Rocketboom on Social Networking and Open Social
Cliff November 6th, 2007
Rocketboom (one of my favorite internet news vlogs) covered social networking sites and Open Social today. Best of all, they pointed out the ways in which Open Social will change Google’s standing in the social networking sphere, as well as what it will mean for privacy and advertising revenue.
As we talk more about Web4, Library 3.o, and our future, we’ll have to realize that users are willing to give up privacy in order to gain better connections to each other and richer media (”TOS? Of course I didn’t read it! I just wanted to create a place to share my pictuers!”). What this will mean for libraries and the general population of the future has yet to be seen. We will likely see much more targeted advertising as our online habits are recorded and the data harvested for marketing companies.
Will libraries be the last bastions of privacy? Or will we allow users to choose their own levels of privacy, and therefore allow them to have the benefits and drawbacks that come with such a choice?