Post-social visions

What’s next after Facebook? Facebook itself or something else?

First scenario: Facebook expands to a higher level and becomes THE Internet. You will chat, buy, hire, book, play via Facebook. This is what Facebook is trying to do.

Second scenario: Facebook makes some error, and we continue operating the same actions we do on Facebook on some other social network.

But do you really see yourself doing it by spending on Google+ the same amount of time you spend on Facebook? Maybe we will, but I can’t figure it out. 

First, there is the growing living room and mobile Internet trend, and new platforms dictate new rules. 

Second, what really social interaction is? A matter of having a profile, and setting some permissions.

Think about it. Apart from the content you post or share (photos, text posts, music, videos, news, location) what really is Facebook? A matter of who sees what.

All the forementioned content can be posted or shared without Facebook; think of Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Flipboard, FriendFeed, Foursquare… the real problem is having the control about who sees it.

Facebook is fighting a war to incorporate all this, but maybe they should focus on what they have, and not on what they have not.

Facebook has our friends’ database, but it doesn’t really own it; we keep it there because our friends are there, and there we have the opportunity to meet them; but you can see how we all have our friends also on G+, and if some unfortunate event should make Facebook lose its hype, we are ready to turn it off and leave for G+.

So, what else? Having a profile and controlling permissions.

The new scenario for the social network of the future can be very simple: grant me an access to a profile, and let me define how other profile owners see my content. Give me a meta-login to all my online services, and host my buddies in an unique aggregation, letting me decide the permission groups (G+’s Circles are a great solution).

A galaxy of micro-services kept together by the oldest glue of all: relationship. What we need is the digital extension of our feelings.

So, goodbye social network, welcome social networking?

Why Social could kill Google

Being aged means having seen. And if you have seen, you can easily see in some events the reflection of the past.

I was there when Google changed our way to surf the web, making the now-famous white-with-the-coloured-logo interface the starting hub for almost everything we do on line.

Given the fact that in a non-social web data was the treasure, in the social web the treasure should be connections, or, to say it better, information through conversations.

And, of course, I found out it has already been thought and said

The problem is, who will benefit of this? Will Facebook become our next “operating system for the web” and thus our next starting hub? Or there is something else waiting?

To start monitoring it, look out for this behaviour: when someone around you will come to you confusing Facebook with “the web”, that’s what happened when Google became Google. Look for it.

The Future

The Future - is it going to be the Western civilization decadence for some newcoming group or are we going towards a new level of evolution, leaving back profit economy-based society (Capitalism) and embracing a new Golden Age with the help of social responsibility, solidarity, social connection, with a new value chain not tied to financial profit?

Is it true that lies will be very difficult in the Connected Era, when Hidden Persuaders can be outlied in the wink of an eye by one trusted friend in-between the 6 grades of separation?

Is it true that politics will never be the same, with evangelists and connectors being the new influencers and maybe delegates, without the need of campaigns but with a continuous information feed between candidates, opinion makers, curious, listeners (and also sabotators) and maybe direct vote?

Will it be easier to manipulate information or impossible to lie?