Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Slogan for next wave of technologies!

"OF the people, BY the people and FOR the people!"

Coming from India, I truly beleived in this slogan since my childhoold and it has always fascinated me how we can apply this principle of democracy to our current fast paced internet world and now I am amazed to actually see how this will form the basis of next generation internet technologies.

Internet sure has come a long way since it's birth and many advanced technologies made it close to impossible to even think of a day without internet. We definetely are moving away quickly from a generation where companies decided what they wanted people to know to a time where companies have just begun to understand what people may want to know and how companies could provide that information to those people. Simply said, the now mantra is to provide the right information to the right people at the right time!

However, technologies like chat, video sharing, blogging, social networking are bringing more people closer not just to stay in touch w/ friends and family but actually being able to distribute the content seamlessly with each other and even w/ people whom they have probably never met in their life. Here I find it very critical to underline the thread of human connections and how these connections are shaping the information that is relevant to them and to others with whom they'd like to share.

I think it will be premature to think that companies will now only be platforms for the user generated content. It is definetely to be seen how and when all these dots come together if companies could let a couch potato who blogged on Joanne Rowling, enjoy a TV commercial on Harry Potter book and actually let him order and pay for a copy of the book via his cell phone...What do you think? :)

In any case, I am just excited than ever to see internet companies attempting to understand the fact that future lies to enable build, retain and foster these relationships OF the people, BY the people and FOR the people :)