The migration of the masses has been slowly eroding away many blogs, and chat portals and even email communication around the world. It’s been affecting the way I communicate with friends, and family, and even the connected internet world as whole. As more and more people spend more and more time using facebook, I see many people using the other chat, email and blog services less and less.
For quite some time the industry has been touting the mobile web as the new big frontier for internet and communication, and I do see that as being a big segment of the world market in the future. I do however see the future of yesterday as it is today, and currently it is facebook. I have a facebook profile, but I do not use it as much as so many other people are.
The amount of time that so many people are now spending on facebook is definitely taking away from many of the other great places on the internet. What is most disturbing to me, is how many people use facebook so much that they assume that everyone else on their friend’s list is using it in the same way, and those assumptions often lead to expectations that we know what is going on in their lives simply because it was posted on their wall, in the activity stream, or added to their photo albums. I for one do not see all these updates that everyone expects I have already seen.
The past few years I had established certain circles on the on the internet, and things we pretty solid with the portals and programs that I, and many other people used. I had a group of people the were very important from programmers to family and some friends who were all on the yahoo messenger. I had another group of friends who all communicated mostly through myspace. I had a third group of people who I mainly kept in touch with via emails and chat rooms. This has slowly been changing over the past year.
More and more people are using facebook so much, that I hardly see them in the chat rooms we use to frequent so often. The amount of emails I get has gone done, and the amount of facebook messages being sent to me has gone up. I do not see my friends showing as online with the yahoo messenger alerts, but I can certainly find them with the facebook, online now chat bar all hours of the day and night. Blogs around the internet are being visited less, and updated less, as more people depends on the facebook activity stream and twitter to become the new, fast blog systems of the day.
I guess some of these services are easier for non-techies, and that is why so many people are tweeting and facebooking, yet leaving the more powerful services and portals behind. I also believe it has more to do with the ease of sharing photos on facebook, and the ability to post twitter updates from cell phones that is leaving the other services behind. I am really dissapointed to see this mass exodus with everyone going to facebook – but I do not think that it will be the future internet is all facebook connected as Matt Z would like to see it.
I have seen other services get real popular, and then start to fade as things change. Sometimes it’s the service that changes, like myspace imposing more and more restrictive rules. Sometimes it is the people changing – like adding more and more family members or peers on facebook, making it so you post less and less of your friend type info – self censoring. I see this happening more as more people get online and start talking about everything they see on their friends family’s facebook streams. I see this happening more and more as people become more knowledgeable about the privacy implications of these mega-portals.
For now the pendulum is swinging towards facebook – lots of people going on, and lots of people experimenting with the various modes of communication there. As more people realize that everyone from the friends of their ex to the aunt Sue is able to see everything they post on facebook, and everything they like elsewhere around the web – I do think that people will start to use it much less. Sure some people will create two profiles -0 one that is family and business friendly, and another that is for friends to see what is really going on – but I see it splitting more than that. Sure it will make facebook’s numbers look good – the millions of members – but the amount of time will once again start to split.
I see things getting divided again in the near future. Just like myspace was once the king of internet viewers, facebook will certainly see a major decline within the next year or so, and I expect it to be a continuous decline. People will want to find different circles to socialize online, just like they do offline. People will find different places to congregate with groups online, just as offline – the all-in-one social network site will probably not be the way of the future. I see people finding smaller social network sites to congregate with online – niche social sites, that may have some overlap of groups of friends who they connect with there.
Just like offline group social settings, you most people want various places to establish different levels of openness and intimacy online. People will want a social place on the web to “socialize by posting photos, life updates and where other people share the same. But people will probably want one place to share with party friends, and other place to share with their family, perhaps another place to connect with other sub sets of friends, like sports teams or churches. Media sites have held this as a secondary thing in the spotlight for the most part, but sites like flickr and youtube are social sites that have been solid and growing for a long time.
So where is the future? I believe people will experiment with various portals on the web, and will shift the amount of time spent on each one – the ebb and flow will continue as web sites create new ways for people to connect and share. I see the sub networks, like music fan portals, game forums, chat room systems and other ways to connect with other people you get along with, have and have things in common. Different sites where only friends in certain user chosen groups of accepted friends within that networks will be reading / watching and sharing within that zone.
As new web portals open up and give new ways to enjoy entertainment, news, and activities of friends and things they have in common – or current web sites add features to allow this to happen, we will see things balance out. Some people will still spend more time playing some farmville game somewhere on the internet, and others will spend more time debating the news. I see other changes happening for TV and where the internet is used the most by average American families.
Many people have said that mobile is the future – and I see that to a degree, but I see it TVs becoming more of an internet device and less of a television channel viewing device. I think more and more people will also be looking for the web content portals that work well on television screens, whether it is being accessed from aPS3, a WII, or a mini-computer / laptop connected. displaying well on TV screens, and having apps that work on a variety of devices that bring net connectivity to the TV – be it a piece of hardware like the aforementioned game systems, or products like the Boxxee or the net capable TVs that display apps like yoututbe and facebook.
If we can develop all of our web apps to work on these various devices, to display our content well, and give the privacy that users want – we will be successful in delivering our internet messages to the masses. Internet users will certainly be given many more places to share and spend time online, and will have more options for where to enjoy that content – be it myspace on the cell phone, or a new niche music and video site on a 50″ flat panel TV.