Is this the start of the second dotcom bubble?

Is this the start of the second dotcom bubble?

www.guardian.co.uk

This time social media is the New Thing. Its most earnest acolytes claim that the likes of Twitter and Facebook are a revolution in human communications unseen since Gutenberg started printing the Bible. They aren't making money, but they are worth a fortune. Two smart cookies – Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post, and Michael Arrington, creator of the influential technology blog TechCrunch – have sold their publications to AOL, a company not noted for the astuteness of its recent decisions. Tick off stage 1.

(visit the link for the full news article)

It does sort of appear another bubble is being created, especially in light of the POWER many of these virtually exploding social networks are undergoing in terms of effecting world events.

And with facebook playing networking center stage in at least a couple of the uprisings, you can bet that money being tossed around by interests on ALL sides is likely to reach even FURTHER staggering proportions, as these networks are THE go-to source for a decent amount of the world population right now, and they literally have the ability to shape global events! In such cases, enormous money becomes no option---No price is too high for those who are fighting to stay at the top of the proverbial food chain.

My guess is that many of these sites are going to be be changing hands of ownership into further and further vested interests, the kind whose primary interests are controlling world events and the populace at large.



www.guardian.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


I agree, need to topple an empire?
Just Twitter away and see what happens....
The changes that are occuring are remarkable.

S & F

facebook is a fad, if anyone is still using facebook 15 years from now, they need to get a life.

reply to post by randomname


15 years from now, augmented reality based social networking will be all the rage. People will be able to interact virtually with retinally displayed people and places. Instead of following tweets, people will be able to virtually follow someone around as if they were there.

If Facebook wants to stay relevant they will adapt. Though its more likely that whoever implements augmented social networking will dominate the business.

Originally posted by randomname
facebook is a fad, if anyone is still using facebook 15 years from now, they need to get a life.

With the way things are going,many things such as Facebook probably aren't even going to exist. All of this upheaval and change is likely to retard or even kill further mainstream tech. developments in the near and long-term future. Can't hurt to be optimistic but then again...

Originally posted by manta78
reply to post by DimensionalDetective

 

I agree, need to topple an empire?
Just Twitter away and see what happens....

The changes that are occuring are remarkable.

S & F

edit on 2/21/2011 by manta78 because: (no reason given)

I'm afraid I have to disagree with this statement, a statement that has been introduced by mainstream media who called the uprest in Tunesia and Egypt "the facebook & twitter revolution". However, all facebook and twitter do (and they do this very very well) is to lower the cost and increase the speed of mobilization. However, there is a huge gap between mobilization and organization: maybe the social networks added to the mobilization but if it wasn't for the middle classes who decided to join, there wasn't no revolution at all.

We should be careful not to attribute stuff to the social networks that doesn't belong there. It's called "social" while - upon closer observation - "narcistic" would have been a better choice. Most of the utterances on twitter and facebook are nothing more than showing off or virtual fleaing. No real communicational dimension so no social dimension to me.

reply to post by NeverSleepingEyes


The same could be said about the printed word.

Most of it is useless narcissistic crap.

Yet, Common Sense, the Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, etc changed the world forever.

The printed word enabled the revolutions in the 13 American colonies, France, etc. Industrialization of printing even lead to greater and larger revolutions.

Since 1995, we have been in the era of the World Wide Web. The web has played a major role in bringing news faster and in more depth than television has been able to. It combines traits of the printed word and television, but brings a new interactive aspect.

With the advent of social networks and smartphones, there is no longer a need to depend on the Press for news. Information can be given in real time, not only for news but for organizing flash mobs.

In my job we don't refer to the social networks as just that. We call them social engineering networks.

The Printing Press was Revolution 1.0

The Social Networks are Revolution 2.0.

Originally posted by MikeboydUS
reply to post by NeverSleepingEyes

 

(... cut the opening statements)

Since 1995, we have been in the era of the World Wide Web. The web has played a major role in bringing news faster and in more depth than television has been able to. It combines traits of the printed word and television, but brings a new interactive aspect.

With the advent of social networks and smartphones, there is no longer a need to depend on the Press for news. Information can be given in real time, not only for news but for organizing flash mobs.

In my job we don't refer to the social networks as just that. We call them social engineering networks.

The Printing Press was Revolution 1.0

The Social Networks are Revolution 2.0.

I'm afraid I don't share the optimism. As a sociologist and web pioneer (european, that is, started in 1993) it was a pleasure to be able to see the evolution from an anarchistic environment over the bubble, all the way to the latest state-of-affairs: virtual fleaing and "wanna be the first".
Indeed, the speed of news has grown incredibly, but that didn't create more depth in the news, on the contrary. As a result of the speed of interactive media, offline media tried to speed up as well, with some nasty consequences. For example, the principle of check-double check has been killed, lots of news items are taken directly from the raw news feed, or worse, from the press release coming from some PR company.

Another issue has to do with the gatekeepers. Face it, in this era of information overload, we all use gatekeepers. We follow these people and neglect the others, we watch this show and miss the others. While it was pretty easy for a critical mind to find out whose interests were being served by the old school gatekeepers, this has become an impossible task in the blogosphere, for example. It looks as if every citizen journalist turned into a gatekeeper now.

Let's hope you're right about Revolution 2.0. Let's see where this leads to.

tnx for your contribution to the debate!

Originally posted by FlyingJadeDragon

Originally posted by randomname
facebook is a fad, if anyone is still using facebook 15 years from now, they need to get a life.

With the way things are going,many things such as Facebook probably aren't even going to exist. All of this upheaval and change is likely to retard or even kill further mainstream tech. developments in the near and long-term future. Can't hurt to be optimistic but then again...

It can take a number of different paths. One scenario is about the "splinternet" where the open web as we know it today will be completely controlled and dominated by the Facebooks of this world; whereby Facebook might become less visible but runs the whole show on the platform. Kinda like an extra layer on top of the web. Heaps of content won't be on that web any more as they will be packaged into controllable and sellable apps.

Another possible road leads to a fragmentation of the technologies that make up Facebook. Those features that prove useful will be omnipresent on the web, while the branding that is so dominant today once again will disappear or grow less important: as long as they own the advertising systems, who cares?

Hi, one thing that always puzzled me about the social media / youtube etc.
Does anyone actually click on the advertising links?

I certainly don't, and never have. So unless there a whole bunch of people clicking on these links, and then following through by purchasing something, I don't see how the model can work. Unless they start charging for the service, which is probably the ultimate end goal.

My own concerns over the new, new dotcom bubble. Is who is going to have control over it. Is there going to be stricter censorship. I fear that theses new dotcoms are going to create a two tier internet. One controlled by those in power,and other free for activists and others who rage against the power machine.

The pace of change is increasing, its not just increasing its increasing ever faster, it doesn’t matter which direction you look in either.
Hold onto your seats people the ride isn’t going to slow down or even increase at a steady rate, what we are experiencing has been coming a very long time, it could never have been any other way and we are where we are because of the natural consequence of history, Just like steps being taken, we started by crawling and now we are running, soon we will be sprinting but at what point will we trip because we cannot balance anymore? At some point in the future we will not be able to get our legs in front before we stumble and face plant into the concrete (ouch that’s gotta sting) – perhaps we will end up being a “you tube” wipeout video for some future race/civilization

I think you have slightly confused this.

The growth of networks like facebook being able to exert multi-national influence is set to grow.

The polarisation of monies earned through the internet is also set to grow. In other words, this means that the amount of money an individual user can earn from the internet will decrease.

reply to post by Cedik


Growth though will not equal stability, its not the size of things that matters it’s the ability to stay at the top of the game that’s important. Do you think we have seen all the innovation human kind can muster? I think the game is on going and newness will rule the day. IPad will look like a piece of crap in as little as a few years and so will social networks if they don’t keep up, there will be no safe place for anyone and the guys pushing these things damn well know it.

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


Is this the start of the second dotcom bubble?

IMHO NO

Originally posted by AnonymousFem
My own concerns over the new, new dotcom bubble. Is who is going to have control over it. Is there going to be stricter censorship. I fear that theses new dotcoms are going to create a two tier internet. One controlled by those in power,and other free for activists and others who rage against the power machine.

very relevant questions indeed.
RIght now I'm a little frustrated because I didn't finish an English translation yet. Couple of weeks ago, a couple of belgian web-pioneers joined forces to draft a memorandum. I am one of them. In that memorandum we address EU policymakers and ask them to apply regulation in order to stop the censorship by apple, facebook, google. The core argument is that decisions on what content to filter out should be the temporary outcome of a public democratic debate, not the outcome of some stupid decision in a board room.
The memorandum was picked up by mainstream media and as a result I couldn't really work last week as I had to inform about every single minister (in US terms: secretary) about the issue. Next step is meeting the EU policy makers and starting the "Free Information Flow Act".

As this kind of censorship creates economical disadvantages, chances are pretty hight that EU will pay attention to it. Remember the people who forced Microsoft to get rid of IE in the EU-versions of wintendo? Well, these are the people who are being mobilized while we speak.

ANd, if you have some time at hand, do some online searches (avoid using google and certainly don't log in!) for "next next", "free internet", and words like that: it is about time to start preparing for the next internet, p2p based, no way governments or corporations can dominate such a type of network.

As soon as the translation is available I'll post links to the text.

Originally posted by franspeakfree
reply to post by DimensionalDetective

 

Is this the start of the second dotcom bubble?

IMHO NO

what is that HO based upon? Did you see the validation of the big Social Media lately? Do you realize none of them have a decent and sustainable business model other than "selling ads" or "selling access for data miners"?
I was a young entrepreneur way back, when the first bubble hit me in the pocket. Trust me: history repeats itself and again stupid people will suffer, caused by their own ignorance and greed.

(...)

I could see facebook and myspace going belly up. They really don't produce anything. Facebook just got huge funding, but has yet to release its books.
But, here is the other side. The Govt may just shut them both down, or take control if the revolts move here. That would bring them down.