God…so here’s another one. Google Buzz.
The short version is that it’s a nice mix of Twitter’s open broadcast and Facebook’s closer, intimate, networking all wrapped up in a lovely lovely Gmail platform. With a pink ribbon tied around it.
The long version is, frankly, much less intersting than the short and far too depressing to contemplate. Social Media is just getting silly.
As it is I look after 2 (sometimes 3) Twitter accounts, several email inboxes, a reasonably active Google Wave account – cos, y’know, I don’t require spoonfeeding to figure these things out – and a Facebook page. I do not want another social media tool making a grand entrance and getting a huge uptake.
But I’ll check it out anyway. Yup. Because I’m a drone – part of the social media collective. That rather sad self-admission led me to a revelation, dear reader; a vision, if you will. I now believe that social media will bring about the end of man kind as we know it.
Drastic? Certainly. Dramatic? No doubt. Possible? Possibly…read on.
Marshall McLuhan taked about a vast electronic information loop to which we will one day all be connected and interdepenent. It has been argued that this loop is the internet, and yes, that argument was probably right on the money. But social media is Internet 2.0, isn’t it. Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, Digg, Buzz and all these things that keep us talking and connected to one another all day every day, I believe that these are the real loop that McLuhan foresaw.
We’re all connected to that loop with PCs, mobiles and laptops right now – but think of this…
…what about 20, maybe 30 years from now when ultra-powerful computers are implanted in our brains? Our social media interfaces will be wetware applications! We’ll be one step closer to a collective online consciousness. I’m only half joking!
Ever read The Forever War? Man will become Man! Or worse, we’ll become The BORG!! Christ! We’re being assimilated by the internet! Resistence is futile!
Science fiction is full of collective or hive minds, all sharing information and living in harmony. I’ve already mentioned Haldeman’s Man, and Star Trek’s Borg (they sound Swedish) and those are terminal examples. But there are others.
Alasdair Reynolds’ Conjoiners are perhaps a more realistic vision of our future. They retain individuality but their mental capacity and abilities are augmented by neural implants that can be used for information sharing and communication. They are, in effect, a living, breathing social network.
Of course the Conjoiners were feared and persecuted by the rest of humanity and after losing a viscious war they were forced to flee across the stars – that would never happen to us, the Blogging, Facebooking, Buzzing, Digging Twitterati would it?
Wouldn’t it? Think of it! The Social Media Collective vs the Twitter’s For Twats Brigade. I reckon we’d win. Our social media would keep us connected to the troops on the ground and give us a massive strategic advantage. Once victorious we could run the non-conformists off the planet and start a whole new hive mind utopia right here on planet Earth.
Hmm. That’s probably how the Borg got started.
Ah well. It’s coming and it’s time to start picking sides. Tweet you on the front lines! Qaplah!
A niche future for SM developers?
It’s all a bit quiet at the moment, isn’t it? This is my first post in nearly a month which is shameful, I know, but I just haven’t really spotted anything worth mentioning or opining over.
Google Buzz was a flash in the pan, and from what I’ve seen hasn’t had much of an uptake – maybe regular Gmail users will use it a lot, but I certainly don’t check it much. Google Wave has levelled off too.
The problem with Wave was that it was complicated if you weren’t a techie, but it did seem fairly active for a while. But now even the most active waves in my inbox have died off.
Twitter is still going strong, and Facebook is doing its thing quite happily, but I wonder if perhaps we’ve reached a plateau? Twitter and Facebook are massively successful, probably too successful and well established for any other app to come along and seriously compete. They don’t have to worry about each other; Twitter is broadcasty, for us to shout to, at and with the world whereas Facebook is more for close-knit community networking and one-to-one discussion.
If Twitter is the Microsoft of social networking, and Facebook is the Apple, then stuff like Wave, Buzz and the others are the little customised versions of Linux that you get on netbooks.
It could be that things have quieted lately because we’re seeing a calm before the storm. With Twitter due to release a load of new features on to the web interface maybe other developers are holding back. Maybe.
I think it’s more likely, though, that they’re not even trying to compete in the first place. The main reason for the success of Twitter and Facebook is that when it comes to it, they’re just downright good fun! That’s a market they’ve got cornered – so if you’re trying to develop a new social network then it better be the most fun you can have online without hearing the word “HEADSHOT!” or you might as well not even bother.
The future of social media, I reckon, lies in targetted development. For smaller developers to survive in a world dominated by Twitter and Facebook they need to start developing custom SM apps and tools for businesses and organisations and trade sectors. Like a scaled-down LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is 3 years older than Facebook, it’s still going strong with 60 million users worldwide (I was among the first million. Just sayin’) and it has never felt threatened by, or the need to compete with, Facebook. Why? Because it is aimed purely at professionals seeking work and contacts.
So before the Social Media Sci-Fi Apocalypse, I think we’ll see a lot of break-away developers trying to narrow their focus and cater to a niche. I joked about it in the post I just linked to, but when it comes to competing with Facebook and Twitter resistence really is futile.
Addendum: On an unrelated note….if you can please tune in to BBC Radio Scotland at 0900 tomorrow (Monday 7th March). There will be a documentary on about prostate cancer. It was written and produced by a friend of mine, John Thomson, who is himself a recovered prostate cancer patient. It promises to be informative and entertaining. If you can’t tune in tomorrow, check it on the iPlayer later.