i thought i would throw my hat into the technology-crystal-ball-gazing ring.

i have a theory that the things people do online, reflect the things that people do in the real world, so these series of predictions are based on this premise.

social media is simply a reflection of social networks and activities seen in day to day life. the social groups may be different and more geographically dispersed, but i think they are fundamentally the same. as humans, i don’t believe that the way we relate to each other has changed much in the millions of years that we have been here. so on that basis, here are the predictions.

social media explosion

over the coming years there will be a massive increase in the amount of social media applications and social media adopters. social media really is still in its infancy right now. i see new startups every week and almost every website has the obligatory “beta” stamped on it (how can gmail still be in beta??).

all these new sites and services are really just experiments to find out what people want or need. most of these companies will not succeed.

social media amalgamation

in probably two years time, adoption of these services will start accelerating a little faster than they have been. only time will tell how many will win out and not go broke, or be bought and integrated. there will be fewer services but they will be more widely subscribed to.

further amalgamation

in probably five years time, the platform type web 2.0 companies will be very strong. if they can interoperate they will succeed. facebook and myspace accounts will be used as your online identity. you buy, sell and relate online via your identities on these platforms. so they must interoperate. it is much like our current real world identities our bank accounts and credit card numbers. the credit card and bank accounts we use would be useless if banks did not interoperate with each other and the services that we use with them to transact (shopping, paying bills).

your facebook (or myspace) account would be your passport online. your credit card or pay pal details would all be hosted on facebook and you would transact simply by visiting online stores through your account. it will be increasingly difficult to trade without an social utility account much like a credit card today.

increasing trust

for the future to work, your online identities will need to be verified and secured. signing up to one of these services will require a positive identification process. once this is complete, you are provided with a digital signature that will allow you to transact and enter into contracts online. your employment details and education details are automatically updated by employers and educational institutions.

the death of the giants

microsoft and google are strong brands now but in 8 or 10 years time, they are losing their relevance in the face of disruptive social technologies. search by robots is becoming increasingly less relevant as searches through social bookmarking becomes the de-facto standard. social searches are in fact human powered search, automated. the google pagerank is obsolete.

windows is replaced by virtual desktops online, that have advantage of being continuously backed up and completely shared and integrated into your online identity. forget the network operating system, now it’s time for the social operating system. bandwidth is no longer an issue.

social media is obsolete

everything is social. online reflects the real world. our networks in the real world are totally reflected in the online world. the system will continuously monitor our relationships with people and increase and decrease their access to our information as in the real world when acquaintances become friends, and friends become lovers, or vice versa. this reflects how we do this in the real world anyway by our level of engagement with particular people.

social media is looked upon as an archaic term, like “information superhighway” is now. everything is now social. we are all connected.