Pivots of the Web: What's Next After Social Networking?
In this post we take a closer look at the paradigm shifts of the web, especially for the near future. What approaches have dominated the web over the years and which ones failed; and why? Also, since Facebook is already widely accepted as the next big thing, the new question is: what is the next "next big thing"? Is it already out there? To start with check out the graph below, summarizing the Web's stages up till now and our vision for the future:
As you can see, the current trend is for social interactions to take over search as the pivot of the internet. But if you're not convinced, here are a few examples of why:
- Google and Microsoft's billion dollar ad partnerships with MySpace and Facebook respectively;
- Yahoo and Viacom's bets on Facebook;
- Yahoo's rivals.com acquisition and rumors of Fox offering to sell MySpace to Yahoo! in exchange for a 25% stake.
The Eras of the Web
Age #0 - eCommerce
E-commerce is the most primitive way of making money online. It's identical to the real
world, where you have some products (real or virtual) and you sell them to consumers and
pocket the money. The only difference from the world we live in is that the "e" prefix
eliminates some frictions and allows this process to get completed faster and easier each
year. That's why the first age of the Web was full of online sellers; companies got
funded to sell and specialize in a variety of things. Some of them have become successful
because what they sold was aaleable (e.g. Amazon with books), but others failed because
their motivation was "everything can be sold over the internet" - which turned out to be
wrong in some cases. Overall, e-commerce is still a very important component of the
internet's revenue stream - albeit not as mighty as we once thought it could be.
Age #1 - Single Sign-on
While everyone was building and investing in e-commerce sites, two Stanford students
figured out a new way of making money online. Yahoo started out with a simple web
directory, but their idea was to port traditional media business models to the online
space. They weren't focused on selling goods, but they brought great services together
and glued them with a single sign-on mechanism. Consequently, they created some sort of
vendor lock-in; because signing up has been the biggest friction that awaits web surfers.
Remember the old tedious sign up processes - they even asked you how much money you make
per year! And note that there was no such thing as OpenID at that time.
The motivation of Yahoo at that time was to keep the visitors as long as they could on
their properties (actually not much has changed). After all, the longer users stay, the
more ads they can view. This seemed like a perfect business model at first, because it
allowed people to get great services for free. Everyone liked it and Yahoo became the
poster child company of the late 90's.
Age #1.5 - Geocities
While Yahoo was rising, a new service emerged and started to take the lead slowly -
Geocities was one of many sites that provided free web hosting and web site creation
services. However GeoCities was different in some ways. It was more like the social
networking sites of today; the self expression level was high and the weird naming scheme
based on city names gave it a human touch. That's why we can call GeoCities the first
utterly successful social interaction platform. However, after it was acquired by Yahoo
it became yet another web hosting service provider - and it lost its soul and failed. No
one can blame Yahoo for that though, because that was the first of its kind and at that
time everyone was unaware of the social impact of such a big web acquisition.
Boom
The Boom period (aka Dot Com) is not an age like the others, but is worth looking into.
The reason of the boom was the lack of calibration between the pace of internet
applications and the internet infrastructure. VC firms invested heavily in web sites,
with the dream of being the next Hotmail, eGroups, Viaweb - but the internet
infrastructure didn't scale well to the increasing production. People were not spending
enough time on the internet and download speeds were slow - therefore the demand couldn't
satisfy the production. Moreover, there wasn't any adequate monetization method of the
content spread over the web. As a result, revenues fell short and the market crashed very
badly.
Age #2 - Search
While Yahoo was trying to get people to spend as much time as possible on their
properties in order to maximize their advertising revenues, 2 other Stanford students -
this time Larry Page and Sergey Brin - came up with the idea of excelling at search.
Because they realized that search was the start point of the web. Even though people were
likely to spend time on Yahoo properties, they still needed long tail sites to get
informed and reach other stuff that Yahoo couldn't offer. What Google did was to offer a
better search service with absolutely no clutter. Their sparse but highly efficient
service opened the doors to big deals and hugely profitable online advertising.
Eventually they became the center of the web. Now, Google's new purpose is to bring
desktop applications to the internet too.
Age #2.5 - On-demand Video
It's a fact that humans are born lazy. Yes, we love spending time on the internet and
interact with many things; but still many of us prefer spending our free time on TV and
watching meaningless shows. What the new high speed internet infrastructure did was, in
some sense, bring TV to the internet. And what YouTube and others did, was to bring it to
us. Yes, Google was the center and we were still using it, but YouTube grew sharply too
during this time. We started to spend more time watching videos than mining the internet
for more information. That didn't only steal time from Google and the long tail sites,
but also stole from the traditional TV networks - because we prefered on-demand TV over
the old linear one.
What happened then is Google saw the potential at YouTube and bought it. This cost $1.65 B (an amount that Yahoo couldn't or wouldn't risk). But actually the number was surprisingly low for a paradigm shifting company. Couldn't YouTube become the new Google by itself, couldn't they make an IPO and become a billion dollar company? The answer is unexpectedly "no". The reason was YouTube's legal hassles. They knew that they would confront legal problems sooner or later and that's why they chose the quick exit and get under the wings of a well established company. Google could protect them and spend the required money to fight in courts. In fact, YouTube got sued almost immediately after the acquisition - Viacom wanted Google to pay $1 B for the illegal videos YouTube published. This was a big threat, that could've allowed other content producers to demand the same as well.
Age #3 - Social
Actually social interactions have always played an important role in the internet.
GeoCities, Friendster, ICQ, IRC were all signs of the fact that social interactions can
control the destiny of the web. But all of these products had problems and couldn't make
it to the end. For example acquisitions finished GeoCities and ICQ. Friendster had bad
management problems. MySpace kept growing, but it couldn't take the necessary steps to
become a real big thing. IRC became obsolete with ICQ. Only one company figured out the
way of putting social interactions to the center of the web and it was Facebook.
Facebook, for the first time, opened the gate and merged all social services into itself.
Now you can integrate your IM (meebo), Twitter, and other services into Facebook easily.
Thus Facebook became a true platform company and is increasingly many peoples start
page.
Bigcos had already realized that social networking sites would eventually become our start pages and that all of our internet actions will get reshaped there. On the likes of Facebook, our actions will be shaped by our friends and trusted communities. That's why Google signed a billion dollar deal with News Corp to become the default search provider of MySpace. Their thought was that hopefully this would give them some time before they needed to reorganize themselves and make an attack in the social world as well. Yahoo tried to buy Facebook, as it didn't have this Platform feature yet, but failed. They ended up by buying a niche site Rivals.com, to create their own Facebook and possibly try to explore opportunities with News Corp's MySpace.
Age #4 - Joost ???
It's hard to guess the 4th phase of the web because we don't even have the
3rd one yet, fully. But what the past eras (see ages 1.5, 4 and 2.5) show is
that we will end up with the rebirth of online TV. Since we are all born lazy, video on
demand is the way to go. And what Joost is offering is higher quality content (thanks to
their collaboration with big content providers), higher quality watching experience
(thanks to P2P technology) and a legal hassle-free alternative to YouTube, which has
already shown tremendous success.
Conclusion
This is an open ended article. You may not share the same ideas as me, especially about my Age #4 estimation, because it's completely subjective. For example some of you may think that Second Life, meebo or NetVibes is the next next big thing. Please share your thoughts in the comments. I'm stopping here for the sake of keeping the article short(ish), but I am ready to discuss in the comments other possibilities.
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I think the next step is taking everything you listed and making it work on mobile (cell) phones. I use mine already to browse the internet and stay up to date with sport scores etc. But speed is still an issue.
It will be excellent to use an iPhone (or similar) for instance instead of lugging a laptop around with you.
The next 'next big thing' will be (Blurring the line between online and offline apps)+(Surface Computing e.g, Microsoft Surface/Apple Iphone...others will follow suit)+(Socially Network IPTV Broadcast i.e. something like Joost+MySpace)
Well, I am keeping my fingers crossed only for next 2 years.
Times, they say, are changing.
The big phone companies killed Motorola's "Seamless Mobility" vision of the future;
http://www.motorola.com/content.jsp?globalObjectId=2364-8176
...but look for it to return in a distributed, "people powered" version soon.
For the longer term (age 6/7?) I like the Idea of the Metaverse.
Check out this fine document:
http://metaverseroadmap.org/MetaverseRoadmapOverview.pdf
I think there are two parallel tracks and both will evolve in different ways. The two parallel tracks are the two killer apps of the Web - communication and research.
Communication starts with email and evolves through IM/Skype into Social Networks. Home video (YouTube) is just another form of communication. The big unknown with this stream is monetization. If I am busy communicating (to get a date or a deal) I am not focussed on ads and you cannot contextualize my interest. Communication is hugely useful but is it a money-spinner?
Research started with browsing, evolved into search and will evolve into something semantic and personalized. Thats where the money is in my view. Search is not (Re)Search, it is just the start. Research implies focussed intent and that can be monetized (and has been with staggering effect by Google).
There is possibly a third track around entertainment - the Joost lean back approach. This is the most speculative in my view, possibly huge but big consumer behavior change needed and lots of $$$$ have been burnt on that quest. I suspect that entertainment will require new hardware devices and Apple are clearly the guys to watch here.
Video on demand is certainly going to get huge, but I dont see that as creating a paradigm shift, just added content (that I am totally keen to receive!).
Once the wider population gets used to the read/write internet concept, I can see if being much more widely used for business. More workers tele-commuting. More workers with multiple jobs. More contract workers. More consultants. More virtual meetings. More international companies working together on projects. More websites that are about creating business networks and adding value to business operations. More online collaboration.
I think search engines are less relevant today than they used to be. These social networks that recommend and tag uri's seem to have better content. Google is becoming a last resort for looking for something obscure. The internet has become filled with 'junk', and I dont think search engines are coping.
Next step is the blending of silo's. Why can't I have a home page everywhere I go...Channel Dave is what I think, why do I have to watch tampon ads? The "thing I'm using" should know it's me.
How TagWorld and other next-generation social networks could feed your ... But News Corp. clearly sees a bigger upside: Social networking, after all
http://www.paroles32.com/paroles/janet-jackson/index.php
Even though people are saying this for over a decade now, I am still a strong believer in the mobile internet. To me it is without a doubt that eventually it will break into the mainstream. The question that just keeps coming back to me is: when?
The when-question could be an interesting topic for an article, since I think it is worth trying to make a prediction.
We can draw parallels with broadband internet and broadband internet services. Broadband internet has been around forever, but only when its penetration reached a tipping point, services that depend on broadband internet (the most obvious example being YouTube) could really flourish.
So, can't we plot the relevant factors for mobile internet (network penetration, network speed, penetration of internet-capable mobile devices, perhaps also usability), extrapolate them and try to make a prediction about when the tipping point for mobile internet might be reached?
Life is build from circles not lines
When you look at the big picture you see that almost every process is circular in nature.
But for some reason when we try to envision the future we always think linear.
Multimedia CDs will kill books >> the web will kill the multimedia CD >> web 2.0 will kill web 1.0
and so on and on...
In reality things tend to go in circles. I know it may sound funny but Wikipedia is now, actually, selling CDs that contain collections of approved Wikipedia items (who would have believed it)
Well the web is actually starting to be what we expected it to be in 2000 and the next thing will be the old thing.
I think we will see a return to e-commerce, to single sign on etc. but we will do it while using all the new capabilities new areas like video on demand and social networks give us.
I think we'll see a more semantic web begin to take shape, starting with sociality. It's interesting how social networks tend to build a wall around themselves - but all that truly does is limit the scalability of their network.
With the amount of interaction on the web - from blog comments to linking - there is a huge social network right under our keyboards. This social network is larger than anything Facebook or MySpace could imagine... The XFN project is a step, but I think it's kind of useless without any verification and the required process of creating a new HTML tag for each additional contact.
Another network also exists, the could be just as large. There are 1.2 billion active e-mail users communicating with each other. Where you have communication, you have a primitive social network. When I e-mail PersonA@email.com, my network is actually moving closer to PersonA's social network... doesn't it seem like my e-mail would have higher priority with PersonA's contacts, since I am in fact trusted by PersonA?
It goes on from there... With such a network, extracting relationship information and associating information with users would be easy; you would become the URL. If I need calendar information, I would pull an iCal feed. If I want to see what products your selling, I would pull an iSell feed (okay, I made that one up).
That's what I would like to see one day... Hopefully its not too much of a pipe-dream.
I'm surprised writing on Read/Write Web that you skipped over the enormous impact that blog platforms and their RSS output has had on the internet. The ability for people to mix and match their content with ease has had a big impact on the publishers and blogging with ready access to addressable chunks of content has contributed to the rise of the infamous "user-generated content." My Yahoo blazed this trail and Netvibes follows. The browser will make this even easier with RSS detection now built into the browser's chrome.
The popularity of RSS (we'll know we're there when it isn't referred to RSS anymore) will give rise to what I think is the next "age." Collecting OPML files as bundles of subscriptions is just another way of collecting bookmarks. As you mention, we're lazy so the majority of us will look to our social peers as a lens on what is most important within our updated feeds. Social Networks tied to the dynamic web will make the next killer app - think of it as a "what your friends are reading" type of service.
NB. I hopelessly biased in my conclusion here. MyBlogLog, where I am Product Manager, includes a feature called "Hot in My Communities" which essentially is an early version of the killer app I describe above. Please evaluate my spin and take on the future accordingly ;-)
I think the next paradigm will embrace the fact that social interactions get their buzz from the fact that people are often lazy, commonly stupid/wrong, regularly lie or bend the truth and that we really just want to be entertained and adored. When it arrives we will all be able to live lives that bear a striking resemblance to that currently experienced by Paris Hilton. It will be fabulous!
What about social convergence: gathering with people in order to do something ? Just thinking aloud. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
@edward: iPhone comes to the rescue; the new mobile browsers (Safari, Opera Mini) will make it possible to run web apps on your mobile phones too.
@Robert: I agree
@David Armstrong: Channel Dave?
@Tim Molendjik: it's today.. What iPhone stands for? It fills the gap between mobile applications and the web.
@Avi Charkham: I agree. Paradigms never fade away. For example you see search and share/discuss (social) in both Gmail and Google Docs - this shows these paradigms are penetrated into web apps.
@Robert Dewey: I think this can be a more background paradigm. People can leverage this data for better services in the real world.
@Ian Kennedy: yes that has been the fuzziest point. I don't know if RSS is a paradigm shift or is it just a change of format. I need to think more over it and make a whole new post focusing on that point maybe :) Btw, I think MyBlogLog also can have a very important place in here. Because it gives blogs the social features they lack and create a distributed social network all over the web. But it still requires more penetration in order to compete with Facebook. Otherwise blogosphee + MyBlogLos is the most open social network ever.
@Niall Larkin: so you mean SecondLife?
please visit blog, thank you
What a great article at Read/WriteWeb and what a great comment posted under #10 by Avi Charkham! It summarizes all!
Instead of looking at solutions sitting out there what about problems/opportunities that have not been solved/addressed? Maybe these are the next, next, next big things but worth a thought.
-Remember how intelligent agents were going to search the web and fetch us what we wanted based on their intimate knowledge of us?
What is we had a browser plug-in that kept our name and email anonymous but free gave site demographic info and the site used it to serve up targeted content and ads?
-There is all this great feedback from web 2.0 on products, services and companies and it is great to review if I know what I want but someone needs to figure out how to use it more pro-actively to solve the problems in my life as or before they rise.
IE my kid is going to turn 11 this year and parents of 11 year olds in my demographic recommend this book on positive reinforcement from this store. Amazon may have this in my recommendations if I was just searched for this type of book but that recommendation is based on my search, not on me.
-One of the next big things may be off-line using the web. What about Retail 2.0? Think 3-D printing which is making some great advances. How many items are made out of just plastic. Think toys, lawn chairs, jewelry, dishes…and on and on. Think of where the shipping process adds too much cost to make online sales viable. How about a pool table that I print and the company mails me a felt top that gets glued to the top?
-On a somewhat related note, when is someone going to design a home book binder so I can download an E-book and have a real hard copy book spit out of my printer? The company that quits trying to convince us to read even more content online and gives us a device for creating our own books could become the next evolution of Amazon
Web 3.0 will succeed when and where it solves problems inherent in Web 1.0 -2.0
I think the next big thing is quantifying "vibe". In other words, making meaning from the gazillions of data points to estimate the "feeling" of what's relevant for us in the moment. Things like Twitter and Pownce are early experiments in understanding "vibe". The next generation will not only be ubiquitous, but also enable us to make decisions based the "mood" of the entire net ecosystem.
Dinosaur 1 : Hey Dodo, what do you think will the future look like. Which kind of animal do you think will survive in year 2000 ?
Dodo : I think it has either have to be 10 times bigger than you or able to fly in the air non-stop. But my guess is as good as yours !!
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Why do we have such fascination for prediction. Do you think next Youtube or Facebook maker will ever spend time in such predictions, like we do.
I would love to read this article in 2009 (2 years later)!! :)
@Ray Podder, @Chris Cliver: your points remind me personalized search engines (Collarity, Google (Kaltix)) and discovery engines like StumbleUpon, Digg and reddit.
@Simile: good point :)
Could it possibly be: Home or the actual neighborhood hang out..? Where you logon to your communities and social networks are actually amongst friends/family? - The web still feels a little seperated.
Ubiquity: It's all about the "blip".
What's next?
Probably actually getting back to work, or getting fired.
I have seen the future, and it is round !
I disagree with a lot of this analysis, mostly because the distinction between these areas isn't as distinct as you make it out to be.
For example, Amazon's success is largely due to embracing pretty much everything you talk about - the long tail of products, the long tail of web sites (affiliates), search (no small task), and the social (product reviews and reccomendations).
Google works by algorithmically analyzing social aspects of the web - hyperlinking. And the reason they were able to break the pre-eminence of the portal (what you're calling "single sign on") is because they were able to monetize non-Google sites through Adsense. Sending you away from google.com didn't hurt them they way it hurt Yahoo.
And the tale of video on the web begins not with YouTube, but way back with Napster, the first "killer app" for the internet. While Napster didn't support video, it was the precursor for p2p networks that did, culminating in bittorrent.
The point is that most of these trends developed in parallel, from the beginning. There may have been shifts in relative importance - but I think it's more like shifts in attention that each has gotten.
And on that assumption, the "next thing" is probably already here, and been here for a while. And I see three trends that will likely comprise the "next big thing", neither of which are especially new:
1. Personalization engines. Something that knows enough about me and is smart enough to put content in front of me that I want, without my having to ask for it.
2. Mobile. Right now, everyone is trying to port the PC-web to the mobile phone. The analogy to this is akin to brick and mortar stores trying to simulate the real-world shopping experience on their web sites. It just doesn't work. Cell phones don't have a keyboard and mouse input. They do have a microphone, cameraphone, and geospatial input. The next thing is going to be a paradigm shift that incorporates that.
I think this is a really useful article.
I think what's next will come from the infrastructure level - it's Joost, in my opinion, but much more than just that, because convergence on the back end bringing multiple distribution channels (broadcast, mobile, voice, data, etc.) into a single one (IP).
I write about this stuff a lot on my blog (you can check it out in my signature). I think it's an important topic.
A question on LinkedIn answers two days ago invited us to step 15 to 20 years into the future, look back on 2007 and comment on what disruptive factors we would see as most significant contributors to that future. It got a lot of interesting answers.
My vision of your 'Joost' era is one where directly on my living room TV, I can find content recommended by people in my social entertainment network; search for or get notified of interesting content being streamed live.
The main difference will be that more than ever, our notion of what is interesting will be known to the services that we subscribe to and be pushed to us in more innovative ways.
Oh and by the way, I am guessing it won't be long before movies are released in virtual worlds at the same time as they are in the real world and we can go the movies virtually.
I'd love to join that Joost site (hint, hint). :-)
And the outcome is .... Joost? blaaahhh. The next next is not out there so you can't refer to any existing company / site / product. I'd challenge you to come up with the next concepts.
Your model doesn't mention eBay, whoops
@Steve Boyd: no eBay belongs to Age #0 - eCommerce
i think the next big thing would be the combination of social interaction and c2c. in the future, people will not just making friends, sharing ideas and photos, IM each other,but also will be selling things to each other, helping each other. It's like put ebay and facebook together. there is a personalized, safty ensured, multi-sourced start page for everyone. for real life example, say i am a IT professional, and my neighbor is a 40 year old lady who know nothing about surfing but cooks well. the 'next big thing' will enable us to find each other through our page. i will be offering it after-work it support, but need meals delivered to my door, she will be offering dinner making, but in despertate need for virus removal. then bang! we help each other, and all the fares can be handled online
i firmly believe the next big thing is not about new technology, but about new ways of thinking, new needs statisfied and new application built around everyday's needs.
The milestones of the internet is often made in integration of existing technology. I see the 1 webpage where you have ALL your phone details, programs, videoconference, SAAS, VOIP and so on... all in a ajax platform perhaps. So i think the future is combination and integration in one SERVICE. We work on that here in Verinet.
the next, next big thing?
I think it's wrong to have such a short attention span. Just becuase facebook is the new hot thing - people are not leaving myspace in droves, just opening a second "social media account".
I believe that the next big thing will be a way to have people interact between all thier "social media accounts" from one place or be able to move from one to another with out logging in & out.
Or maybe that is already out thier????
Interesting, no one says it's meebo or Second Life or NetVibes or any other **existing** service. There are a few comments that imply to Second Life and NetVibes though - don't hesitate to clarify your concepts with real world examples if exist.
There are some good comments here from people. Very cool.
I think what is next will definitely include more personalization of the web experience for users, but in terms of technical development, I think it'll all be in making devices agnostic, so they work with all of the sites, services, etc. - handheld, PC, or laptop, etc. There is a lot of infrastructure behind the scenes that make all of that possible, and it's only just starting to get there. Your cell phone and house phone will be one in the same and become more of a personal technology device that can work as a video player, a web communication tool (using stuff like Twitter), etc.
That's what I see coming. As for consumer facing sites, or the web sites themselves, I think we're entering the media and entertainment age there - all those big players of traditional broadcast, print, etc. are finally moving quickly into the internet market. They didn't have much presence before, they will now, and it'll reshape lots of things.
Just my .2 :)
I'm echoing Edwin #4 that mentioned the metaverse roadmap.
The convergence of location and identity within an augmented reality.
By location I mean our mobile computing environment (iPhone, etc.) knowing where we are currently and providing services in real time using that data. Identity means making it easy to give information about ourselves for personalization of services (breaking down silos, attention/intention/attenuation, VRM, etc.). Augmented reality means overlaying the results of services that have consumed our location and identity onto our sensory input such as sight, sound, and touch as well as our environment.
@weston: yes checked it out; metaverse looks cool, but it's not web, how can augmented reality become a part of the web?? it's maybe the next next next next big thing :)
I strongly believe internet with mobile is going to be the next big thing.
Context! Context/personalization, and more interaction between different platforms. I've written about four emerging platforms: the semantic web, the mobile web, virtual worlds, and social networks. Interconnections between them could revolutionize the way we thing of communications. Here are a few examples:
"Imagine that your PDA/phone/fax/camera is connected to your social networking profiles, and depending on your status and the status of your network contacts at any given time, automatically determines whether to ring during a meeting because of an emergency, vibrate because you’re receiving a text message during a class, or automatically shunt to voice mail when an unknown number calls you during dinner."
"Think about the possibilities of an internet-enabled car. Now think about the possibilities if every car were internet-enabled. Which auto company could possibly be so stupid as to knowingly put a defective product on the road when anonymous public accident statistics are collected, sorted, and analyzed? How will it change the way our cities are planned when officials can see the routes most often taken by motorists, the businesses at the end of those routes, and how public transportation comparatively meets those needs? Think about your phone’s ability to send a text message to Google Local Search, and receive a list of businesses matching your query. What if it also told you how busy that business was at the moment(restaurant reservations needed?)? What if you were just bored, and your phone could connect to a social networking profile, then a service like Google Maps, and then provide you a list of nearby things you might find interesting?"
"Let’s up the ante, and make those recommendations and reviews from your friends available over a mobile device while you’re inside Blockbuster, FYE, or BestBuy. Who will be the first to create a service that plugs in to your social networks and semantic web sources, and provides gift recommendations when you’re shopping for people you know? When will social networks offer you the ability to keep track of your location, where and when you’ve met people, what the outcome of those meetings have been, and then be able to recommend where to best spend your Saturday night to meet someone new, or which business event this Wednesday will offer the most valuable connections?"
I'm talking about these ideas, as well as the present state of things and the challenges these platforms face, at: http://socialstrategist.com/2007/07/02/building-the-futures-foundations-platforms-of-the-web
Hope you find this useful!
Not Technology, Ideas
I think there's this tendency to say the next big thing will be a new form of technology. For example: P2P bandwidth conglomerates to watch corporate-content TV. I think what we're entering (and people are talking about) is the Dot Calm--After the Goldrush, if you will. The period where we take a bearing on where we've been what that means. I think the next step is going to be a continuation of that technology streaming aspect (Web 2.0, for short), but it's going to be ideologically driven.
All this hooplah about global warming and this Live Earth on Saturday shows an increasing desire for humanitarian efforts in the up and coming generation. I believe the internet is going to both fuel and be fueled by that.
Interesting article indeed. I'm working on a similar article myself and I've to agree with both Kennedy and Charkman. Where's the blogs in the history. The way they established a new publishing platform without central organisation is astonishing.
Also. one of the next big things might be, as Charkman mentioned, the fact that we're seeing a new economy shape up. Alot of these trends are mentioned in the excellent book Wikinomics. My theory is that big organisations are being smashed to peices in the internet economy and many new smaller firms are gaining momentum. This will most probably effect the TV-industry(Joost) and a few are businesses. Like reel estate brokers, and other kind of brokers. Like've already seen in the stock broker market.
Joost or something similiar will most likely be one of the next big things. It's just stupid that you'll have to watch tv a predefined timetable. Compare that with if you where allowed to read the newspaper only between 6am and 7am. Stupid I tell'ya. Timetables are just a technical limitation. I think however that you need Joost-compatible TV-sets for this to happen the way we see Skype-compatible phones enetering the market right now. And that might in itself be another big thing. Internet enetering alot of new devices. For example simple RSS-viewers in the kitchen, Youtube-compatible TV's etc.
To sum up. The blogsphere is a significant part of the web, on demand-tv and internetcompatible devices along with a new economy(that will probably take 20 years or something) is the next big things.
We know people are lazy, but that might be changing. People are getting smarter, more aware. The change is very very small, but it is there. Take the phenomenon called The Secret, I do not want to talk about this, it is merely an example of the fact that thinking is changing. The web strive to make the lives of people easier and quicker, convenience. If I am able to to that, my visitor might give me some of their money for the value I add.
Social networking is huge, we agree with that. I belong to Facebook and it is a very good de-stresses. But to me, that is all it is right now. I might buy some stuff off it, I trust my friends to recommend good stuff, because they know me, but I do not think it will go where everybody believes it will.
If we can create a space on the web where beings can discover their internal powers, earn enough money to live their dreams, participate in a group conversation on the nature of fish and order an espresso to be delivered no matter where in the world they are, mmmmmm, now thats my kind of world and way too far in the future for this article.
I think any "next big thing" will require an upgrade in infrastructure. I dislike the idea of web applications for now because they're completely dependent on having a fast, reliable, and affordable internet connection. Cable and FIOS are getting there, but there are still a lot of issues with reliability and affordability. Everything from your ISP to the usually shitty modem that they provide to the router that you use is likely to affect your ability to access the web. It's ridiculous that you have to reset your hardware regularly and pray that your connection isn't being throttled by something external to make sure your Youtube videos don't start skipping. And this is still costing you $40+ a month, regardless of uptime.
Mobile internet access is a joke right now. You have slow speeds of most wireless networks, ridiculously high prices that wireless companies charge for data plans, and the lack of affordable phones that provide a decent web interface to overcome before mobile web apps will become mainstream. Not to say that I wouldn't love for it to be the case, but I don't see it happening until the infrastructure is there.
Lovely people, you have all missed the boat. It is not about technology, we are all people and in the end nothing changes. We all need food, shelter and water. Social interaction (on many levels) and creativity is a plus, that gives our massive frontal lobe something to chew on.
I loved you article Emre; you provoked a lot of thought. However, you and many of the people who have commented here are too technical in their thinking. This web stuff is not about technology, the next big thing or web 2.0, 3.0 or 4.0. It is about the fact that us humans want to do things efficiently (easier), faster and with the confidence (trust) that we are doing it the best way possible (that is, we trust what other people [in our social network] have told us).
To critique your article (and thanks for inviting it). You missed out information sites, the start of the internet boom. Therefore, search comes first… finding the stuff you want. Yes it was improved, but it still came first. AND still is most important, and that is why social networks are important, I will get to that later.
Next, eComm was a stage, agreed, but as didn't work because it was poorly designed and implemented. As your #10 commenter said, things go around in circles. Yes, eComm is having a rebirth. Just look at internet banking. Originally the banks stuffed it up big time, but now they engage usability consultants on everything and have improved things dramatically.
So we (I) agree that search was around earlier. The next and most opportune creation is the fact that search is now augmented by social networks. Look at Digg and similar. You are basing your decisions on what others have said. Look at Facebook… I type in my good friend’s name, knowing I can invite them to Facebook. I scroll quickly through all the John Smiths that are registered and don’t see my friend. I give up and think. ‘Who does he know? Ah, yes, he knows Sal, my mate who is really tech savvy. Sal has hooked up with me on face book and also with John’.. Bingo – I find my mate straight away! Phew.
You mention Single Sign on Emre, the main reason that doesn’t work is that legacy systems are co crappily designed that they don’t integrate. The invent of XML and other technologies helps us with this and it will improve but as #10 says, as the tech improves it WILL come back.
Joost, looks great, but the site has a terrible design, half the page designated to rainbow colours... whattda!?
Yes, it may be the next big thing, but only if it is designed in a usable way and actually leverages social networks for recommendations of great content.
So why is Facebook successful? A number of reasons:
1) It is so easy to sign up. I was chatting to a friend in Brazil on Messenger and invited her. Within seconds she was registered on Facebook and when I woke up the next day and she had found 5 other friends... too easy.
2) It is social… my wife hates calling people on the phone. Now she can keep up to date with mates easily, kinda unobtrusively even. She can even chat with them without feeling like she is bothering them. It is asynchronous… in my/your own time – that makes it easy!
3) It services people’s ‘Paris nosiness’. You can peep into people’s lives and never get caught!
So enough on your article Emre. Where to next?
Right, my basic premise is. We are all people and the web (tech) just enables us to achieve our goals in different ways. We are satisfying needs quicker, easier and cheaper. We have less intrusion, with more confidence and with less emotion that we would face to face. It enables us to do things we could have never dreamed 50 years ago. Free global phone calls, deaf people can use Skype to have conversations; knowledge can be accessed, stored and created extremely easily, RSS feeds mean that we don’t have to score heaps of sites to find out the things we are interested in.
But our needs haven’t changed…
So how does the internet and it opportunities mirror everyday life?
I met my wife 3 years ago, she had nice ex boyfriends that I ‘still’ get along with. She hung out with some of the same people as me. We were part of the same group…BUT... we met online at RSVP.com.au. We had the same criteria for a relationship and the level of trust that we needed to have a first date… all online.
And it all comes down to search. If it wasn’t for good search we would have never found each other.
That brings me to trust. We trusted that our profiles were a true representation of who we really are. And it worked. In many situations trust creates action. You trust that your friend used a lawyer or orthopedic surgeon previously, and had a good experience. So you yourself go and use the same people.
I was part of LinkedIn and the CEO of a major Australian transport company met me on the basis of that. It was unlikely I could have met him any other way. You trust that someone you have hooked up with on Facebook liked an article and you read the same things. I did that… Thanks Benn now I have written this article!
As people begin to recognise Facebook and they come to
understand it more, so will the trust build. People will bring back the ecommerce and dating. They will do things that make their lives easier.
Add emotion to the interaction and the trust will build even more. People will buy-in more to the interaction because they can see how other people feel. Emoticons in chat do just that.
What else makes us accept this online stuff? Well it helps us with the lack of community in Western society. Many of us no longer approach our friends and family to discuss pregnancy or death. Instead we log onto MySpace or similar to discuss these things with complete strangers!
Facebook allows us to keep up to date with what friends are doing, and even feeling, all the time.
It keeps our ‘nosiness gene’ alive, as I mentioned above. You can see who your friends are dating, and even comment on it!
The web also gives us a way to escape from real life. Just
like alcohol, drugs or TV. If we can get trusted recommendations from others about how to do this even more successfully, then I’m all for it!
As # 12 says, I don’t believe we are lazy. People just want things to be stress free, the path of least resistance, and easy. This has been the case of thousands of years. The goal of many religions to help people live a stress free life. Just look at the practice of meditation in Christianity or Buddhism. We want all things free of stress - easy. Thank you The Internet!
So where is all this headed? Well nowhere… our basic needs in life will always be the same, they have been for thousands of years. Perhaps we can do things in a better way... My bet is that there will be a ‘Facebook’ type site that has movies, games, business, family and social components built in; all with a high level of trust. We can’t get away from the fact that we are social beings with the need to do things easily. Joost ‘on its own’ will never suffice, bring on integration.
James Breeze www.usableworld.com
@James: thanks for this thoughtful follow up, actually this was a point that I included in the first draft of this post, but then took it took for the sake of purity. I believe that Joost, in order to succeed, should combine social features around its media player. After all these are paradigms that never fade away, we still have search, we still have single sign on and we still have ecommerce. Only the center changes and that's it.
It's great to see all the points that I was confused at are questioned in the comments. Great to see this brainstorming.
Thanks Emre. Your post has helped me generate a heap more Ideas. I'll see if I can get em out of my head and onto my blog soon!
I think if it's this focused on human interaction, it's really just a communications platform, which is exactly what we had before, only now it's over the IP channel.
There's nothing that revolutionary going on otherwise, in my opinion. We're not at a greater place of social interaction. We're just migrating over past communications platforms onto a new one that is better established, more efficient, and has multiple points of access.
That's all there is to it, in my opinion. We overthink everything in our industry :)
Online collaboration for business will grow immensely. Online apps are very powerful when you use them with distributed teams. This will lead a lot of consolidation with mobile.
The fall of online "media" companys, ala yahoo, the rerise of big media because, after all, they know how to do this and weren't really disrupted.
The fall of the citizen blogger back to the peanut gallery.
The wipe of "UGC" (is anyone still taking this seriously?).
Google having to share profits with high traffic sites that they scrape. Seems obviously fair.
BTW, is this inane document a phishing exercise??
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