My son is 6. He steals my iTouch and downloads games, then show ‘me’ (the king of Space Invaders in the late 70’s) how to play them! My daughter is 4. Once I’ve loaded CBeebies within Firefox, she’s off for hours creating stories with drag and drop characters. So we all know about second nature computer users, but what’s the real future? Social Networking has to play a large part. At the moment it’s in it’s own infancy. But application design within this media could prove life-changing. Add the mobile world and Bluetooth capabilities and we’re really taking off.
Picture this: a young woman goes to a party. She doesn’t know anyone but it’s fine because she has her mobile with her. A few clicks and she accesses the profiles of a dozen people at the party, including their pictures. She’s in luck: two of them turn out to be friends of friends. She messages them and they start to chat.
Or this: an entrepreneur is at a conference. He is on the lookout for a new marketing director. Within minutes he has identified ten people in the hall with the right CV, two of whom are looking to change jobs. His mobile tells him one of them is standing 20ft away. That evening, a record of all the people he has met is automatically displayed with their profiles on his home computer.
So this may well be the way we meet new people for dating, business and friendship. Imagine walking into a meeting, classroom, party, bar, tube station, etc. and seeing profile information about other people in the area. Picture, name, C.V., dating status, etc. Scarey? Sure fire way of breeding a world that can’t communicate in ‘real-life’ situations? Or a fabulous way of cutting to the chase and meeting people you have something in common with? After all, what has determined your current friends?
