I wonder if the current crop of tools focus on breadth of communication rather than the depth? I can't remember the article, but a study suggested that the average person has 4 close friends, and 3ish rings of friends up to 150 people.

I wonder if the current crop of tools focus on breadth of communication rather than the depth? I can't remember the article, but a study suggested that the average person has 4 close friends, and 3ish rings of friends up to 150 people.

Paul explores why he thinks TV has already lost to the internet, he proposes the most important factor is social applications:

The somewhat more surprising force was one specific type of innovation: social applications. The average teenage kid has a pretty much infinite capacity for talking to their friends. But they can't physically be with them all the time. When I was in high school the solution was the telephone. Now it's social networks, multiplayer games, and various messaging applications. The way you reach them all is through a computer. [3] Which means every teenage kid (a) wants a computer with an Internet connection, (b) has an incentive to figure out how to use it, and (c) spends countless hours in front of it.

This is where it ties into your real-time internet thoughts – simply real-time communication is just more powerful and meaningful. Sure I can write a letter to a pen pal, but I value the relationships with the friends I see every day, talk to in person, and go for a drink with, much more.

In the case of the letter, the effort required and the 'response time', is simply a friction to forming great friendships. Thats not to say it doesnt happen – but its the exception.

Whereas, its much easier for me to form a more meaningful connection with those people I speak to more often. Work is a great example, we're thrust together with strangers who very quickly become great friends. This wouldnt happen if we could only communicate with them through email – its those 'water cooler' moments that form the friendships.

In a round about way I'm suggest that real-time communication makes it easier to start conversations and make friendships (in this case real-time is just talking!). And of course we all want friends (love, belonging – Maslows hierarchy and all that).

So nothing new there – but the point is that real-time sharing of data is not the end in and of itself. Rather, the sharing of the data has to serve a purpose; helping me make and retain friendships.

The question becomes, is the current slew of status updates really the best form of realtime communication?

My problem with twitter and facebook is that their great for retaining connection with friends and its super to know what my sister in africa is up to, but it doesn't really bring me any closer to her.

The near we get to solving the problem of making news friends or becoming closer to existing ones the bigger the opportunity, because simply the value of the product to the end users is much greater! Image a product through which I can make friends for life – wow!

One last quote from Paul:

Shows will change even more. On the Internet there's no reason to keep their current format, or even the fact that they have a single format. Indeed, the more interesting sort of convergence that's coming is between shows and games.

This, I think, is so true. I know TV is a context for me and my friends; we'll watch it together, and talk about it at work. Bring that kind of content into a social world/game and suddenly there is the catalyst for friendships to form. Let me play that story, be in the story, and play with with friend and strangers. We've all got something in common then, something to kick off and talk about.

That, I feel, will be a huge part of the real-time internet.

Sorry – late comment and long!

“It’s not Information Overload. It’s Filter Failure”

But I digress, have you tried FriendFeed? thats a nice feed reader for the "social" web.

“It’s not Information Overload. It’s Filter Failure”

But I digress, have you tried FriendFeed? thats a nice feed reader for the "social" web.