According to a study by Forrester Research, technologies that let people carry their online identities around with them (Hooray! - the death of the registration page) will transform the way companies (and hence all organisations) approach online media and marketing.

Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang foresees the Web evolving from separate social sites into a shared social experience.

“Consumers will rely on their peers as they make online decisions, whether or not brands choose to participate. Socially connected consumers will strengthen communities and shift power away from brands and CRM systems”. Eventually this will result in empowered communities defining the next generation of products.

The key challenge for organisations at the moment is that information about people – the information they need to understand and access their customers and donors - their profiles, and their friends is locked away in separate networks.

But this is set to change according to Forrester report. “Portable” social identities and the changes they enable will almost reverse the traditional way that consumers, brands, and social networks interact. The social Web will evolve from a few social network sites into an ever-present environment in which every online activity occurs. The boundaries of social networks and traditional sites will blur, making all sites a social experience.

OpenID and Facebook Connect are technologies that allow people to wander the Web with their social connections able to come along with them for the ride. This is starting to happen now.

Ultimately, new browsers and identity technologies will let people see what their friends have visited and what they thought of the experience.

Forrester predicts that from 2010 we will see sites customising their visitors’ experiences according to their preferences, their behaviours, and who their friends are – not just with a particular organisation, but across the web.

Pretty soon social networks will become more powerful than corporate Web sites and CRM systems. Now that presents some pretty exciting challenges!