brent phillips

Per my last post, I pulled down a panel discussion from the Stanford Technology Ventures program. Its worth a listen if you follow this space although you won’t get into much granularity. One comment that stood out was a forecast that social network sites will be obsolete in ten years. The thinking is that technology will evolve to such a degree that the notion of specific sites to manage our personas, profiles, and friend lists will seem archaic to users at that time. Instead, the nature of pervasive , or ubiquitous, computing will allow us to make the connections with others more seamlessly and with less effort.  An example given is that we might wear technology that carries our profile and when we come in contact with someone of similar interests, the technologies make the appropriate connection for us - perhaps noting the other user’s profile to be reviewed at a later time (Location based services are evolving rapidly for mobile technology so the idea is not that far fetched).  But I digress. In the end -  good talking points to think about. For now, there is a significant amount of research on the topic as social networks exist today.   One resource that recently came to my attention is the work being done by Dana Boyd (Berkeley) and Nicole Ellison at Michigan State. See Dana’s post here or link directly to their research here. From the site, they cover a usable definition of “social network sites”, a history of some of the major shifts in the development of SNSs, a literature review of work done in this space, and a description of the articles included in the special issue.  This is a great read and a great starting point for those interested in this topic.