Brian Solis writes a thought-provoking post about how he sees the future of the social web, prompted by a Forrester report of the same name published in April.

Forrester’s research examined what’s happening in the context of what they describe as the five eras of the social web that began over a decade ago and continues through 2014. Their arguments on how the web is developing and evolving is nicely illustrated in this graphic from their report: how the five eras overlap and how the metamorphosis that’s happening is accelerating, driven by technology as a catalyst amid people’s rapidly-changing online behaviours.

Brian does a good job in summarizing the thrust of Forrester’s arguments, centred around portable identity or data portability as the prime catalyst for empowering consumers. His post makes some of the key aspects in Forrester’s report (which I read when it was published in April) a lot clearer.

Brian takes Forrester’s conclusion –

Today’s social experience is disjointed because consumers have separate identities in each social network they visit. A sim