permanence

We often think of the internet as a permanent addition to our lives. Sure. I'll agree to that. For the rest of time, humanity will be interconnected via an internet of sorts. But the goods and services provided on this everchanging internet will vary dramatically. We often think of facebook, and twitter, and even google as the titans of the internet. The permanent Apollo, holding up the very fabric of the internet. Facebook and Google account for well over half of all the web traffic in the United States

But...they will not be here forever.

GOING RETRO.

Take for instance geocities, it was "the thing" in the nineties. Anyone and everyone could and did make a page. Either a blog, or about a topic that interested them. People spent countless hours documenting the lives of their children and how their days went. But in the early 21st century ;) yahoo decided to remove all of it. Total, it was less than 2 terabytes. But one day in the summer of 2005, it was deleted. All of those pages were forever lost. Some people were up in arms, some (archive team) decided to download as much as they could, and then put it up on piratebay for all to download. But for most people, nothing changed. The next "the thing" came along and everyone migrated to it, restarting their digital persona on a new service.

RETURNING TO PRESENT DAY.

So with services like Facebook's Timeline, I don't think will really be that relevant. It will last 4 or 5 years more sure, but after that. Will the interest still be there? Will Facebook will have become the next myspace, friendster, yahoo, or lycos? The irrelevant service that rarely anyone uses. I don't see anyone who will really be able to compete with facebook on the horizon atm. Google+ does look promising, but come on. Google has tried social before and that didn't ever really pick up steam. SOO I'm thinking Google+ will never become the next Facebook. Just because social just isn't in the DNA of Google.

GOING TO THE FUTURE.

So what will happen when Timeline isn't relevant any longer? What will become of all of our data that we intrusted into this service? It's almost frightening to think of it, but just remember, someday, this will happen.

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