Nice job, if a touch taxing :-) > A social network has to be stupid-compatible if it's going to be > successful. But it also has to be smart-compatible, i.e., done the > "right" way, if we are to keep from going insane. ;)
I don't even remember the name of the feature, but I used a tool way back in the very early days of a public Internet (it was called a MOO, I remember now) which had an inner programming language to construct your identity (today that would be you avatar, but it was more like your identity, life history and future behaviour all in one and extendible). Given a browser-style interface with 3D capabilities, it would address social networking considerably better than Facebook (with which I have the lightest of passing acquaintances), but you have to consider how much working time - and consequently rewarded time - you can afford your employees to spend in such a virtual world. For that is what social media provide: a world-wide stage on which you perform selections from your real life and any fantasy life you choose to publish. Stupidly, we still demand that people be consistent, but that will drift away over time, of that I'm pretty certain. Where to? I think we're destined eventually to become bubbles of information in a purely virtual organism that "may" instantiate itself as a physical entity as the context demands, and that technology is going to get us there as quickly as it is able to. Reminds me of Philip Jose Farmer's trilogy - long time ago, I'm not sure I can recall the title of the first book, I do recall Mark Twain and the Riverboat thing. Because we're not likely to get Richard Burton and Mark Twain back, sadly. But thank you for the stimulating thoughts. Lucio.
