Sunday, April 20, 2008

The future of social networking?

Whats going to happen to social networking in the future? I have a few ideas, but I'll save them for later. First I want to talk about something I think will not happen.

This post (from last November) on the NY Times Bits blog, describes how Google and Yahoo! are going to use their e-mail programs to create a sort of organic social networking service. Now here's why I don't think this is a good idea. I don't really use e-mail to talk to any of my friends. I use AIM, Facebook, and Skype. I use e-mail almost entirely for mailing lists, and other website communications. While I can't speak for others, I would gain little benefit from either of these services.

I really don't know what the future of social networking will look like. I feel like the cycle of the new "next big thing" replacing the old "next big thing" will continue for a while, until someone figures out a genius way to actually make money over a long period of time using social networking.

6 comments:

Brian said...

The thing though is when we get jobs those jobs have all blocked things like AIM, i don't know if theyll be able to block us from our email account? Maybe they will but I have Aim and I still use Gmail for now and I have many friends who have to at work cus they have no choice. Lets hope our bosses don't find out about it though.

Evan said...

I guess it just depends on what each company decides to do. The company I worked for last summer blocked every single website except usps.com (for looking up zip codes)and their own site. Our e-mail used Microsoft Exchange which is tied to Outlook. This is pretty much social networking proof if you ask me.

Steph said...

Social networking proof or not isn't really going to matter for long. With all the new phones, blackberry's and other devices, computers aren't going to be the only way to access social netwroking sites

Jessica said...

FACEBOOK CHAT WAS RELEASED THIS MORNING IN ALL NETWORKS!!! Talk about the future... It's nuts and definitely going to change alot I feel. I'm waiting for FB chat rooms, video chatting, conference, class sessions...

going to be sweet. are we FB friends evan?

Evan said...

no, but that can be changed.

Unknown said...

i forgot you had a blog!