Charles Gallant

Facebook recently added a feature called Shares.  This lets you post a link on either your profile or your Facebook Friend’s profile.

Gmail just launched some new voicemail features that are integrated with Google Talk.  This lets you leave someone a recording, accessible from anywhere Gmail is.

Firefox 2.0 now has automatic spell-checking built into the browser.  I’ve used it 6 times in this post.  I just can’t spell ‘effecient.’

Sure, I could just send my link in an email, leave a voice message on a cell phone, or check my spelling in Word before I post, but it’s slower now.  It’s not efficient to utilize a system if you’re already vested in another that does the same thing.  It happens all the time, with just about every product imaginable.  Software’s ability to provide upgrades, and the web’s ability to make those upgrades free & seamless, makes it a little more interesting.

Because products like Facebook, MySpace, Gmail, Delicious, & Backpack all exist online, they could potentially creep into any realm they want.  Gmail could “upgrade” their contacts list and create “friend networks.”  Take that idea a little bit further, and you’re on your way to making a Gmail Facebook.  Facebook could also play this game, by simply building in an email client to their profile page.  All they would need was a place to store email addresses of people outside of their Facebook network.

The boundaries between these services are breaking down, and the network itself is starting to dictate design.

These tools have great potential to teach us about how we socialize.  Imagine a tool that could do anything.  An all-in-one super site that had all the luxuries of Facebook, Gmail, Digg, YouTube, etc.  People will use the features that make the most sense to them.  As the site upgrades itself, it’ll do so in the shape of the needs of the community.  If something doesn’t look or operate in an intuitive manner, it’ll get phased out in the next upgrade.  Perhaps having one site is too much for people, and the act of visiting separate sites for separate tasks will be more successful.  The tools will eventually reflect our brains, and give us a new perspective on how we think.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 29th, 2006 at 3:39 pm and is filed under coherence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.