It almost seems trite at this point to say that the internet has revolutionized communication. After all, this is something that has been readily apparent for at least a decade and a half. Yet, even with two decades of mainstream internet use under our belts, the internet continues to influence the way we interact with each other in ways we never expected.
The Life Cycle of Online Communication
While the broad trends in online communication are fairly stable – email, instant messaging, social networking, and VOIP are here to stay for awhile – the actual ways these communications are delivered continuously evolve. From Friendster, to MySpace, and now to Facebook, from ICQ, to MSN Messenger, and now to Skype, Blackberry Messenger, and iMessage – the lifecycle for companies involved in online communication has proven to be short thus far.
While past events are not necessarily an accurate prediction of the future, it’s safe to say that we can expect big changes in the online communication space over the next few years. Big players like Facebook or Skype could easily be replaced, and a new transformative communication channel may enter our lives.
What’s The Next Transformative Communication Medium?
Somewhere out there, the next great visionary already has the idea for a transformative communication medium that will revolutionize all of our lives. In March 2012, Paul Graham – the founder of the startup incubator Y Combinator and one of the thought leaders in the tech start up world – posted an article on his blog entitled “Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas”. In essence, the article was a call to action for developing technologies that will disrupt established channels. Graham pointed out the major flaws and inefficiencies with some of the current technologies that power the world – search engines, higher education, entertainment delivery, tech gadgets, and email.
Email? Most of us aren’t thinking about email as a technology that needs reinventing. It’s been around since the dawn of the internet and has become so entrenched in our lives that it’s hard to picture something else taking its place. And yet like so many established technologies before it, all it takes is one revolutionary idea to completely upset the apple cart. The same way Ford Model Ts replaced the horse and buggy, email quickly overtook snail mail, Wikipedia replaced physical encyclopedias, DVDs replaced VHS, the smart phone overtook PDAs, streaming video overtook movie rentals, and e-readers/tablets are replacing print books – by their very nature, transformative technologies revolutionize established mediums in ways we could never have anticipated. The transition is often swift and brutal.
So what might the replacement for email look like? As Graham explains, email was not designed to be used the way we commonly use it now. While we recognize email as a messaging protocol, the bulk of the casual communication we do has moved to instant messaging, SMS messaging, and social networks. Essentially, email has primarily become a to-do list – something it was never designed to do. Worst of all, it has become a to-do list dictated by other people. According to Graham, the time is ripe for a real to-do protocol to replace email. Such a protocol would possess the following properties:
- There would need to be restrictions on how someone else influences your list.
- When someone else puts something on your todo list, you would need a mechanism to evaluate the importance of the task.
- The ability to gauge the priority of a task would be paramount in increasing productivity, but there would also need to be a way to prevent people from stating that everything is important or urgent.
Graham’s thoughts on a protocol to potentially replace the “todo” aspect of email may or may not become a reality, but it does give us an insight into the type of thinking that will fuel the next great transformative communication technology.
Future Trends In Communication
Realistically, there’s no way to predict the arrival of a uniquely transformative medium. Perhaps a new technology will replace email, or social media, or instant messaging, or VOIP, but it’s just as possible that all of these communication channels will stick around for decades, slowly evolving over time. If that’s the case, what smaller evolutions can we expect to see in these technologies? How will advances in certain technologies affect others?
Social media will almost certainly continue to rise in importance. While much has been made about the poor performance of the Facebook IPO, it hardly changes the fact that in half a decade – social media has completely transformed the way we communicate. Indeed, it has completely changed the way we process information, enjoy photos, and even the way we enjoy entertainment. Social media signals are now influencing search engines, and Twitter is becoming the go-to source for breaking news. A higher number of engaged twitter followers has become a mark of influence and even earning power.
Instant messaging has been gradually but steadily migrating away from our computers and onto our phones. The lines between SMS and instant messaging are becoming blurred, as the old SMS
technology starts to make way to proprietary messaging mediums like Blackberry Messenger and iMessage. Instant messaging has also become much more interactive; the ease with which pictures and video can be taken and transmitted means that things have come a long way since the days of ICQ.
While talk of blanketing cities with free WiFi has been in discussions for the last decade, few major cities ever put this into action. The networks that have been established are incomplete and unreliable. Yet we’re able to surf the internet within almost any city with a cell phone network, albeit with limited bandwidth. When the inevitable day does come when cell phone bandwidth becomes as cheap as fiber optic bandwidth is now, how will that affect the business models of phone companies? Will talk minutes become obsolete as phone calls become the sole domain of the internet? Will video chat replace voice calls as the price of broadband data continues to drop? No one can tell for sure, but if the last couple decades have taught us anything – it’s to expect change, and expect it quickly.
This article was written by Simon, who is a writer with a formal education in International Economics and with work experience at one of the leading European insurance companies. He likes to write about tech and financial topics but is known to even write about fashion and health topics. He currently works for Jangomail a professional mass email service provider.
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