The great social platform race. What it means for communications pros.

So is your head swimming yet?  Mine is  (and I’m not even talking about the snow).

First, Facebook fiddled with our homepages to make them more “user-friendly,” changing the streams, making search easier and making emails and notifications more prominent.  Then yesterday the announcement of Google Buzz, the next great attempt from Google to bring all your social networking to one place (theirs) by melding GMail, Google Maps, video, pictures, IMing, etc. all into one spot.

The great race is on.  It is the race to become the ONE place for all social interaction on the web.

So what does this mean for folks in PR, marketing and communications who are trying to keep up and counsel their bosses, co-workers, clients, etc.?  Here are some initial thoughts:

• Watch, listen and experiment first:  The best thing you can do is try to figure out these changes for yourself first before you make some grand pronouncements about the platform of the future.  There will be changes, additions, shakeouts.   Google is following up with an enterprise version of Buzz in the near future so more is coming.
• Solicit the opinions from people you trust:  There’s already a great deal of opinions out there and we’re just hours into these new launches so do a lot of blog reading and talk to folks who you usually talk to about this stuff and we what they say.
• Don’t jump to conclusions or make hasty recommendations:  It’s alright to tell a client or colleague that the only thing is your sure of is that your not sure of anything yet. 
• There’s only one thing that’s for certain:  More change will come.  This is a race to the finish for your “social soul” with the big boys spending lots of time, energy and brain power and the race is just beginning.  Stay cool and stay informed.

For those of us old to remember it reminds me of the race between VHS and BetaMax.  While it’s hard to think of there being a clear winner or loser among Facebook, Google and Twitter stranger things have and will happen.

Would love to hear your thoughts.