by Admin
by Karl Hourigan
by Karl Hourigan
http://www.enquiro.com
I’ve been reading about Web 3.0, and social media, and forecasts about how internet technology is changing, and changing us in the process. It’s all fascinating stuff, and these are interesting times. Some of the buzzwords that keep cropping up in all this reading are words like “community” and “inter-personal relationships”. As we’ve seen with Web 2.0, people can congregate around niche interests and find like-minded souls, regardless of where their internet access physically originates from. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace are all examples of online social tools for building community, and all of this chatter about Web 3.0 was starting to feel familiar, and not just in an intellectual way but at the emotional level. As I projected myself into the brave new future of 2010 and beyond, it started to feel like something I’d experienced before. And that something was CompuServe.
Back in the 90s, CompuServe was a big deal. I think there were two reasons for this:
There was a certain fascination and dread around the internet. It seemed interesting, but we’d heard about how the internet was populated by some nasty ne’er-do-wells and porn sites. It was like taking your chances walking around downtown back alleys late at night with a sign that said ‘tourist’ hanging around your neck. CompuServe was moderated and monitored. It was a safe, shiny gated community. The gate could swing open and let you out into the internet, but the internet couldn’t get in to your tranquil CompuServe world. So in that respect, it was an attractive way to go online and see what was out there. And the CompuServe population did seem to be reveling in the new space. We chatted with strangers, and felt safe. We shared information, and people seemed good and decent and willing to help.
Eventually, though, we got bored, and we heard that there was more – a lot more – out there, and we started spending more time leaving our gated community and heading downtown. And eventually downtown became so familiar, and cheaper, that we moved there and left the CompuServe suburb behind.
CompuServe felt good, at first. It was fun, new, and exciting. Will Web 3.0 feel good? I think so. The internet is a massive shift, and the only reason I mention that is because it has been said that with any new technology, we tend to overestimate its impact in the short term and underestimate the impact over the long term. When the automobile was invented, no one predicted motels and suburbs, which were a direct consequence of automobile culture. The internet is a very big deal, and accessing it from mobile anywhere, anytime, is a game changer.
We are more connected than ever before, but the connection is different. You could have been connected with someone by writing letters every day, but that kind of engagement is different than a quick couple of text messages back and forth with a relative you might otherwise not bother to call or write a letter to. You may find yourself playing an online game with friends and relatives, and it’s a new way of keeping in touch. And social contact feels good, doesn’t it?
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