Talking Points: Web 2.0
The internet used to be a one-way experience - go to a web site and see what's there.
Then there was Google. And wikis. And eBay. And downloads of all music in the known universe. And Blogs.
But that was just the start. MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter. And what will Google Buzz bring, apart from a lot of controversy about copyright and privacy issues?
Within a matter of a couple of years the web became a place of social interaction - although Tim Berners-Lee famously claimed that the Web was supposed to be like that all along.
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Photo: Paul Downey |
Dr Aleks Krotoski (right) in her BBC series The Virtual Revolution made a great attempt to sum it all up. Positive, but aware of the danger that we might actually be changing the ways in which people function. In other words, changing human psychology, forever.
The celebrated neuroscientist Professor Susan Greenfield even thinks we may be changing the ways in which the brain develops.
But before we get into the philosophy of it all, what does social networking mean for organisations and businesses?
Obviously if you are dealing with consumers who place great store on social networking then it's something to be involved in. Perhaps a lot depends on whether you are the type of organisation that would generate a group of fans or followers. It also depends on whether you have the manpower available to maintain freshness and responsiveness in your networking activities. Celebrities have agents to do that sort of thing.
Most of us aren't that famous.
Beyond the grave?
The other day a colleague received a notification of the birthday of a friend who actually died a couple of years ago. Dr Krotoski touched on the same point - who actually removes information from all the social networking sites? And even if they did, how much of it remains somewhere in 'hyperspace', ready to be linked to or downloaded by someone else in the future?
It's hardly surprising that businesses, generally speaking, are simply experimenting tentatively with the new technology. Having spent years trying to safeguard corporate intelligence and maintain up-to-date public information about products, it seems unlikely that companies would just throw such information into a bottomless pit.
By the way, there's also the question of whether these megalith companies will all survive - see the page on Cloud Computing for more thoughts on this. Oh, and there's the small matter of money - social networking is free at the moment, but it may not always be so - especially for businesses.
There are honourable exceptions to all these doubts, notably business networks such as LinkedIn that do not have the universal remit of consumer networks. Generally, though, the doubts appear to be justified for the present.
Let us know your thoughts!