Seth Godin - Stalker?
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | January 30, 2007 | Share This
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In a recent post, Seth Godin declares, “In the near future, I will have access to your emails, I will track your search logs, I will cancel your airline flights if I don’t like you, and I will monitor your every location, movement and conversation!” **
**NOTE: author is heavily paraphrasing
What’s he talking about? Well, accurately speaking, Godin is referring to the theoretical future “Web 4.0″. He writes, “Web4 is about making connections, about serendipity and about the network taking initiative.” For instance,
“I’m typing an email to someone, and we’re brainstorming about doing a business development deal with Apple. A little window pops up and lets me know that David over in our Tucscon office is already having a similar conversation with Apple and perhaps we should coordinate.”
or…
“Google watches what I search. It watches what other people like me search. Every day, it shows me things I ought to be searching for that I’m not. And it introduces me to people who are searching for what I’m searching for.”
or perhaps,
“I’m late for a dinner. My GPS phone knows this (because it has my calendar, my location, and the traffic status). So, it tells me, and then it alerts the people who are waiting for me.”
Godin is referring to the moment at which our “smart” devices fully connect the dots between online and offline behavioral data to make individuals trackable, connected, and fully informed. Sound scary? Yeah, I thought so too - but it also sounds quasi feasible. As Godin writes,
“What we need is:
- an email client that is smart about what I’m doing and what my opted in colleagues are doing. Once that gains traction, plenty of vendors will work to integrate with it
- a cell phone and cell phone provider that is not just a phone.
- a word processor that knows about everything I’ve written and what’s on the web that’s related to what I’m writing now
- moves by Google and Yahoo and others to make it easy for us to become non-anonymous, all the time, everywhere we go.”
In other words, what we’ll have is a world that is automatically and ubiquitously searched - no matter what you’re doing, the computer will be constantly searching for more relevant personalized information that will keep you abreast of your surroundings. With gadgets like the iPhone or “google kiosk” that increasingly close the gap between online and offline activity, Web4 could be more than just an annoying buzz word, but an actual roadmap for future connectivity.
(And when that day comes, my family will finally be able to prove that I am, in fact, always 15 minutes late.)
Topics: Media Convergence |