The rapid rise of social network tools like Facebook and Twitter present businesses with significant challenges; from the standpoint of understanding the dozens of available platforms and their relative effectiveness to what, if any, direct value these specific tools represent to the basic goals of driving revenue, acquiring new customers, mitigating costs and supporting distribution channels. These popular tools share two themes that are becoming rapidly adopted by millions of users – 1) distribution of content in real-time (The Stream) and 2) the movement toward ever more segmented content for different and exclusive delivery platforms.

As marketers have begun to embrace the potential of utilizing what falls under the big umbrella of “social networks” and budget and staff activities for this new channel, it is becoming evident that the web is evolving toward becoming a more fragmented and challenging place to manage than ever. Fast.

One of the most important aspects of Facebook and Twitter (as well as hundreds of other applications like  is the practical actualization of the real time Web. Until very recently, the Web operated on what amounted to a traditional publisher model, albeit on a vastly accelerated origination and distribution schedule. The act of posting to a Facebook wall or tweeting now creates content on the fly – designed for consumption in the moment. Erick Schonfeld wrote of The Stream and how the Web is quickly becoming organized around not just the subject but rather how current that content is.

The social media channel is not a wide pipe but a bundle of very specific channels acting as conduits for content exchange and user interactivity aligned around communities of common interest, subject matter, context and media type. Josh Bernoff, co-author of “Groundswell” calls it the Splinternet. His recent blog post paints a dire picture of a future where dozens of different devices interact (or don’t) with dozens of different content walled-gardens, i.e., the end of Internet ubiquity where pretty much everyone can see the same thing, regardless of hardware or connection type. Bernoff posits that tools like Facebook keep most of their content behind user logins and passwords, have their own unique formats, ad platforms, standards and applications that serve to keep search engines and users that don’t reside inside of their social ecosystem out. In other words, a sort of Balkanization of the Web where publishers establish their own delivery platforms and can restrict access based upon the type of device or payment scheme. The NY Times plans to introduce a metered access model next year that will restrict access – presumably specific hardware platforms will work with this model in a variety of ways. Perhaps an Android mobile device or the new iPad will grant access through separate subscription deals or as a part of a bundled wireless phone plan. Marketers will no longer be able to develop for and manage for a standardized internet but for specific distribution paths – browser, mobile, iPad, Facebook, etc. Perhaps the notion of a standard and open Internet has always been something of a myth – it’s too simple and ethereal to be real. At any rate, that unicorn is an endangered species.