A look into the future of Social Networks...

We are still very much into the infancy of the 2nd phase of the internet and what is being referred to as web 2.0. There is also some talk of the next generation Web 3.0 or the "Semantic Web". Web 2.0 is all about creating a community. Web 1.0 was all about people reading content created by a small number of "expert" authors where web 2.0 is all about community. Everyone can be a writer as well as a reader.

Web 2.0 cannot be said without thinking or saying the words "Facebook" and "MySpace". There are also all sorts of business focused social media platforms sprouting up everywhere with these real cool, funky names like Jive and Mzinga and KicksApps and Pluck, etc etc...this is starting to sound like a competition for "Who has the craziest name competition"...A look into the future? It is why you are reading this post? Correct? The future is Web 3.0. Its all about semantics. Semantics instill context and purpose into content. Content on its own is really not too spectacular. Like this morning, I read a Tweet from someone that said, "Just got back from the wild outdoors...lots of snow!"....I said "So what!?!?". Then I also read a tweet that said, "Looking for input on the future of social networks"...on its own this tweet is not too important the fact that it came from one of the analysts at a tier 1 technology analyst firm has me interested. The difference between the first and second tweet? Context....Tweeting is just one tool of a good social media platform. So what if the entire social media platform had context built right into it...like perhaps the intersection of an HR system? Or maybe the connection into a CRM system?

What I am getting at folks is that the future of social networks is all about "context". Social media like blogs, wikis, tweets, profiles, online communties etc have an exponential amount of value if there is some purpose behind the data. Imagine if the information people authored could seemlessly be used for some strategic purpose in an enterprise...like recruitment (i.e. finding the best talent). Or perhaps performance management (i.e. evaluating your employees based on a year's worth of endorsements and social media interactions).

Now that would certainly elevate the value and the audience of a social network to a whole other level...

Full circle...

I recall a meeting I had about 12 years ago when the internet was just being commercialized. I was with PeopleSoft at the time and I had just been promoted to the role of Technology Director for PeopleSoft Canada. One of the sales people at that time approached me and asked if I could accompany her and her sales team (comprised of an HR solutions consultant) to a meeting at a steel company in Hamilton.

After arriving there, setting up the projector, etc and completing the functional review of PeopleSoft as well as some high level technology discussions around the early web based architecture, etc, the main technical lead from the client side sat there and pronounced his displeasure with what he had heard. According to him, this client/server thing was just a fad and it was going to go away. "Everyone is going to scurry back to the mainframe!" he so proclaimed.

There I sat dumbfounded thinking, who is paying this guy? A company is actually paying him a salary to think this way? Wow! Here is a very intellectual person (he had several good questions during the presentation which led me to believe he had a great background and great skills), running the IT dept for a large steel manufacturer that actually supplies the raw material we use to build cars and hospital equipment and other important things, proclaiming the end of client/server computing...how wrong can wrong be I thought...WOW! This guy is kookoo!

Well here we are folks....its 2009 and all of a sudden I am thinking this "washed up" mainframe guy with gray hair, a pocket protector containing a calculator, a pen and a several hand written notes all in his shirt chest pocket wasn't crazy afterall!

I am sure we have all heard of the latest craze around the industry...something called "Cloud Computing"...well guess what..."old Steel company mainframe guy" was right all along...Could Computing is nothing more than a large infrastructure handling multiple users, from potentially different companies, with different applications and different databases. Hey, wait a minute? This sounds alot like what was referred to as "Service Bureau" computing back in the 70s and 80s. Only difference is, the client platform is no longer a dumb terminal. Its a sophisticated UI that is self managed and for the most part downloaded from a backend somewhere. Think Adobe Flex, Ajax, Java Script, etc. All of these require no "user intervention"...they simply download install and work as a "driver" from the commands coming from the server and very eloquently and simply provide a rich user experience....the goal from way back in 1985 when client/server was just being invented!

So after, many many years, a host of Microsoft gazillionaires and an entire era in computing - the I will refer to now as the "lost years!" - the whole approach was wrong from the get go! All because of a pretty screen! If someone had invested the time to think through how best to send data and UI information to a workstation instead of having the workstation generate the UI on its own, we would probably be much further ahead today from an ROI and innovation perspective.

Oh well, we are back on track now, finally! although the client/server legacy guys (I thought I would never say that!) still think Cloud Computing is a fad...