Well, I suppose I could be classed as Generation Z, depending on where you draw the line. I was born in 1991, do I qualify? Anyway, on with the words...
So I just discovered Tumblr (I thought it was just a photo sharing site, fool) via a competition Gawker is running. The competition was brought to my attention via foursquare (one of the entrants) who posted a link on Twitter (also one of the entrants). I read all this using Tweetdeck.
The competition asks you to vote for the 'Most likely to Succeed'. I voted for foursquare.
Not because I enjoy or like using the service, actually I've never used foursquare. But because I think it is the best idea. This perhaps is one of the aspects that sets me apart from my peers, my use and acceptance of social internet tools is much greater than theirs, and I tend to think of the implications and business potential (in so far as I understand or assume it, I am 18 and a student, this hardly qualifies me as a business guru - actually that point is rather irrelevant) rather than how the item can benefit me personally. This, of course, may just mean I devote far too much time to the internet, and that my life is much more boring than theirs; but no matter, I shall continue.
Location based information is, in my opinion, the next thing we need. Much discussion is, perhaps incorrectly, bandied about referring to Web 2.0 (and now 3.0), the semantic web, metadata and contextual information. Avoiding discussions about the validity of this idea, we have started to take tentative, baby steps in this direction. As I write this there is a box asking me to enter 'Tags' with which to mark this post with metadata (I dislike that term, and may indeed be using it incorrectly myself). The user generated web 2.0 has existed for quite some time now. I spend more of my time at social media sites or sites containing user created content, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Dailybooth, Yahoo answers, Formspring and Wikipedia than I do at the other sites I visit like Wired.com, Popular Science, the BBC, Mashable and others.
Location related data is the next way of encouraging user participation in the web. If I am in Hyde Park, for example, and there is a critical mass even passing through and someone tweets about it. I want to know, I want to have that information made available to me instantly and in a way which insists I pay it attention. I don't really care if there is a flash mob in Glasgow at the same time. Equally I may want to receive tweets from people whom I don't follow, but who have information relevant to my interests and are nearby. This way I will never miss an opportunity to see something great because I was paying attention to something on the other side of the world. Unfortunately this has happened to me already, it was most disappointing.
Maybe lacking an internet-capable mobile device makes me see their potential more, I intend to purchase one before I go to uni in October, and the figures speak for themselves when one realises there are over 4 billion mobile phones, and only about 1.3 billion (estimated) computers. It has been said that most web browsing will be done on mobile phones soon, data consumption recently overtook minutes in the US, and location based information will be an exciting development. I think peoples interest and enthusiasm for this, and the effectiveness, is demonstrated by how Foursquare has already made steps to monetising its services, whereas Twitter is still languishing in some sort of weird massive continuing loss area.
Maybe whilst I am at uni some developments can or will be made in this direction, as a closed campus environment with lots of technologically savvy adults is prime for location based informatics. And I will have a new phone, I am interested in possibly importing an HTC Evo 4G, but I am unsure if any UK networks work using CDMA. But nevertheless, if you're going to Warwick, you'll have to fight me to be the Mayor.
Incidentally, as I wrote this a long time ago, in the middle of the night (which I shouldn't do), Foursquare won the poll. Told you, sort of.
