Social Technologies Summit - Futuresonic 09
This was my first year at the Social Technologies Summit. I’m not quite sure what I expected. Robots and brain scanners? Maybe - a little. The future? Certainly. My interest is threefold. Firstly, from a work point of view I’m looking for new technologies, ideas and different approaches. As a blogger I’m looking for new ways of distributing and accessing information online. And from a personal point of I’m looking for - well, something different. Something inspirational and exciting. Isn’t that why we’re working in this sector? Apart from the robots and brain scanners the conference delivered. I came away feeling that I’d been part of a discussion and that, as Sir Tim Berners-Lee was quoted as saying, ‘. . . the original web of documents was just the tip of the iceberg’. There are so many innovative and exciting developments that are already underway.
For me, by far the most interesting discussions were around the Semantic Web or ‘Linked Web’ or ‘Web of Data’ as it is sometimes known. Tom Llube led a thorough and informative discussion on Redefining Identity in a Semantic World. He spoke about a quiet but powerful revolution and the profound effect that this new web would have, both from a cultural and society point of view.
In summary, we’re moving away from the original ‘web of documents’. The way we access data is changing. This new framework will allow data to be shared across numerous different applications and not just on a static page. For example, you may wish to sell products online. Imagine being able to sell them across various sites and applications and not being restricted to an online shop and an Etsy store. You could upload your products once and they would automatically become available across the web. And your customers wouldn’t be restricted to paying on your website.
Another example, from Simon Cross and Ben Smith of the BBC, is that search is going to become so sophisticated that soon we won’t be searching for details of a particular programme or film by typing its name into a search box. Nope. We’ll be asking for all the programmes our friends have watched over the last week that we haven’t seen yet. And yes, that information will be delivered to us.
Pages and walls are out. Links and relationships are in. The impact on traditional web pages and search is going to be significant.
Of course, as with any new technologies there are questions to be asked. The main one being around the subject of privacy and ownership of data. This is something that needs to be discussed further and we need much more awareness around this subject. And as Helen Aspell pointed out, we need to look very carefully at accessibility, both in terms of connectivity to the web and in terms of ensuring that everyone is able to access these new technologies.
As I said, it’s all very exciting and I’m looking forward to next year’s summit. To continue the discussion follow #futr09.
