What's the biggest buzz in social media? The Social Buzz Awards judges on the next big thing?

The Drum asked some of the judges from the Social Buzz Awards what the biggest buzz was in social media and what will be the next big thing.

Dave Coplin, Microsoft: The next big thing(s) in social media will be “…when we realise that the social “signal” has moved us from an internet of machines to an internet of people.”Alastair Cox, Google: Joined a circle yet? The Google+ project is right at the heart of our social strategy at Google. It reflects our ongoing commitment to creating experiences that allow everyone to share content in a more intuitive and meaningful ways. We’re focusing on the way people use the web, to create closer relationships between people and the content that sparks those connections. It’s called the Google+ project because we’re building out and iterating the experience. We’re already using ‘Circles’,‘Hangouts’ and ‘+1’ but expect to see much more being rolled out throughout 2012 … Jeff Coghlan, Matmi: IPTV is going to revolutionise the way people use social media, giving us a new single hub for all communications.IPTV allows complete integration of social media into the broadcasting medium of TV. People will be able to share/discuss live events through their TV with the online communities even easier than they can today. IPTV will change the advertising world too – brands will be able to personalise peoples’ experiences based on their social interaction with other products leading to a boom in social commerce as you get crowd-sourced social communities built around product preferences.The convergence of mobile technology, IPTV and wireless control over all your media adds to the seamless integration of social media. Media stacking will become full media integration.With Google TV, their already strong YouTube platform plus Apple’s entry into the IPTV market, social video channels will become more central to the way people share their daily digital lives. No doubt in my mind: IPTV is the next big thing in social media – and we’ll soon be finding out.Phil Adams, Blonde: People are starting to place more value on the intimacy of social connections than they do on the sheer number of social connections. Depth over breadth. Sheer numbers are becoming a problem. People are actively downsizing on Facebook and Twitter. They are culling Twitter “friends” and cutting back on the amount of branded spam in their Facebook news feed. Intimacy is an opportunity. Witness the thinking behind Google Plus Circles. Witness how Instagram has quickly become the most treasured network for many Twitter power users. Witness the fact that, for this correspondent at least, the highest form of social interaction occurs not on Facebook or Twitter but in blog comment threads. When brands think social media they think reach. Reach as in numbers. But to reach can also mean to affect. Reach as in connection and influence. Intimacy will be the dominant social dynamic and brands need to learn to work with it rather than against it.Colin Gilchrist, Digital Face: The next big thing is social media monitoring made more simple (and for vertical markets). I like the idea of "Cruvee" the monitoring tool specifically for the US Wine trade. It provides clear business intelligence with key business insights but its strength lies in its ability to understand specific industry language and platforms. The winners in social media will continue to be the ones that plan, understand, interact and know their specific audience. There will continue to be new platforms coming on to the market.