I’m all for skipping a generation (Web3) and going straight to Web4. Below are some excerpts form Seth Godin’s post about what he sees coming in the future. I think his examples are provocative in a very good way. I also think they under-estimate future visions and overestimate the short-term visions. Here are some excerpts from his post with my comments following.
What do web users do for a living? What do we get paid to do that makes it worth giving us a web browser? Me, I make connections. I take disparate ideas and connect them in (hopefully) useful ways. Others do it with people, or cash instead of ideas. But we’re all connectors.
That’s a great, simple explanation of what he does. I need that simple of an explanation for what I do, or what I want to do. I’ll work on that.
From Seth’s list of “deliberately provocative examples:“
I visit a blog for the first time. My browser knows what sort of stories I am interested in and shows me highlights of the new blog based on that history.
That’s a really cool use of technology that I would really enjoy and leverage. I’d like for this to be across all platforms, not just on the platforms that I have a user name and password and only works with those who decide to participate. To really leverage this idea, it needs to be very broad data, finding very specific desires and needs. I can see this going further by helping us do research on topics or studying anything in school (at whatever level, elementary through post-doctorate).
I don’t get company spam any more (“fill out your TPS reports”) because whenever anyone in my group of extended colleagues highlights a piece of corporate spam, it’s gone for all of us. But wait, it’s also smart enough that when a recipient highlights a mail as worth reading, it goes to the top of my queue. If, over time, the system senses (from how long I read the mail, or that I delete it, or that I don’t take action) that the guy’s recommendations are lame, he loses cred.
I think that idea needs a lot of work. As Seth stated, this list is supposed to be provocative. The problem with this scenario is the same as the current problem observation surrounding A-list bloggers. I think that scenario is too much of an echochamber and lends too much cred to popular and not enough cred to valuable. This scenario would be awesome if it really puts valuable on the top, and relates valuable in terms of the recipient and the recipient’s needs.
Provocative indeed. Thanks Seth!
Filed under: Blogging, Geek, Ideas, Listening, Perspective, Writing
