Say what?

Yes, I'm saying it now, ahead of time, and getting it in writing so no one can refute me in a few years when I boldly say, "Well I said that would happen a year ago." Social networking will die! Call it a hunch, or just gut instinct, but I've seen this all before and it's too deja vu for me. Some of you probably can see my logic, even without hearing my reasons, and others I'm sure think I've lost my mind.

It's like saying Google will fail - and no, I don't think they will. But I did think they'd get *this* big and I, like all of us who knew that, I should have bought stock. Still kicking myself for that; but hey, I was in my first years of college and money didn't grow on trees for stock investment. Sure it's easy to say that now - I didn't put it in writing and I can't be refuted. So again, that's the purpose of this post. Social Networking will die!

There's a few good reasons for this, but mostly - people just aren't going to give a hoot what you, your girlfriend, your dog, or your bar buddies did last weekend for that much longer. No, seriously - we do NOT care. Most of us don't care already, but since you guys love to catch the headlines on rare occasions with your missteps in life (how obsessed is this country with nudity still, I mean really?) we can't help but get dragged along. OK, so not all of us with MySpace, Facebook, whatever.com accounts have a naughty picture lurking around the web or skeletons hanging in our closets. Sure we love chatting with our friends and staying in touch. But how long does this last before the next thing comes along? I remember a time with Instant Messenger ruled the days of chatting; now it's going the way of the Dodo thanks to Social Networking and cell phone texting (which is something else I must not be in tune with...OMG it's NBD - just call them!).

Don't get me wrong, instant messaging is by no means dead or gone, but it's certainly not what it used to be. Social Networking is also probably not even at its prime yet, but it's getting close, and ultimately I think something new will draw the crowds away. I'm sure that seems like a blatantly obvious observation, but technology trends make this change fast, faster than we probably expect. Just ask any landlane phone company how cell phones have affected them. Ask any newspaper how the internet has hurt their bottom line. Global business is local business in today's world.

I genuinely believe that people will loose interest in reading every personal detail of everyone else's life within the next year or two. This system can't sustain itself for that long - or at least I sure hope it can't. Whatever happened to privacy? Whatever happened to protecting kids from the predators that lurk around the net? Believe me, if we don't shift away from these sites on our own, Big Brother will probably help the cause in the long run. Just this week Facebook got caught up in more legal woes over it's failure to protect kids. Granted MySpace is ten times worse, but that's only further making my case.

So when this great shift happens, what's next? Hrm, if I knew I'd already be working on it. But if I had to guess, it'll be more about user-created content, including how we search the web. The Digg.com model I believe has great potential to let users shape the internet how they want to see it. Logically what other people are interested in likely will appeal to me too. Not always, but most of the time. If we can rid the exploits of this model, I think it has great potential. I think as we care less about what everyone else is doing, or about posting our ridiculous videos and photos online that we'll ultimately care about what we really need from the internet - information. In a lot of ways the internet has turned into a giant toy with social networking. But as it progresses, it also becomes more of a joke. And young people don't stay interested in things like this but for so long. I predict that as time goes on, we'll continue to see more of this social networking for a while, but that ultimately the web will resort to a tool for information. It'll always be a way to connect with other people, but I believe the next 'best thing' is just around the corner - waiting to be the silver bullet to Social Networking sites. If there's one thing about technology we must not forget, it comes and goes like the wind. So do our interests. Technological Darwinism at its finest. Maybe the first OS built completely integrated into the web will be the next spark.