Small groups will be big

From Paul Adams, Facebook/ex-Google:

I feel that we’re at the beginning of a cycle in business where we move away from this idea of “influentials”, and instead focus marketing activity on small connected groups of close friends. I think this is what marketers are starting to think about, and will be the prominent theme for this decade.

Correct. Have seen this brewing. New fashion. Expect flood of upstarts. Expect incumbents struggle pitifully to adapt.

BUT.

Here is what I think reflects reality. Farhad Manjoo, on Slate:

… as Paul Adams says, we keep multiple circles of acquaintances in real life. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that people want to take the time to reflect that behavior online. After all, in the real world, managing your circles of friends is usually an implicit thing—you hang out with your school friends when you’re at school, you hang out with your New York friends when you’re in New York, you talk to your coworkers when you’re at work.

Which is essentially what I said yesterday. Only one circle in real-life at any time is worth having an online equivalent for, and that circle is likely to be some some past phase of your life.

Unless you make a spectacular online equivalent. Is that + ?