I wanted to give my take on Ravit Lichtenberg’s RWW’s post “10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2010″ and give a Middle Eastern spin.

1. Social Media Will Become a Single, Cohesive Experience Embedded In Our Activities and Technologies: “While I do agree that “everything we do will be gathered and streamed together, allowing people to view their world of activities as if it were projected in front of them, open to change, review and input at any point in time from any device or online tool,” this applies only to those people that actually opt-in to multiple services that then aggregate that activity. Otherwise, as the majority who seem to confine their social media activities to Facebook, their activity will be aggregated and collectively streamed in totality based on the structure of the site. Facebook has recently defaulted to open this means that more and more people will be publicly sharing, and since Eric Schmidt doesn’t give a damn about people’s privacy, then the Google behemoth will also exert publication preference on people as well. We will be more open whether anyone asks us or not. The statement that, “Users will access content from any device or platform, co-create and mashup their photos, videos and text with traditional content while interacting with each other” is wishful thinking since the majority are not creators and remixers, but viewers and perhaps commenters. Social Media in the Middle East is even further behind in terms of the participation hierarchy, so interaction around mashups will just be inching into the region by the end of 2010 for early adopters.