image credit: mikebaird

You won’t find the secret to business success online.

So stop looking.

Because everyone is scrambling to produce better content more often, there’s great incentive (eyeballs and wallets) to create new and better guides for business.

I mean, Brian Solis told us how to create and cultivate a brand in social media in just seven steps.

Chris Brogan just shared a simple formula for blogging success that got him 50,000 subscribers.

Forbes thought it prudent to create a slideshow entitled “In Pictures: How To Fire Someone”

And the list goes on.

image by jaycameron

Okay, so maybe Facebook won’t kill Google, but I’m predicting they will supplant them as the largest and most ubiquitous web app.

In case you’ve been sleeping, yesterday at the f8 developer conference, Facebook announced Open Graph, a new killer app.

What’s changed

If you aren’t up to speed, here are the three most important updates (and you can read the rest on Mashable):

1. With the new “Facebook for Web Sites” social plugins (the like button is featured at the top of this post), you don’t need to log in to a web page to engage with its content. Try it out.

image credit: A. Drauglis Furnituremaker

It’s one thing to talk about how to leverage new social platforms to do business better. It’s another to talk about shifting business models to adapt to the current state of the web.

I think we’re doing well to address the former. My RSS reader is brimming with shining examples of how to engage, execute and measure social media tactics. But the critical conversation that I don’t hear as much about (and maybe it’s because I’m looking in the wrong places) is about how to shift our business modles themselves to better fit into a world where networks are no longer the exception but the norm.

image credit: Helga Birna Jónasdóttir

I’m talking to you, young, hip, fancy social media blogger/guru/maven. You get engagement, community management, and customer interaction.

At least that’s what the young pro blogs I’m reading suggest.

But what about the unsexy stuff?

Do you know your cost of new customer acquisition?

Could you spout off five easy ways to increase average order size?

Can you read a P&L statement?

Can you quickly and easily demonstrate social media’s value to the bottom line?

How are you at using market research data to predict consumer behavior?