The Social Media Professional Community
What is the future of Social Media?
We've seen the rise of the big 3 but how will the likes of Facebook, Myspace and Bebo compare with the "Create your own Social Network" tool Ning?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Tony Waghorn on -
What about the past?
I was just reflecting the fact that the same things that got people interested in the web back in the early 90s are broadly similar to where we are now.
Here are some of the stuff I was playing with at Uni, why did we do it? It barely worked, it was slow and awkward.
Bulletin Boards/Majordomo groups - Who's interested in the same stuff I'm interested in, I need to connect with these people
e-mail - the ever useful and abused bloodflow
Portals -Wow, there's lots of cool stuf out there that I haven't seen yet.
Personal web pages (kind of looked a mess like a Myspace page?) - This is me, look there are millions of others like me out there. Look at me, I can make stuff that appears on computers.
Chat - a real pain to set up, but fun for the few minutes it worked for.
Have people got over the fact that there are billions of people out the on the web yet?
Have they got over the 'lots of cool stuff' idea? (Digg, Stumbleupon....)
Have they got bored of connecting with similar people for support & light banter? (forums, online gaming, irc)
Any one have any thoughts that go past the nostalgia?
Could the idea that a Social network keeps the core ideals of the initiators - could it be true of the web?
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Permalink Reply by Tony Wood on
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You are right, the major reason for most of the things not working in the way we imagined is that these tools where generally developed to utilise the power of the computer and not utilise the power of the human. The most popular social media tool is email. Why. Because it is quick to use and you can contact anyone.
This is not wrong as you can only work with the tools you are given. The goal though it to create better tools.
Once we start thinking about "why" people want to communicate and start looking at ways to achieve those results them we are making progress. I believe this is why Twitter (or clones) has been so successful. It enables people to tell others what they are thinking or doing quickly simply and you can tell anyone with a browser.
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Permalink Reply by Tony Waghorn on
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I was also wondering, what makes people turn on their computers of an evening or browse during their lunch breaks, to a point where web use for 'entertainment' is double TV watching (maybe? ).
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I think it comes down to interactivity and selfishness. On the internet you control what is going on, whereas TV is a passive experience. As more and more people have laptops (or own machines). You will find that people will choose their own entertainment rather than the "shared" TV experience.
The question is what will they choose to do once they are online.
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