But this intellectual growth deserves some careful study, for just as societal growth represents our coherent elevation to a higher understanding of the world around us, this understanding is neither free nor clear, and therefore deserves definition, both in scope and influence. Let me then start with scope, and work my way toward influence.
Whether or not its obvious to Joe-web user, the internet “super highway” has undergone a transformation. In fact, if we look at its history since the days of simple newsgroups and emails, the internet has come quite a long way. The world wide web has, without our knowledge, progressed from domestic tethering to worldwide wirelessness, from online access to offline availability, from restricted function to a nebulous concept of what has come to be known as online presence.
Diehard Facebook users will tell you its called News Feed. Diehard power users will tell you its called RSS (really simple syndication). It doesn’t really matter what you call it – the point is that its coming your way. In fact, as I write this today, two extremely influential internet companies – Google and Yahoo – have declared it so: the Facebook model is the model of the future.
I guess the fair (and likely) questions at this point are: 1) what is the Facebook model, and 2) what is the Facebook model the future of?Let me start in chronological order, if only out of pure simplicity.
The Facebook model – the future of our so called “world wide web” – can be best represented by a feature that was so detested, so vilified, so abhorred, that upon its implementation petitions, groups, and protests immediately sprang up against its very existence. What could one website do in order to inspire so many of its users (including myself), to protest such inexplicable changes?
The intriguing thing about social networks is not the framework within which they establish themselves. The intriguing things about social networks is the way in which we establish ourselves. Let me give an example – Facebook currently provides no distinction between our friends and our business contacts.
Sure, its figurative distinction at best, and a colloquial definition at worst. But either way, Facebook makes no distinction – if someone from your work adds you as a friend on Facebook, and you accept, they have full fledged access to your Facebook actions, photos, and statuses just as any one of your closest friends. There is little to no distinction. Although Facebook is currently working on the establishing the difference between friends and acquaintances, coworkers and buddies, this has not yet been implemented. This, my friends, is the idea of scope.
Scope, in this context, is defined as the level of access to our everyday lives. One could argue that the vast majority of our every day lives does not exist online, but I would just as simply (and just as accurately), argue that more and more, our everyday lives will head towards an online presence. The emails we write, the comments we make, the blogs we keep, the notes we send, the music we listen to, the apps we use – all of these things aim to define us as members of an online society. They aim to define us as individuals among not only our generation, but that of the past, and that of the developing future. Essentially, what we do online separates us from (and connects us to) the world around us, and, in doing so, our online presence makes us unique. This uniqueness adds humanity to an otherwise cold mechanized internet experience.
This humanity is non-trivial. We, at no point, should give up our distinct identities in everyday life, so why should our online personalities be any different? In fact, our online personalities should exhibit the distinct qualities of our actual personalities quite well. Therein lies the idea of scope – it embodies our ability to represent ourselves online. Scary – yes. Possible – sure.
Alright, so if we assume that we are willing to allow this online presence to exist, we should then assume that this presence comes at a certain benefit to us. Ah ha! That’s absolutely the right logic – but what is this benefit exactly? Well, objectively, the benefit is that that everyone else’s online presence is also available. This means that by publicizing one’s own actions online, one agrees that everyone else will also publish their own actions online. This, as I have described it, is Facebook’s News Feed. It very descriptively details what each of my friends did on Facebook recently. Marty added Jimmy as his friend. Jaimie tagged Omar in a photo, etc.
Despite the initial disapproval of the feature, Facebook has continued providing its users with updates of what their friends did that day on the Facebook website. People complained, people protested, but, as time went on, people found this feature quite useful and interesting. This, my friends, the future of the internet. And, incidentally, this is a great example of the great influences of the internet. Here’s what I mean:
The future of the internet is headed toward a simple extrapolation of Facebook’s News Feed feature – imagine having most of your actions on the internet being broadcast to your friends. Scary no? Alright, lets cut out the morally questionable destinations, and the vast majority of the websites you read, subscribe to, and watch. Still scary right? But that is exactly what Facebook’s News Feed is – it is the general notification to your friends of your actions on Facebook. So in that same sense, if your actions on Facebook get broadcast to your friends on Facebook via News Feed, the future of the world wide web lies in your actions on the internet being broadcast to your friends via RSS. Imagine RSS as your own internet “News Feed,” and you’ll get a general idea of what online presence really is.
The internet is a vast array of different offers and prospects, of different abilities and capacities, and each of these, as time goes on, will provide for you a way (through RSS) to link your habits on their site to your own personal News Feed. These RSS feeds can be aggregated into one central online profile, which, in turn, should embody an adequate snapshot of your actions online. Privacy immediately comes into question, for just as easily as we can create this holistic online profile for ourselves, those that want to can just as simply find, access, and use this profile for their own needs. This poses a two non-trivial issues, both of which Facebook ran into, and managed quite well.
The second problem with this new internet visibility is a concept you are most likely already aware of – its the idea of complete and utter information overload. As time goes on, we seem to be bombarded on an almost hourly basis with more and more information. In addition to further complicating our already complicated lives, this overload forces us to very quickly discriminate between information that we want to know, and information that is increasingly irrelevant. No where will this discrimination be more important than in the future of the internet, especially since we can, with great ease, find out more and more about the people, places, and things we value in our lives. Therefore, to soften the virtual attention deficit we all currently (and will in the future) experience, we will need to decide what types of information are actually relevant to us. Once again, in this area, Facebook has already taken the first (and second and third) step in helping us to receive only the information we are interested in. Facebook does this by letting its users customize their personal News Feed. This customization happens in the form the sliders in the image above. Along the top row are the available categories of information – Events (that people create, add and RSVP to), Groups (that people create, join, and leave), Photos (that people upload, are tagged in, or commented on), Relationship information (that people have added or modified), etc. By moving the slider for a certain category of information, Facebook will show more of those types of stories in your News Feed. By moving the slider for a certain informational category down, you will see less of those types of stories showing up in your News Feed. In this way, you can get more of the information that you want, and less of the information that you don’t.
Its important to remember that these are just two examples of how the future of the internet will progress along the lines of the current Facebook model. In fact, websites that aim to combine out various profiles from different websites into one holistic online presence profile are currently springing up at a remarkable pace. As more and more information is available to us, we will begin to rely more on the social aspects of the internet to help us grow as a society. Although the internet will continue to connect the world in ways that we cannot possibly imagine today, this closeness has its cons, and these cons have their respective solutions. The future is in no way bleak, and, as time progresses, we will find that the world of tomorrow will not only be a bit smaller, but also that at the end of the day, we will know a little more about each other. I, personally, can’t wait.