages. What does that mean for your web design? What does that mean for your business internet marketing, search engine marketing and search engine optimization?

Clicks of your Ow.ly Link, Not Impressions and Click Through Rate

We're already trying to manage social media burnout. Meanwhile the small business has to worry about Search Engine Optimization including on page content, a blog, off page article submission, press releases, and back links. Also in the mix are email campaigns and good old fashioned snail mail advertising and before I forget, mobile search.

Then along comes real time search and I can contribute to my SEO (and hopefully one day measurable ROI) by keeping up with my social media which tends to increase my visibility anyway. Sounds like a good two for one and if my plate is too full, something has to go.

So all of a sudden your Pay Per Click account looks suspicious. Spending $6.50 per click or more just to get someone to get to your site (who may just be researching or be a tire kicker or price shopper) doesn't look so good for many businesses in a strained economy.

If the mind set is all about real time search of stream of conscious then PPC is not needed. I always suspected those ads anyway as being less legitimate than the organic search results. Sure I haven't yet personally booked a hotel, found a good camera, or a nice restaurant through social media but aggregator tools may help with that.

Google Caffeine

We have Google Caffeine all but upon us. With a likely lessening of backlinks helping your SEO, a sure fire and probably abused way to get better SERP for several years now, social media and real time search gets that much more important. Combine that with paying $6.00 to $10.00 per key word phrase in PPC in a bad economy and it just maybe the perfect storm conspiring against PPC.

On the other hand, is Google doing an end around on organic search results? Initial indications are that they will divide up results pages similar to Ask.com.

This will tend to water down organic search results which have been taking a hit anyway. Currently sponsored ads across the top, the local map, directory website results, Google News results, video results and now real time potentially meaningless stream of conscious results will push any relevant organic result even further "below the fold" of any page result. This may leave search engine marketers with no choice but Pay Per Click.

So which is it? Would Google shoot itself in the foot? One thing is certain; the wave of social networking has moved even giants…even Google.

Twitter announced earlier today that they are testing a new mobile interface at http://mobile.twitter.com. It has some really neat functions and clean familiar design all built on top of Twitters API.

It is a pretty simple layout for interaction with Twitter but it still is lacking a few features that many users want and need.

Here's a list of the new features...

View what you're replying to when you reply.

The new reply view displays the tweet that's the subject of your reply. Putting a list of new tweets below the message composition box. Very cool!

Threaded DMs

Now you can view the history of Direct Messages between you and any other user whose profile page you're on. Although there is no way to view all recent DMs, I'm sure this is probably in the works.

Mobile Fail Whale

That's right! Finally you can get the beloved Twitter's error message, the Fail Whale, on your phone. Sure it's neat the first time. But we'll see how long this remains a pleasing feature.

SO...What's Missing?

Well for starters there is no support for Twitter Lists in this mobile interface. Without groups of some kind Twitter can be cluttered, especially if you follow a lot of people. So for now this new interface is going to be best suited to people who casually use Twitter.

You can't access to your saved searches, which is one of the nicest things about using the web interface. However you can see trending topics. Obviously this is intended to be a "fun" more than "functional" mobile interface.

Finally, it doesn't make use of the new Geolocation API. Why? I can think of so many great uses for mashing these two great API's together. Oh Well, maybe next year they will have a release with updates!

All in all, it's a pretty nice improvement to the mobile site - but it isn't going to replace Tweetdeck or Tweetie iPhone apps just yet.

We all know what a registered trademark® is by now. U.S. Federal trademark law (aka the Lanham Act) protects you from infringement of your registered product or service trade name. But what about all of this social media stuff?

Sure you just go get your Facebook Page, Twitter username, and LinkedIn Company Profile and you've gone a long way. As for anyone thinking of using Ferrari as part of their business name, trademark laws will stop you in the U.S. They will also stop you abroad through a treaty called the Madrid Protocol (even the Republic of Sudan just signed up for that agreement).

If it’s a cybersquatter that is taking your company’s registered trade name, then the international arbitration system created by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is for you. Just follow their procedures. You have a pretty strong enforcement ability there too since that’s where the magic of domain registration resides and they will transfer a domain name to where it belongs.

So you’re covered right? You guessed it, “Wrong!”

Depending on your point of view, you may not think this is enough. Let me help your point of view. There are at least 340 social network sites! Let me help some more. Some are big, some are small. ICANN rules regarding your domain name aren’t going to apply. Trademark laws in the US? Good luck. Madrid Protocol? Same.

We’re talking about anyone anywhere in the world that can go to any of these social media websites and register your business name, intentionally or not, and leave you wondering who it was with only some obscure customer service contact form of the social media site itself to try to get some relief.

So do at least this now:

1. Get your name and products set up on the big 3 (or 4 or 5…), Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn etc.
2. Decide which others you should get now like YouTube.
3. Research social media sites in your industry and get those (if you’re a photographer go to Flickr now for example).
4. Use a service like knowem.com to at least search and (possibly register) on multiple social networking sites for a fee (I have not used their service to register as yet but I have searched our own trade names).

This is just practical advice really because there does not seem to be any law or procedure that directly applies. An ICANN type procedure that applied to social networks would be a good start.

The wild west of racing to register domain names may soon pale in comparison to the social media network phenomenon. Even with a trademark, social medial sites are so pervasive that you will simply have to claim your most important “real estate” on the Internet before someone else does.