So, by now most of us either know about or have played with social networking sites like Twitter, MySpace and Facebook. What do most of these sites have in common? They have activity streams. An activity stream could contain just about anything. A whole stream could be devoted to individuals swapping images back and forth or, most commonly, a stream will consist of “instant message” style chatting where one person will post something on your profile and then you comment back or post something on their profile. You can see this flawlessly in action on Facebook.

Facebook allows you to sort your streams by news, pages, status updates, photos and links. Twitter, is one massive activity stream, that’s all there is, but that’s why it’s so effective. A simple design in a “fast forward” world allows people to communicate to one another easier and faster than ever before. You can download plugins for your Firefox to pop-up Twitter messages just like when you receive a new email through Outlook.

Activity streams are making their way into the workplace. Businesses are using them to communicate internally and there’s a chance that in the future company executives will be more accessible than ever as customers may be able to communicate with higher-ups directly through the companies website.

Social media continues to grow and expand like never before. Google has taken a shot at the market by developing Google Wave which essentially is a way for people to interact with one another on the fly. If you and a friend are typing message to each other you’ll be able to see what they’re typing as their doing it.

Internet technology is getting more advanced and expect these systems and features to play a major role in your marketing efforts down the road.