What “entitities” should have a “voice” in social media?
I’m a big proponent of making “humans” the priority when creating social media products. I actually coined the term “humanode” in my book Word of Mouse: The New Age of Networked Media, which described the individual human as the only “node on the network” that was important when designing and building technology for social media. So much software stops short of this, being built based on what the computer, mobile phone or other device can accommodate vs. being built based on what humans will or won’t, or might and mightn’t do with the device running the software.
I’ve evolved my thinking somewhat in this regard. I still believe we should be prioritizing the empowerment and enhancement of the human experience, individually or en masse, but I believe we can serve that mission by activating more than just humans.
I described a humanode as a multi-faceted human empowered to take on roles beyond that of simply “consumer.” That is, to be able to act (and be encouraged to act) as creator, producer, distributor, marketer, vendor, exhibitor, reviewer, critic and all manner of proactive roles.
I believe we can best serve that aim by “awakening” more entities than just the individual person to express or activate.
There are seven (7) entities I’ve so far identified to which I feel we should strive to “give voice” or “make aware” or “make us aware of”– a sort of social sentience.
Seven entities that should and will be socially sentient: (1) People Streams; (2) Place Streams; (3) Event Streams; (4) Media Streams; (5) App Streams; (6) Device Streams; and (7) Product Streams.
People Streams
This is the core of the social media revolution– providing tools to humans so that they may express themselves, broadcast location, and connect to other humans in myriad fashions. It started before social networking, with personal home pages, instant messaging, email, etc… and is being exalted in the so-called web2.0 phase of social networking, microblogging, and the general improvement of tools that turn consumers into all manner of producer, marketer, writer, exhibitor or vendor.
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others have made People Streams a core focus of their growth.
Place Streams
Every place has a personality. It also has time-varying dynamics, information flow in and out, and people associating and disassociating with that place. A place doesn’t have to have a scheduled “event” to have social sentience. Whether that place be Disneyland, Google HQ, a city park, a ski resort, or my own home… all places should have a voice– a mixture of the voices of those humans associating and disassociating, or of the place itself.
“Sinclair Station at Summit Park just dropped regular gas price $0.10 to $2.58. Remember American Spirit cigarettes are $3.50 this week only. You’ve purchased here 3 times this month, one more and you get 20% off your next fillup. ”
“Silver Mountain Health Spa just added a regular pilates class Friday’s at 9am. Your brother mark just checked-in here. Yoga teacher Janice Pender just joined us from Bally’s in Santa Monica.”
“No crime reported in the last week at Pioneer Park. Kids face-painting every Sunday 12pm-3pm. 10 check-ins at the dog park in the last hour.”
“Park City Mountain resort has an avg base today of 48 inches. Text #pcmeal for 20% mobile coupon at any Park City Mountain lodge. Jupiter Lift carrying 20% of capacity– get up here for fresh tracks!”
A Place Stream could/should include any dynamic (time-varying) activity, descriptor, event or characteristic. But the Place Stream is *different* from the People Streams eminating from that Place. Those managers or executives responsible for that Place should be treating that Place, or the conglomeration of Places (like a Theme Park or Ski Resort) as entities in their own right, building the “voice” for each Place in that light.
The location-enabled app revolution that started in force in 2009 is representative of this Place Stream eventuality, but it is still currently rooted in location-enabling People Streams.
Event Streams
Events comprise place and people, typically within a constrained period of time. It’s a focused aggregation of entities: People + Place(s) + ∆t
Many of us have experienced a contemporary “Event Stream.” A good example is ustream.com’s coverage of Real-Time Crunchup just yesterday (archived now). A large portion of an Event Stream will originate from the participants– People Streams. But there may also be a “venue-centric” Place Stream, distinct from the People Streams, flowing from the proprietors of the location– restaurant, convention center, hotel, etc. And any information from the event organizers regarding everything other than the content of the event– schedule changes, venue changes, special deals, registration update, presenter changes, etc… pre-event, during the event, and post event.
Content Streams (or “Media Streams” for individual pieces of content)
I have contemplated this Content Stream for some time, and have long-planned (and are in the process of) integrating it into our PlanetTagger product. Mark Benioff of Salesforce.com gave a cool demonstration of how this can and should work in early incarnations.
Any piece of content or media– excel spreadsheet, word doc, film, .pdf white paper or powerpoint– has a life of it’s own. Anything that happens to that piece of media, any change in the content itself, and any commentary on the content or status is part of the voice of that piece of media. And people should be able to “network” around that piece of content, too. Not social networking, but instead “knowledge networking” (look for a future post on this term).
This voice may not be appropriate to make “public.” A .ppt or a word doc or a film production may require some level of proprietary treatment. But the latest installment of the Twilight series should have it’s own voice, and we should be able to interact with that piece of media post-release (or pre-release), and/or network around it. I’m not talking about “networking” with the producer, the director or one of the stars… but instead networking around the actual film product with a voice of its own.
The same is true of a white paper, a piece of original research, or a market research report. Abstracting the conversation and centering it on the author, or the person delegated to managing that piece of media isn’t good enough.
A singular piece of content is powerful, influential… and it can become a perpetuated meme all it’s own– like the first Star Wars film, a brilliant journalistic expository, or Joseph Campbells digested Hero’s Journey which spread like wildfire (via fax, no less!) through Hollywood.
One could *kinda* argue that the emergence of YouTube, Flickr and Scribd are evidence that this is already happening. Yep, it is. But specialized services “by entity” will give way to applications the embody all 7 socially sentient entities under a social nichework– an affinity group-centric experience.
Applications Streams (or App Streams)
Applications are by definition dynamic (time-varying). Whether that application be Facebook, Microsoft Word or any number of MMOGs, they should all have a subscribe-able and filterable “voice.” App Streams already exist in certain form, but typically require me to launch and interact with the App in order to “hear” it.
Shouldn’t I be able to hear the tips and tricks, app upgrade info, release notes, alerts that have unfinished piece of content languishing in a drafts folder, unanswered mail, etc. via the same universal messaging/filtering system I use to conglomerate my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. experience? (or vice versa– have the App Stream come *to* my Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn stream).
Device Streams
My Personal Video Recorders. My iPhone. My computer. My Xbox. My car’s GPS. My washing machine. My refrigerator. All should be capable of expressing themselves– future Device Streams will be configurable and filterable so that I can hear
They should also be capable of asking for help, reporting their status, alert me when there is a software or hardware problem or impending problem, etc. And I should be able to interrogate those devices similarly– “Refrigerator: how old is the half-and-half?” “Answer: Winder Farms Half-and-Half is half-full and expires on December 2nd.”
Again, I shouldn’t have to be with the device, it with me, or operating it for this voice to be heard or interrogated.
Products Streams
With the advent of technologies like RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), products may not be “aware” per se, but they are beginning to have senses– an ear, a voice and perhaps a sort of sense of touch.
From my Fritos to my Winder Farms Dairy Milk to my Cinnamon Life cereal and my Rossignol skies and Gary Fisher mountain bike, all should and will be able to tell me where they are, what their status is, what they need, how long it’s been since I used it (or ate it) and where I can buy *stuff* related to it, whether it be add-on gear, parts or refills and replacements.
Utility-centric will give way to Affinity-Group-centric
The combining, compounding and filtering of these “streams,” and the technologies that will allow us to converse and interact with these streams is either here already and needing tweaking or productization, or is inevitable and imminent. Whether the stream is available on-demand via query, or we subscribe to the voice in-whole or in-part is a matter of choice, taste and customization.
This isn’t big brother. It’s lots of little brothers (and sisters).
The idea of having to have a specialized service to “network” around people, and then a different one for places (or geo-tagging), a different one for events, a different one for content, etc… will soon be considered quaint. Many hit apps on the web started around a utility, but most folks are not microblogging or photo-sharing or social networking or mapping hobbyists, per se. Some are, but most aren’t. But those utilities have idiosyncratic application to many many other affinity groups.
Many of the most successful social media apps of the future will be centered around a real-world passion, behavior, industry, hobby or other affinity group (like being a gardener, skier, sci-fi fan, etc), and they will all be better described as “knowledge networks” that incorporate some or all of the socially sentient entities, but will do so in the specific and characteristic context of that affinity group.
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