Humans have always communicated with each other, but the ways we communicated with each other until recently changed very slowly. All of a sudden communicating over the internet has gone hyperactive. Some people are calling this Web 3.0, others are calling it 2010 web, and others are calling it real-time web. Internet communications is re-inventing itself in ever increasing cycles.
Beyond Social Networks – What’s Next? |
How did we arrive at using hyperactive internet communications? Thousands of people started communicating over the internet decades ago using FTP, Telnet, and bulletin boards. It slowly evolved over many years to where millions of people started communicating using e-mail, digital communications, and the World Wide Web (WWW). In the last couple of years it has expanded in terms of tens of millions of people using more internet communications channels to include instant messaging (IM), virtual worlds, open-source applications, and social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. Now something new is going on. It is not just Twitter It is something more. It is hyperactive internet communications involving billions of people. I am sure some of this is a fad that will just fade away like website guest books and internet portals, but some of this hyperactivity is going to change our world.
What is changing with internet communications to make it so hyperactive? Here are a few things. It is going real-time and decentralized with things like Twitter and Google’s Wave. It is going mobile where the software and telecommunications are beginning to support useful applications. Internet applications like search engines and social networks are getting smarter delivering information to you before you ask for it. Widgets continue to evolve where now anyone with no technical skills can produce web pages that are useful and entertaining. Social networks and internet communications are getting where they are self-organizing and integrated to where information can flow seamlessly across social networks and internet communications channels. Hardware and network infrastructures continue to evolve through virtualization and cloud-based approaches to support all this hyperactive internet communications. Lastly, a whole new dimension is evolving where the whole world will be using all these internet channels instead of the elite few. See Scobleizer for more on current trends with internet communications.
