The Realities of the Internet

I had an interesting meeting during lunch today. My agency web partner came in and gave a talk about Internet Marketing. Aside from some of the obvious ways to market one's business, product or self on the web including search engine optimization, online display advertising and email marketing I learned about some other areas that I had heard of but until now didn't fully comprehend.

These are things called "social media." This includes: blogs, forums, wikipedia, pod casting, bookmarking, photo/video sharing, social networking and RSS Feeds. Now I am not so Internet-inept that I wasn't aware some of these venues existed -- hey I do have a blog don't I? I was just shocked to learn about some of them. I am not one of those technology-paranoid people either but I do have my boundaries. But some of these social media offerings actually make me little nervous. For instance did you know that with one bookmarking site you can actually share your bookmarks, send ones to your friends and get bookmarks from anyone else signed up to the site? I don't know about you but that seems like it might be starting to share a bit too much information! I mean do I really want the whole Internet world to know that I have bookmarked a page on the pros and cons of declawing my cat??? I guess none of this should be a surprise given the birth of YouTube, MySpace and Flickr -- the vehicles that allow you to pretty much share every aspect of your life, in graphic detail, with anyone interested in looking at it. It is just a bit much even for this somewhat "techie" person. I can't imagine what my grandparents would make of all this.

Even more frightening was talk about Web 3.0 which is Semantic Web. The example given was say last year you attended a trade show. You flew a particular airline, stayed in a particular hotel, dined at certain restaurants and hosted a social event for your customers who were also show attendees. Come this year you are attending the same show and it just happens to be in the same location. With Web 3.0 -- your trip, flight, hotel and even your special event would all be reserved, arranged and scheduled for you. Here is the catch -- without you -- it just does it. Scary stuff me thinks.

I really wonder at times like this what the future holds and what will the Internet look like when my two young children are my age? Something to ponder.