I saw that recently Facebook announced that email's days are numbered. Yep, we've heard this little chestnut before but I actually think that for once Facebook may have a valid point. After all, many technology speculators tend to judge future trends by studying what teenagers are doing today and a study showed that in general, teenagers use email less than 11% of the time in their daily online communication, compared to chat and social networking sites which occupy pretty much the entire other 89%.
My own personal experience is that I find email hopeless. It has been ruined by spammers and abusive marketing campaigns. I hate filtering email. I just hate email, full stop, and rarely use it in my private life these days (any of you who have emailed me recently may notice the slow replies). I am noticing more and more people using Facebook as an alternative to email. It lets you exchange messages easily, free from spam and unwelcome cyber-bullshit, and I have even used Facebook to send someone a graphic visual for work purposes to which I got a Facebook response! Social networking is brilliant for communicating, brilliant for work, and is slowly getting better at search, gaming, and other functions.
It was always believed that search was the future of the web and, as we all know, Google has always been at the centre of the web universe as the main starting point for any web session. But even this is changing, and social networking is gradually replacing search as the main launchpad for any web session. Google will no doubt respond by building their own social network, as will Microsoft, but it will probably be some new upstart that really forces a game-changing experience.
Facebook won't necessarily be the ultimate website in the world but it is, along with Twitter and MySpace, the place where it all started. I predict that in the next few years a new social networking architecture will spring up out of nowhere which will cause a revolution, perhaps killing off email as a serious consideration, and frightening all the other big social networks and search engines out of their apathy. The whole online culture is slowly aiming towards the social network as the hub of the whole web experience. Mark my words, do not underestimate it!
It took me a long time to embrace social networking as I initially wrote it off as a teenager's time-waster. How wrong I was! It is, without a doubt, the best communication tool, it's fun, it's easy, it's hugely accessible, and the advertising / spam is kept under strict control because it all has to be paid for (so no millions of penis enlarger pills or casino sites pouring freely intro your inbox). Eventually even sites like this forum (essentially, ALL forums) will shrink away under the shadow of the social network. I've seen enough to now firmly believe that the social network is what the web was invented for, it's just taken a lot of time to figure it out.
I've embraced the social network quite firmly, as my work website is very connected to Facebook and I use them both for work purposes. I do of course use Facebook to keep in touch with buddies too - it's actually thanks to Facebook that I ended up being reunited with my long lost DoverWeb partner in crime Mike Potts. And (I know this may sound horrendous to some of you) we even use Facebook from the living room to tell the kids upstairs that dinner is ready!
It's terrific that the future of the global network is "social" rather than "corporate" or "political".
Rick, I agree 100%. I use email but it gets less and less each month, almost in line with the increase in rubbish that still manages to find it's way through my filters.
Facebook still carries the threat of turning into a paid service which will mean a number of users, like me, will cease to use it.
My social networking favourite is LinkedIn. Mainly for professionals it has become more of a social networking tool over recent months.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
rick is right, then a few months later something else will come along that is better.
i will give it a miss, only so much geek speak one can put up with.
linked is a very popular site with our local never do wells sid, i will say no more.
This is as far as I go in social networking - because I dont trust the providers.
In my business I get about 30-50 e-mails to answer daily or keep. Despite cruel spam filters 50% extra are spam which clog up the blackberry.
However that is on the increase as much as snail mail is on the decline. An e-mail can include drawings and minutes. I can't figure out a way to dispense with a totally free and uncontrolled communication method. I hate the spam of all types as much as the constant stuff thru my letterbox so I would welcome a monitored mail system for business which banned distributed mailings and even had a directory( although you can get addresses from the www). Give us that and let the other system run free if it must.
Have I just invented the next big thing - or does it exist????
D
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
Very interesting one there Rick, Yes I see even while watching Question Time last night that the BBC have firmly embraced Twitter and Facebook as they put the links to these sites on the screen...no links to Doverforum alas!
Yes I suppose in time it will be harder to keep going...too many giants at your shoulder waiting to gobble you up. Our plan of action was and is to keep this website very local with long term active Dover/Deal only members who want to debate. I see another local forum drew in members by the hundreds from Facebook but not sure if that was good for them, in my view this would kill off what we are trying to offer on Doverforum...small town relevence. The members must be local for it to work, in my view. There are enough general forums out there, and of course nobody could take on Facebook..it is all enveloping but sadly with apparently no controls.
As for email, I like it when it works, but recently for some bizarre reason that Ive never come across before in all the years, it has blocked out some guys who I always email for absolutely no apparent reason. No matter what email source you use it still wont let them through. Im now trying switching off the McAfee Firewall to see if that makes a difference.
Guest 657- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 3,037
Interesting post Rick. I still use e mail a lot i.e. sending and receiving 50-100 e mails most days (not including received spam.) Yes spam can be a problem; I have 2 filter systems in place to cope with it. I enjoy facebook for catching up with friends for which I have one profile and also my cemetery stuff which is on a separate profile. But, and it's a big but, personally I hate the fact that people (and yes it is mainly the younger element) live their lives through these sites. Twitter is a prime example of inane one liners - do I really need to know what someone has for a sandwich filling or what colour I pod cover they have? I think the worse thing I ever read was a woman who detailed her miscarriage with constant updates. An awful thing to happen but did she really need to publicise it? I am not on Twitter, yet I can read this with out being a member. Some people protect their tweets so they are private, most don't. I could easily know when someone's house is empty, where young girls are at any given moment................you get my drift. Who's to blame - Twitter for being so accessible and the in thing or the people who give too much of their private lives away? Anyway I digress, I don't communicate via facebook message much as I can't attach decent quality photos to it, spell check or any of the other useful things I use on my normal e mail without thinking. Many people I contact aren't even on facebook, they gave up after myspace. I don't even send e mail via my phone. As a personal and business tool I'll be sticking to it!
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
post 5 and 6 say it all for me, there seem to be no controls on facebook and no relevance in most of the stuff.
people can eat what they like without needing to tell the world about it.
linking in this forum to facebook and twitter would destroy the local feel.
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
I joined facebook a few month`s back, but never really gone into it. The nice thing is I have lots of freind`s on there who want to meet me, though I haven`t a clue who they are.
Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
exactly colin, people just love to show that they have 10000 friends that they have never met or likely to meet.
Guest 657- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 3,037
