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Running around in Social Circles

Humanity has moved social, hands down. Yup, the war is won people are comfortable sharing their relationships on cloud. But the current social networks are simply relationships on cloud, what we need right now, is something more.

Facebook was the game changer, it brought relationships on the cloud. It got better viewing of photos, it now includes video chatting etc. Google Plus started relatively (or rather exponentially) slower, while most of the world was slowly opening of on Facebook, google joined the race and tried to change the arena.
Nothing happened, because Google Plus, even though came in fancy packet, it offered nothing different that what facebook offered or could offer. It was same old mumbo jumbo crap of relationships, chatting etc.

Twitter always was a home-ground of misfits, the geeks, the marketing guys, celebrities and the journalists. The people in short who enjoy creating things and the 140 char space of twitter status was enough for them to move on. People who joined twitter because it was the cool thing to do and could follow celebrities, did move on to Google Plus but it was momentarily. Twitter was the game changer, a democratic broadcasting platform for the people where the past or the future did not matter and the entire focus remained at the moment. It was a game changer.

So the battle is won, dictators are falling down, corruption is being fought. People are using social channels to buy, sell, recommend products. What now?

Now, we have millions of us on the social network, it is time someone puts it into sense into it. Can social Media be used there as a web 2.0 thingy to be one of the medium of communication or can we take it further as the next set of evolution?

Like the Toyota Friend, is a game changer, social media for cars, the possibilities are enormous, for example, your car could send you an alert when its battery needs recharging, and you would be able to connect to your dealership to get maintenance tips and service information. Taking it further, Toyota friend can also be incorporated with the foursquare network to checkin into places, announce parties. (No idea if this works, it just occurred to me)

Facebook Social Plugins is a good step forward for developers to incorporate the social network in their own products, however just sharing data one way from facebook does not make sense, there should be a two way channel towards facebook. The open network of Salesforce Chatter can be used to build things that actually makes sense.

Like A wonderful example would be Tata Sky Satellite TV network. People can actually see what friend is watching and can tune in to those things. Take it a notch further and there can be discussion groups using smart phones on the television shows right there while the show is on. What is more, the production company can join in and share their ideas about the show. Imagine the difference it will make in the TRP market. Or a Social Shopping center, people buying things on recommendation of friends.

Facebook and Google are two big companies the entire humanity is looking for to change the course of history. They should not sit down and make big announcements of UI changes but bring forget their petty differences and make things that can change and make sense. Lets not let this social wealth go waste and build things that last.

The things mentioned in this post are only general ideas to prove a point. If you are taking them further do it at your own risk.
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