One of the indicators that shows that a particular vendor industry is getting mature is when the quantity of new solutions decreasing.
This situation happens when the extraordinary benefits decreased at the point where the new players get troubles to earn money.
A month ago or so I received an email IDEYA (A Business and Marketing consultancy firm) with a report calle “Social Media Monitoring Tools and Services”.
The report is paid but they share some interesting in the Excerpts pdf or the report presentation.
Two interesting points:
1. The quantity of new solutions launched per year (by introduction date) is decreased in 2010 for the first time in 10 years (except for 2006). Actually in 2009, the year of the global financial and economic crisis, five new solutions where launched.
2. The quantity of Paid Social Media Analytics solutions is four times higher than the free ones. This is probably because of the R&D constant investment required makes difficult the scenario for companies that don’t earn money with their solutions.
