Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang has just published a new report, following a qualitative study of the world’s 24 most socially active businesses, entitled The Future of the Social Web: In Five Eras.

In it he outlines what he believes as the five stages of the democratisation of media:

1) Era of Social Relationships: People connect to others and share
2) Era of Social Functionality: Social networks become like operating system
3) Era of Social Colonization: Every experience can now be social
4) Era of Social Context: Personalized and accurate content
5) Era of Social Commerce: Communities define future products and services

Jeremiah believes we are just entering the era of colonisation, which I can certainly vouch for.

In the executive summary of the report, Jeremiah outlines a fascinating prediction, which many businesses and marketers would do well to pay consideration to:

“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.”

And he has a number of pieces of advice for brands, everything from don’t delay and be transparent, to start adding social elements to content management systems and shattering the corporate website.

For me, this is a thrilling prediction (and no, not just because I work in the social media space!). If everything we do becomes social, then it opens the possibilities for collaboration and sharing of knowledge, data and information.

But it also aims a curve ball at the more traditional business structure:

Your customers WILL be talking about you. It is your choice whether you want to be there or not. But surely its better to be at the game and lose then never there at all…

But this is a seismic mindshift for all but the most uber-connected companies. Consumers will ‘own’ brand relationships. CRM will matter less and less as forward looking companies begin to see customers as stakeholders in the business; shaping developments and having their say over important issues whilst they are at the deliberation stage.

Just as the trend of ‘pushing marketing messages’ disappears, so will pushing products and services. Recently we have seen companies that quickly respond to (negative) customer feedback following new product developments (take Twitter and the reply fiasco last week). In the future, customer involvement in development will come a lot earlier.

This is Owyang’s Era of Social Commerce and will hopefully create smarter, more profitable and more flexible businesses.