What’s across the social media chasm?

A few days ago I had the privilege of being a guest speaker at my friend Thom Haller’s information architecture course at the USDA Graduate School in Washington. We discussed the future, and questions about who will own the social graph and how we’ll manage privacy and what types of media will enjoy widespread adoption, and I found myself thinking about the bigger question: what’s across the chasm?

I’m referring, of course, the Geoffrey Moore’s concept of “crossing the chasm,” and the idea that the early adopters of technology are very different from the early majority users. In other words, the people enthusiastically using something new will not behave like the early mass audience.

I think this is true of social media. There is a core group of very heavy users, the people who debate whether Twitter, Friendfeed, or Plurk are more useful, who are immersed in blog conversations, who live and breathe it. But will their (our) use of social media mirror its broader use?

In other words, how will social media work for regular people who’ve never had the slightest desire to send a tweet?

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