The Future of Social
Fred Wilson articulates his vision for the future of "social media":
Honestly I am not envisioning anything other than this; every single human being posting their thoughts and experiences in any number of ways to the Internet.
Michael Arrington reacts here:Now that there are services for virtually every kind of content that users might conceivably want to publish, we need open standards and businesses to emerge that help people link all their disconnected content together into a single online identity - the Centralized Me. This stuff is badly needed because our content is all over the place on the Internet. And it’s unlikely the big guys are going to do the right things for the community without significant pressure. This isn’t necessarily sexy stuff, but it’s important.
There's no doubt that recent apps are fundamentally changing the way we relate to one another, but the fact that there's a debate about where these applications are ultimately headed is telling. Somewhat absent from the debate is a basic mention of "who" will be paying for "what".
In some ways, maybe people are not interested in rehashing the ad-driven vs. paid usage or content models of the late 90s? But I don''t really see anything having answered this basic question from a business standpoint. To me, all of these social apps look marginally interesting, and somewhat of a hassle to start (hello facebook) and stop using (bye friendster!). But ultimately, they seem like they are nothing more than channels on a television, and that makes me question whether there are really viable business models there. (Other than ad-driven models.)
I guess the million dollar question is whether people are going to pay cash to present their identities on-line? A sort of corporate "you" on the internet? Probably not en masse.
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