Thursday, November 18, 2010

Making the World Open and Connected

I am a latecomer to Facebook and just learning about its dynamics. Recently Mark Zuckerberg, the founder, outlined a new messaging email system called Titan. All members will receive an @facebook.com email address and it will enable enhanced communication possibilities.

Apparently Facebook has considerable clout. "On the Internet, information is power, and no company has more information than Facebook, which will likely eclipse Google soon as the world’s most-visited website. Unlike Google, where users spend a few seconds or minutes searching for something and then move on, many of Facebook’s 500-million users spend hours on the site every day. That shift – from a two-way street model of asking for and receiving information to a multidimensional set of interactions – has the potential to change the Internet in ways not seen since its popularization in the 1990s."

How will all this information revolutionize the Internet?

"Imagine a future in which your social circle colours every on-line experience – in which websites customize content for you based on whom you know. In the not-too-distant future, an online shopping store’s sales pitch to you may consist of a personalized pitch from one of your closest friends. A news website may present to you a strikingly different front page than it presents to anyone else, because its editors know from your Facebook profile that you like stories about politics, say, but not crime."

Earlier this year, the founder under the glare of television lights confided, “My prediction would be that a few years from now we’ll look back and wonder why there was ever this time when all these websites and applications … weren’t personalized in some way,” he said.

“I just think that the world is moving in this direction where things are going to be designed more around people. I think that’s really going to be a powerful direction,..making the world open and connected."

Where are you on the Facebook value meter? Is Facebook a passing fad ?