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- Grandpa Shayne
1) Openness: Whether via Open ID or other standards, a user's Social Graph belongs to them and it Must be....
2) Portable: We should be able to access our Social Graphs from All Social Networks (I commented on the potential dangers of this for Facebook over at dalelarson.com in his post, "Could Twitter’s transcendent clarity trump Facebook?" (http://tinyurl.com/6q8vam - will take you to my comment first).
Also:
3) Traceability: In that our Social Graphs should actually Follow Us as we move around and between Social Networks.
Your #3, I'm either not grasping the difference between that and #2, or I do get it and find it scarily stalkerish.
By Portable, I mean that you should be able to take your Social Graph away from one Social Network and place it into any other one, or more, that you want whenever you want (the usual stuff people talk about)
However, by Traceable, what I'm referring to is a Hyper Layer to the internet that would immediately recognize you and apply your Social Graph to whatever site you're at regardless of what that site is and regardless of where you log in from.
Clearly, there's a lot issues that would need to be resolved (privacy, security, Big Brother; take your pick), but if it could be made to work, that would be pretty cool.
Government (especially local) is extremely conducive to the use of social media to communicate and crowdsource in a much more effective manner...I think it would be amazing if town meetings could occur with a twitter stream running in the background...would certainly liven up those meetings.
As for the SM backlash...I do think that that is inevitable, although I think we all suffer from periodic burnout from using so many services and being on our smart phones and devices for to long...I run, others sleep. We all definitely are not plugged in the entire time...despite what Mark Zuckerberg would like.
Great article :)
My poster child from this post is the "Journalism" and how it shapes in due course of time. We saw worldwide acceptance of Citizen Journalism recently. I can say so since I was all well in Mumbai and was active in social networks to see it taking shape and form. If I can say so that Social Media will give rise to concerned citizens and customers of the world who care much more than the walled gardened companies who I believe will cease to exist if they continue acting like one.
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Sampad
Thanks for the thoughts.
Thanks, pal.
Mark
Congrats!
The claim that students are more tech savvy than their teachers is only one facet of our degenerating educational system and I personally believe that the resolution lies in utilizing a social education network for peer2peer educational purposes. Students will be teaching each other, both online and offline, and educators will be relegated to "guides" or facilitators. Distance Learning, E-Learning, Online Education, whatever you will call it, may not become the standard, but schools and institutions that don't embrace it as a vital aspect of a complete system will lack in their offerings and will thus fail.
I yearn for a day when our senators and congressmen and other policymakers tweet from their meetings and sessions - providing real-time info and seeking real-time feedback from citizens. Unfortunately, i feel like this is the most implausible of your predictions. It's a 'too good to be true' situation. maybe social media will help increase our voice, maybe even to rival that of special interest groups, as you mention, but i fear that complete representation of the masses, even with social media, is still a long ways away. Anyway, great read, quite insightful, looking forward to the future!
Even if you're transparent and authentic, and you listen and so forth, brands using social media still have one of two goals: make money or save money. Government (in theory) has social media motives of greater purity, and that's an opportunity to introduce the power of social media on a clean canvass to the LARGE group of people that are still in eye rolling mode about the whole affair.
I'm actually starting work on the social media communication plan for the State of Arizona (we have a new Governor starting in late January when our current Gov moves to Director of Homeland Security). I'll be reaching out to you and other geniuses to help craft a social media program that makes government by the people and for the people again (at least at the communication level).
Another great post, JF. You da man.
One area that I think is relatively untapped as yet is the ability for online communities to rally together in one way or another for the better good of humanity. It may seem like an idealistic attitude, but I do believe that we have laid out in front of us the tools we need to make connections that will be helpful to the whole world, from saving the environment to banishing poverty and ending wars.
No longer do we live in isolation from one another. At the click of a button I can start a revolution. That is proven on a smaller scale every time someone does an event like this http://tweetsgiving.org/ and raises tens of thousands of dollars in 48 hours. Imagine the possibilities if we scale this up over time.
As with any revolution, there will be detractors of all kinds. This is part of the natural progression of this type of fundamental shift in how we communicate. The world will never be the same now that the Internet is here. And it will only continue to evolve before our eyes.
Some of the beauty of SM now is that a single person or small biz can carve out a voice and be heard by those who are interested.
Keep the insights coming.
But great point and one worth thinking through. Thanks for the comment.
Thanks so much for coming up to Chicago for the talk! I was so excited to see you again, and I know even the ones that were talking in the back were riveted.
As a former HS teacher (and someone who hopes to return to the classroom again someday), your point about the education system was particularly poignant and well-taken.
Oh, and thanks for the retweet! Got tons of new comments and thoughts to take back to the drawing board.
And you're welcome for the Tweet. Great piece.
Secondly, regarding the backlash - I'm already seeing it happen. More specifically with text messaging. Allow me to say that I am personally starting to feel it, as are a few professionals and friends around me. First having clients text messaging communication versus emailing in detail or -gasp!- picking up the phone! Additionally, I noticed my annoyance two days ago when a friend, one who is married to all apps on her iphone except actually using it to make a traditional call to talk, started texting me an entire conversation. I responded with a one-word response. She then asks if I am okay and if anything is wrong! I simply stated that I wasn't a 'text conversationalist' and that she can call to discuss further. Backlash? Me? *sigh*
So what's next? I'd like to add my prediction to the list and offer up "Convergence." If we look at the economy and what is going on right now, you get something like this: new technology+recession/bad economy = massive behavioral changes. So there is an acceleration of the previous trends like the decline of print and the movement online. It also means that consumers will cut back or be forced to cut back spending on things they don't feel are of value while still using some of the digital devices in new ways. Like: narrowing access to the Internet to those devices they feel are of value, such as using an iPHone and even iPod Touch. Retaining broadband (as it gets faster) and dropping other services like home home or even TV (with broadband reaching 50-100 MBps). So devices will be narrowed even more but their uses will be expanded. And that might just be good for our attention spans as well.
As a Brit it'll be great to see our Government in the forthcoming elections do a SObama style campaign. For me personally I'd love to see more examples and research into social capital and value for brands from social media but it will come in time.
Looking forward to 2009 already! Bests Tom.
When you say you'll share your speaking notes, you really deliver.
Thanks for making time for us and for taking us to the future, which might be only a few months or years away. Keep sharing your vision - we'll follow where it leads.
@wiredprworks on twitter.com
- Jonas
As you predicted, there are going to be people who disagree with your thoughts on our education system. I think I'm going to take their side. I think it relates to that age old debate of strategy vs. tactics specifically in regards to your point about our teachers not being caught up to our youth (and I have no bias for/against teachers as I don't know any personally)
Our educational system, or rather any educational system can only be considered successful if the student is taught, not how to do something, but to understand the logic of how something can be accomplished. A perfect example would be to use my own mother. The only way she learned to use email (how to send, forward, open attachments, etc) was to memorize exactly where those buttons were in her hotmail window and remember all the steps it took to achieve her end goal via repetition. You and I learned the mechanics of how web pages are built and how computers operate, so we can search, engage, and execute to achieve whatever goal we are working towards regardless of the format. Put simply, we can figure it out on the fly. Throw someone like my mother into a gmail account...she's lost.
What this example is illustrating is that if my mother received an education in understand the logic of a computer environment, instead of how to use hotmail specifically, she would be better off. In my opinion this translates directly to the larger scale of what we call the United States education system. Our teachers and college professors have, and should continue to serve our students by helping them learn to think, not how to do.
Young people in this country are learning more on their own than we could ever teach them. You don't have to show a 12 year old how to use Twitter, or Facebook, or Digg because they are essentially hardwired to understand it from a young age. What teachers need to focus on is how to use communication, regardless of what format: digital, oral, written, etc to get their points across and listen for information that helps them grow. Teaching kids the dynamics of communication, negotiation, listening etc apply to whatever format they choose. They can use it on twitter; they can use it in debate class. Let the kids worry about the platform, and the teachers worry about teaching the theory of messaging and receiving.
As for your point about the erosion of the English language, you're probably right in many ways. But I think this is a temporary set-back. While communication is largely focused on written communication right now, I think that we're not far off from it being irrelevant. I wrote a blog about my theory on the situation which I'll let you (ironically read) instead of explaining it here in your comment section:
http://tinyurl.com/69z958
It was great seeing you in Chicago last night. Hope to meet up again real soon.
As an entrepreneur, I'm teaching other actors how to market and network using social networking to reinforce their brand and stay in touch with their fans...especially for a group of people who are always coming in and out of town and used to loosing touch with people because of it.
I liked that idea, I think it's very human. My mother will agree for sure ;)
I wonder how it would look like in reality...
I will be following in twitter ;)
"If It’s Not Mobile, It Won’t Exist"
I disagree 1000%
You and Steve Rubel love to theorize about the mobile bricks we might one day plop into our desks to work with and carry home (we have them now, they're called laptops). That may be fine for your average drone, but realize power users (people who work with high-end graphics apps, video apps, music production apps, etc) won't be able to get away on a machine that's able to do word processing and light browsing and that's it.
Some of us need (and don't mind) having a big power rig that is able to throw anything we want at it, handle two 21" displays, etc. Having a big rig with 6 fans has it's benefits, and I for one enjoy it (especially because I build them to spec for my marketing/production needs and my machine with 10K RPM raptors, 4GB ram, and quad core processor runs circles around your mobile device).
For the average person, maybe - but not for the power user, not happening.
But you know, I could be wrong.
I haven't owned a computer I didn't build myself in the last 7 years, so my first reaction when people say it will just be mobile devices is to think "id never do that"...until we can build them ourselves ;)
How do you see the digital divide playing out? I can't help thinking about the future of social media without wondering if we will have more of the world participating. What happens to all the people on the wrong side of the divide? Or do you think we will get closer to closing this gap in the future?
(So, now, if we were in the future already, I'd get an IM or an email with a $1.00-off coupon to Tylenol?)
Oy.
;)
I believe the financial ask and whole model by operators will if not challenged kill off creativity and real value / engagement between brands and communities.
I am trying to get professionals united to change what I believe is the 'death by sales rep' of social media.
I want to be a value adder not a spammer.
Social media operators have to change
First of all, you have my sympathies for the tragic loss that you and your friends recently experienced. Wish I had something more profound to say but my thoughts are with you.
On a much less important note, your comments on the future of social media are very insightful. One question that I continually reflect on is how all of these tools will affect those of us who are web professionals and web managers. Will it be possible that a day comes that content is produced and distributed but that the management and organization of the content is entirely crowd-sourced? Will things like information architecture disappear? Certainly there will be an evolution of needs, technologies and related jobs but my guess is that fewer "web" people will be needed as the tools are increasingly democratized.
Please read my blog : http://ndot.in/blog/2009/02/03/future-of-social...