As you’ll no doubt be aware, because you’ll all have bought tickets already, I’m taking part in a debate at the MAC this Thursday entitled Social Media and Globalisation with the two Jons, Hickman and Bounds.
The brief was a slightly odd one as it seemed to simultaneously encompass everything and nothing so we’ve decided to use it as a jumping off point for some more interesting discussions about the whole Social Media thing than have maybe been covered at these events before. We’ve been rabbiting on about this stuff for years now so let’s see if we can push the debate forward a bit.
For my part I’m currently planning to talk about Facebook’s march towards being a global utility. I’m interested in how services that emerge on the Internet such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, et al attempt to mimic the Internet’s global reach without the distributed structure that makes the Internet sustainable.
Rather than take the “Twitter is going to fail” stance, which is kinda lazy (even if I do believe it), I want to compare the success of these services with the success of more traditional global brands. I’m wondering about the trade-off between freedom and ease of use.
Like all the things I’m interested in I don’t have a core argument or position to stand by because I’m still thinking about it. I’d like the audience to help me work out what’s going on here and whether it’s a problem. If you’d like to be part of that audience it’ll cost you £3.
Maybe see if you can dig out Bruce Sterling’s closing talk from saaafby this year. He does a good bit (in the second half) about how the next generation of web users will pillory us for the unsustainable things we’re putting in place now. Might fit in with the stuff in your 3rd paragraph there.