Over the past 5-6 years the buzz word that everyone in tech industry has noticed, observed standing by and seeing it rise, unable to anticipate its potential, that buzzword would be , no it is not "search", it is "social networks".
Search solved one big problem, and modeled many others problems to a search problem, but social networking is a step ahead. It captures the heart of communication, of interaction and more importantly, it has created a world of its own.
Even with such enormous popularity, i will attempt to prove that we are still seeing only the tip of iceberg. Its potential is too much, and we have just started to peel the onion.
Lets see what social networks have done:
1. Provided us with our own individual network of friends/acquaintance.
2. Ability to communicate within our network and outside it (scrap/posts)
3. Sharing photos, videos, music etc.
4. The community concept: We would like to associate with a particular group of people who share common interests, hobbies,favourite movies etc.
5. Lastly the apps where people can make anything on their own.
Now, we see what users like about them:
1. You dont call your hundred friends everyday, infact you call some and others you dont even call. Social networks provided an easy way to communicate with others, or whenever we need to communicate, we can do so.
2. By checking other's profiles, we can check out the developments in other's lives without even communicating.
3. Before digital camera, photographs were printed and one used to share them whenever someone came to house. With digital images, flickr etc have developed but there is no better way to update your existence through images posted on social networks. Same applies to videos.
4. Its all virtual: Even introverts can participate. You can create yourself as you want to be.
5. Lastly, the cool factor or the tipping point economics play very well here.
There are many other factors but i am listing the best 5 in my opinion.
Before we see what social networks are missing, lets see what other things have become popular/widely used-
1. Blogs.
2. Linked in
3. Youtube/Flickr (Already integrated into social networks)
4. Adwords/adsense
5. (little old) Email/Chat (Chat is already getting into social networks)
A point that is missing above is mobile and particularly its interaction with internet. It is going to be the next in-thing, just like what SMS was about 6-8 years ago, micro-blogging through sms is emerging as the next cool thing.
What social networks still miss?
The amateur mistake of any person working in Artificial Intelligence is the desire to replicate the human intelligence in a computer. Many have traveled this path, some committed suicide (its true!), some gave up and others succeeded to an extent.
My idea is that social networks are still not replicating a real social network, that is how we network in life. With the risk of repeating the above mistake, let me carefully state what my point is.
Social networks have captured the structural properties that we follow in life. Each one of us are participants in different social circles, call them communities or sub-networks. That social circle may be nearby church community, our office team, school alumni group etc. Currently social networks capture this idea nicely.
But what they lack is that in each social circle, we maintain a different social identity. I portray a different social identity when i work in a company, when i go to a pub with my friends. I write different things on my resume, I am a different person when i meet my family, relatives etc. People maintain a different identity when they blog, a different one when they write their dairy.
Other way to put what i am saying can be through the means of permissions. Some might not like his boss to know that he is a smoker or dipsomaniac.
Social networks should give this flexibility to have multiple profiles, coupled with permissions on who is allowed to access what.
Future uses:
1)Integrate linked in.
2) Each office has its own communication network, a messenger, a calendar, mailing lists etc. All of this is a social network. Mailing list are basically communities within an office. There should be a hierarchy of community - a network of community. For example (a fictitious one), I am a member of badminton club in my company, a member of badminton club of mountain view so there is a network of badminton clubs also.
Another one, a real one, in trilogy each team had a mailing list, here each team has its own blog. Basically all these are communities of social networks except that they are servicing a different purpose. All this should be integrated.
3) Online marketing - Online consumership: Online ads industry in itself is a billion dollar industry and many say that this is just the beginning. Marketing on social networks can be more targetted. Not only this, consumerism can also be exported here. People can make lists, not wish lists but normal grocery lists, apparel lists etc and these lists will not be made public. They will be shared by stores for offers etc. Also add here the craiglist phenomenon, the ebay culture.
4) Yesterday, i came to know about dedicated social networks in the indutry of health - (a) between doctors to share information, and learn (b) between patients to share common symptoms, advices, troubles etc.
They are held off independently because in the current schema of social networks they are outcast as they want a certain level of privacy, they maintain a certain level of standards and quality which is diluted in the normal one.
5) Email can not be replaced but this is what can be done: - Centralization. I have a different email account for office, i have a gmail account and a old yahoo account which i use sometimes. Why do i need to use 3? Again the role of permissions is the game. Same applies to the messenger. Do not force people to change their ids, instead make something that runs on top of existing ones. The concept of OpenID is more than welcome and similar efforts should be taken.
6) There are many softwares that capture your ancestory like geni tree etc. Thats a big part of social culture. That should be integrated.
Musiccovery plays music based on your mood. Why cant i read news based on my mood? Why cant i talk to people based on my mood. It is all about categorization, all about permissions, watch out for social networks 2.0 (whenever it comes)
