Socializing the Internet
Social Networks are an interesting phenomena. Some sites like Linkedin are business-driven; an extension of real-world networking, while others like Myspace are multimedia party lines. Facebook began as an alumni service and seems to be morphing into a Swiss Army knife social network.
Several companies with strong brands like Coca-cola and Disney have built their own social networking sites.
New companies like Lemonade are trying to integrate pay referrals into social networking, allowing their participants to make a little money for using the service.
But what are they really? What will they become?
I believe that social networking is a transitory phenomena and will disappear as separate business entities quite soon. The underlying strata of the Internet will become a big social networking site. It's hard to believe that any one company among the ones listed above (and add Second Life to that list), will dominate something that large, or indeed, even exist in anything like their current form, if at all.
The Internet needs other "social representation" layers sitting on top of xml, html and http. The Internet will become one big always-on social networking site used throughout the day the same way as we use the "real world" when we step outside our front doors in the morning.
Posted on September 10, 2007
