Last year I started noticing many of my friends were using Facebook messaging more than email itself. On average I’d have several messages from friends daily on Facebook, and the facebook statuses would tell me what I didn’t hear directly.
Now I’m beginning to notice that more and more people are becoming active on Twitter and checking their Facebook profile less often. I can’t help but think that it is in our nature to babble on about what we are doing/thinking and hold impromptu conversations.
Lately, I have even personally used Twitter as a replacement for email. I’m beginning to believe that the ultimate social medium on the internet will be extremely simple and be able to be mapped back to basic, ad hoc communication performed in the real world by humans all of the time. Using Twitter where email was used previously is a great example of this. When you have a conversation over email, you are choosing who can listen in. This is akin to holding a meeting. Sure, emails get forwarded to unintended recipients but the idea here is that email = private, limited audience. When you hold a conversation over Twitter, you have an audience in mind but in the back of your mind you realize that you are broadcasting your conversation to anyone who wishes to listen.
We seem to be moving into an era of transparency, where privacy is still a big concern but we are realizing that there are things we can easily share about ourselves on a continual basis that help other people to understand more about who we are, and as such allows them to interpret your more serious statements / blog posts, etc. This transparency is making online social networking really work. Facebook allows me to stay connected to people I know, while Twitter allows me to meet new people as well as stay connected with those I do know.
I wonder what the next progression will be?