Social media was the big thing last year. It will be big this year too, but how big? Is it already running out of steam?
Friendship and social relations are about quality, not quantity. People are realizing that connecting with as many “friends” as possible is not worth the effort. There must be some reason people have not kept in touch in the first place. Surely, a Facebook friend request does not change why you have not had a relationship for many years?
But how many social networks can one person belong to? Everyone seems to be building a website with some sort of social aspect. There just is not enough time in the world for people to be social everywhere.
It is very easy to get carried away with all the hype going on. The fact is social media is just one side of an ever-evolving digital world. A world where change is constant and fast.
My candidates for the next big thing:
1. Aggregation - Sifting through enormous amounts of content and gathering the meaningful stuff.
2. Mobile - The technology is finally getting there. Or is it?
3. Baby Boomers - They are active, they have money and, now that they are retiring, they have time.
What do you think will be the next big thing that everyone talks about, smart people capitalize on and eventually fades away?
Thanks to JanneW for the inspiration.
January 15th, 2008 | filed under digital, social media | Trackback |
I’d bet my money on two things:
1. Aggregation, not exactly the way you propose it, but lifestreams - the same way Facebook gathers you stuff from your friends’ activities. Also, I’m guessing showing RSS-feeds the way Jaiku does them, will become more popular as they are more related to the time of the release and author of the work.
2. Video. Devices with video camera capability have been spread quite far and innovative new ways to share video will be a definite killer this year. We’re already seeing it, Seesmic, Floobs, Viddler, Vimeo - it’s not YouTube anymore, they failed to evolve over time.
Second comment
My humble opinion is the aggregation doesn’t only mean existing web content, social networks and information or e-commerce. Digital solutions provide possibilities for aggregating information that have never been downloaded or updated to web - our background, roots, history etc. Genealogy in web is a great example. What if the most successfull lifestream isn’t about present (jaiku, facebook etc.) or about future (dopplr, “101 things to do..” etc.) but about past. Aggrerating all past information related to my hobbies, studies, relatives, interests is a very interesting area and has some connection also with the uprising issue of digital immortality.
What do most of use desire more than anything? Money, fame, love, health or immortality? Or is the immortality only narcism? And aren’t successfull social medias something else more than narcism?