You can probably remember back to a time when websites were tagged on advertising or with addresses in their full glory
http://www.xyz.com
It then became www.xyz.com followed closely by xyz.com In the early phase of the web had to direct people to our sites overtly in our communications. We had to spell out exactly where to go. This evolved further to the phrase ‘Google us’ which is the modern version of ‘Find us in the yellow pages’. And the most recent iteration we are seeing is the Social Network, aka Facebook becoming the directory of choice. Many brand advertisements are now are using Facebook as their sign off:
facebook.com/brandxyz
More recently ‘there’s an App for that’ and the success of the itunes / app store platform is doing the same thing in smart phones and mobile devices.
Is this start of the the end of the open web, the Wild Wild West (www)?
Are we moving back to controlled media channels where we have to play in other organisations spaces?
Is this what we really wanted? Or is it just the natural evolution when there is just too much information available? It feels a little like we’ve let other people take control to remove the clutter in our life. We’ve stopped leading and started following. It makes me wonder if there is a limit to the number of information channels we can follow. If Dunbar’s number tells us how many meaningful relationships we can have, is their a media channel equivalent? It feels like there should be. It scares me to think controlled media is making a very big comeback – sure we generate the content, but we don’t own the forums. I just hope this latest iteration of the web is temporal and it doesn’t stifle the great period of innovation we are currently experiencing. The thing all entrepreneurs need to remember is that the the barriers to any digital innovation have never been lower, and no business is all powerful.
Who’s “we”? We the consumer? We the fan? We the tribe member? We the entrepreneur? We the company? We the employee? We the advertising executive??
And welcome back to Blogland Stevie… you’ve become even slacker than me. I’ve done twice as many post as you this month!
Here’s my latest (pandering to the Melbourne-Sydney rivalry thang): http://internationalbs.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/melbourne-sydney/
That’s an interesting point. It was written from a ‘we’ the people angle both as in media recipient. But from a business perspective (media, advertising, company) I guess this new controlled space iteration is exactly what they wanted!
Stevie.
Hi Steve, you just reminded me of this recent article in the Scientific American: Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality
It’s promoting open standards and net neutrality and written by none other than the world wide web’s inventor himself, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
Yep I agree fully with this. I really think we need some kind of open standard social media platform which has no owner. Almost like the ‘Linux’ of social networks. As Zach de la Rocha would say ‘We gotta take the power back!’
Steve.
I think that’s exactly what the Diaspora guys are trying to do. I’m afraid “open” alone won’t be a good enough reason for most of the current FB users to switch though, it’s gotta be something more attractive than that.