Change is constant. It is everywhere, on the television, on the radio, on the billboards and on the Internet. We've seen the trends come and go. None stay. And none will ever. Perhaps that is precisely the reason why companies today are pumping in millions into research and development and are forced to innovate, just to stay in.
In the beginning, it was the Google wave. What Larry Page and Sergey Brin created was not just another search engine, supposedly better than the previous counterparts like Yahoo and Alta Vista, it was a craze. Little did they know that just 8 years down the line, the verb "google", would be added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary. And now, its seemingly indomitable position is threatened by Wolfram Alpha.
Do you remember when you last visited your Orkut Profile? Or when you last checked your, what was it called, scrapbook? Oh yes, we were hooked on to it, weren't we? It actually began way back in 2004 with Hi5. Orkut ruled the roost the next year onward. Along the way, I'm sure all of us must have ignored/deleted requests to join Friendster, Yaari, Jhoos and the likes. And then came along the mighty Facebook. Yes, it was the thing! Too bad India didn't catch the Myspace bug.
And, finally, Twitter-The MicroBlog. Designed, not to keep in touch with the people you know, but to get to know people you don't, Twitter is the fastest growing online community in the world today. Infact, just to put in some numbers, Nielsen.com ranked Twitter as the fastest-growing site in the Member Communities category for February 2009 with a growth of 1382%, whereas Facebook had a growth of only 228%. But, on the flip side, Nielsen Online stated that Twitter has a 40% retention rate of users, who tend to drop the service after a month, which meant that the site could potentially reach only about 10% of Internet users. And like any other popular website, it has the problem of trolls.
So what can we expect in the future?
A thread of commonality among these trends in Human Involvement. People want to know things, people want information. Whether this information is about themselves, their friends, the latest Nokia phones, or Ashton Kutcher. Greed for information fuels these websites. And these sites seem to be making a pretty neat profit too.(Well, except for Twitter, though. These chaps haven't figured out a way to make money yet) Also, simplicity is the key. A simple, understandable and a non-frilly interface goes a long way*. But yes, like I said before, none will last. There will be alternatives, better, for sure. Blogging will be so-yesterday too.
Waiting for the next fad!
*: And if you thought that Facebook was complicated, then, well, figure a way to switch off your computer too. Or is that complicated to do too?
