It is always hard to predict the future, specifically when it comes to technology because it is so fast moving and unpredictable. Although, social media is something that is relatively nascent so it is important to see where it will go in the future because it will definitely have an impact on us all. One trend that seems likely is that our interaction with search engines will be different. This is because Google search will have to incorporate real time information from twitter, blogs, etc. Google will have to show searches that have relevant content from our personal networks closer to the top. Another trend that seems likely is the increase of content aggregators. Since information online is growing at an unbelievable pace, and we have more than one profile online, services will come out that manage and filter all this information to help us out.
Another big trend in social media that is on the rise is adding ratings to one's site. Ratings are easy to do and specially on e commerce sites they are becoming huge. People normally have a herd mentality and businesses should be aware of that so when they see good ratings for a product online they will flock towards it. Another trend that that is gaining traction is the idea of the semantic web. In a semantic web world, search engines, for example, will anticipate the best search results we’re looking for based on what they know about us (such as all our public social networking profiles). This finally leads me to question the privacy of it all. Will all users of social networking sites be alright with all of this specially the semantic web looking into our profiles before giving our search results? I believe that for this to happen we will have to decrease our expectations of privacy on the web. Although it will be interesting to see if any or all of these trends actually do materialize.
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I also studied this article you read on the future of the social media and it is so interesting how the trends are predicted but the one that also amazes me is the less privacy settings!!!!That is the one that makes me think twice considering what the current trend is today....
ReplyDeleteI think ratings are a great way to predetermine if a social networking (or anything for that matter) is good or bad. Hopefully ratings will become even more reliable in the future.
ReplyDeleteYour definitely right about google and what they are doing and I think they going the right route. But to be honest I also think it is scary with all these new ways of tracking because eventually it will get to complicated and really start to penetrate our private lives. Listen a little is ok because they are trying to do business and it will make it easier for us but I think business is too greedy and will want more.
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