Monday, December 19, 2005

Is Frappr and it’s recently set up group forums another step on the way to “Web 2”.

Just about a year ago the font of all things technological wired magazine carried an article by Chris Anderson talked of the concept of the long tail of business. Suggesting internet companies especially and mixed economy companies (with physical and web presence) were able to sell the Harry potters of the book world and also obscure very niche texts. The bookseller analogy could be replaced with music seller what ever. Because they can analyse and to an increasing degree predict customer purchasing behaviour.

Parallel to this long tail development has been the social networking an interaction component of the web. The growth of blogging instant messaging in all its form voip like skype and Google talk and recently Frappr . Frappr is an interesting on an amalgam of goggle maps api that members of a Frappr community place a marker on expressing there physical location recently Frappr have gone on stage further and added an ability to create group forum linked to the mapped community www.frappr.com.

This really is a model of a tool for social interaction/communication rather than the information source the web has been till. Academic Internet Book publisher Tim O’Reilly released his Meme Map diagram http://www.flickr.com/photos/36521959321@N01/44349798 describing some of what he and other futurologists are calling Web 2.0. It seems this gives individual groups tools making your great strengths your network of those holding knowledge rather than you holding knowledge your.

Implications for society are vast larger number  networks of individuals not confined by geography a phrase I first used in ALT C 2004 “Digital Nomads”. That are joined by non distinct fuzzy connections and personalised connections that go way past our current model of personalization as akin to consumer choice in the supermarket.

The internet the web whatever is becoming a social place with social interactions as the norm rather than the exception.