Credit: Ludwig Gatzke

Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. Passwords, for example, or information about someone’s every move, or social networks.

Numerous info-graphics have appeared on flickr and other image-sharing sites showing the plethora of social media brands that exist. With names like Plurk and Orkut, they sound more like bathroom noises than brands (although Orkut is the Google employee’s name who developed that service, so there’s some charm in that).

Overabundance, of course, is standard operating practice at the birth of any industry. Once upon a time there were innumerable railways in Canada, now there are three majors and a small cadre of short lines. Once upon a time the newspaper industry was populous with independent dailies, most long since hoovered up by Southam turned Hollinger turned Canwest, Torstar, Quebecor, and the Irvings. Car manufacturers – same deal. Steel? Ditto.

The obvious conclusion is we have an era of consolidation coming on the social web, notwithstanding that Plurk and Orkut are hugely popular in the Phillipines and Brazil, respectively.

One of the key benefits that could come out of consolidation would be fewer passwords. By show of hands, who knows all their passwords and readily remembers their usernames? No one? Yeah, me neither. So the “single sign on” wars are afoot, with various providers trying desperately to be our passport to all things web. Facebook Connect (you’d trust them with your passport, right?), OpenID, OAuth, and Microsoft Live ID are all vying to be your central sign on. The trouble is, no victor has emerged, and not all providers seem either secure or trustworthy.

As Altimeter Group web strategist Jeremiah Owyang said last year:

“One of the key findings from the very popular report ‘The Future of the Social Web’ … is that identity technologies like Facebook Connect, OpenID, as well as existing identities will soon colonize the web, making every webpage a social experience –even if they don’t choose to participate.”

Turns out Owyang was quite prescient in this statement, as we saw Facebook take a public relations beating lately for essentially imposing byzantine privacy settings on an unsuspecting user base inadvertently sharing more than they realized via Facebook’s “Open Graph”.

And so it goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Speaking of déjà vu all over again, I get a weird chill every time someone starts talking about location-based services. Back in 2001 when I was at TELUS Mobility, everyone in wireless was soooo positive location-based services would be a revenue boon to the industry. The combo of GPS and content on a cell phone was just too appealing to the tech crowd – it had to have legs. Every year since, someone proclaims this is the year of location-based services.

Yeah right.

As an ex-advertising guy, I can’t even imagine every store in the mall blipping my cell phone with coupons as I walk by; I’d go ballistic, and so would you. Tracking fleets of school buses or dump trucks is one thing, but for consumers this is mainly just a technological solution looking for a problem.

Which brings me to Foursquare and Gowalla, location based check-in services that let you become the fake Mayor of pizza joints and pubs and announces to thieves you aren’t home. @jgombita calls it “Boresquare” and I’m with her – what an irritating stream of the utterly mundane to pollute the airwaves (I just became the Mayor of Wal-Mart!). Groan.

The giant digital/blues-fest known as South by Southwest was supposed to be the coming out party for location-based social services like Foursquare, but they barely even got the digerati  to care. What does that say for the potential for mass adoption? Unlikely, at best.

As with social networks, sometimes less is more. The eras of consolidation and colonization should reduce the number of social networks and login credentials. We can only hope we’ll see an accompanying reduction in location updates, leaving more room in the stream for good stuff like @sh**mydadsays and @BPGlobalPR.

As usual, send me your feedback on Twitter at @dblacombe or via e-mail doug@communicatto.com.

Doug Lacombe is president of communicatto.com, a social media marketing agency.

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