The Social Revolution and Web 3.0?

I want to state at the outset that I am not against technological innovation. Furthermore, I do not fear change. I celebrate progress and embrace the positive impact it brings to our lives. Similarly, I anticipate a better quality of life in the  years to come through an acceleration of research and development. I make my living by helping others use and invest in new inventions; therefore, I have an interest in continued progress.

Nevertheless, I see something along the horizon that gives me pause for thought. Since the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall  Street (OWS), we’ve heard a lot about the social revolution. Facebook, Twitter and other social tools have had a transformative effect on the political scene. My purpose is not to assess the merits of these social movements, but they achieved what the United States, with all its weapons, money and allies never dared envision. Like it or not, they have also transformed our own politics. Every politician now speaks TEA Party and OWS language fluently regardless of their actual positions.

These developments have not gone unnoticed in the business world. For example, major software vendors are now discuss the merits of social media for completing tasks. I’m not absolutely certain what they mean by that, but it may be instructive to consider what they meant when they discussed unified communication and collaboration (UCC) a few years ago. They meant that businesses should support the way their knowledge workers spread information. Consequently, if your employees used instant messaging, you gave them an instant messenger. Instant messaging was old hat long time ago, but I used it to illustrate my point.

Currently, we use Facebook and Twitter with a variety of other tools to transmit and receive information. Recently, I read an article by Andrew Keen, in which he described 2012 as the year of Google’s possible demise.[1] He attributed this development to Web 3.0, Facebook and the social revolution. He also described the mash-up technologies we used in Web 2.0 (e.g., YouTube and Google Maps).

I’d like to deliver my own speculation. If Web 3.0 has arrived, it won’t survive long. Web 4.0 and several subsequent versions will probably replace it well before we reach the end of this decade. We’ll quickly move beyond anything we have yet to imagine, and the pace of change will accelerate. The greatest challenge I see ahead is our ability to cope with the growing volume of change. Remember Future Shock?

I’ve speculated elsewhere that even the earliest adopters will struggle to keep up with these changes. I believe that’s true, but I don’t think we have to feel overwhelmed or give up in despair. I’d like to repeat some advice I’ve previously delivered: remain true to your passions, stay loosely tied to technology and tightly couple your work with proven theory, sound practices and a liberated imagination.

References

[1]Keen, Andrew (March 30, 2012). Opinion: Is the social web an asteroid for the Google dinosaur? Retrieved on March 31, 2012 from http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/30/opinion/keen-google-social-media/index.html?hpt=hp_c3.