Social Networks 2.0
A question was recently posted on Linked In about the future of Social Networks. And not a week goes by when someone doesn’t ask me about building on of these behemoths. It’s hip, it’s trendy, and “everyone uses FaceBook or MySpace.” Lets ignore the business aspects of this for a moment – which drives much of the interest, anyway – and look at where this whole deal is heading.
When one steps back and looks at Facebook and MySpace, and view it as a “network” one can indeed see that it is a vast set of connections from one person to another, or many others. It is a network much like the streets of a city … it provides the means to get something from one place to another; or like a phone book … you can look up anyone you may want to find and contact them.
This is basically a “passive” network. When you really boil these services down, they are a place to put “stuff” where other people can find it, and a place to find other people’s “stuff.” Anyone who uses these still needs a phone, email, IM, TXT-messages, RSS readers, a Twitter client, and so on. So, the actual real-time networking between people is actually carried out outside of the social networking sites.
Web 2.0 and AJAX – Everything Old Is New Again
After the dot-com bubble burst, it seems like all things Internet fell into a kind of malaise. Investors were scared to take risks, jobs were few and far between, and in general the Internet was being treated like a utility – a step below phone service, but above trash pickup.But some new AJAX-based offerings are bringing some of the old excitement back. You can start to see where the ‘Net can change the way we live, work, and interact again. Five in particular are in beta phase and well worth looking at: Meebo (unified IM and chat), NetVibes (aggregator and web-top console), BlinkList (bookmark manager and sharing), RoundCube (email), and Writely (word processing and document collaboration).
