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This is not a new subject, but just like everything on the hype curve, I’ve recently noticed more people asking “Can Twitter last and what’s next?”

The answer: Yes and no . And what’s next is whatever people decide to hype, but what’s logically next may be pretty cool.

Short format
Twitter has been a great leap forward in public adoption of short message format. This shift in attitude toward short messages will be valuable in the long run, as parsing content into small and discrete ideas means that content can be reassembled in various contexts that provide meaning to the consumers. (Eventually this small content will have enough patterns to map its relevancy to other content. Depending upon what you’re looking for and what we already know about you, we can predict what you really want and find the most current and relevant content. Semantic Web in a nutshell. )

How does Twitter fit into this? Whether it’s Twitter or any other SMS application, content is still contributed 140 characters at a time. It may be links to full articles. It may be ideas or it may be inane lifestreaming. (In this model, I predict that lifestreaming as a pastime goes away, as internet personas become less important.)

The idea of following people or watching a tweetstream of random messages becomes a diversion of the totally geeked or the truly bored.

Immediacy. In most cases, immediate information is not important. In a catastrophe, immediate information can be useful to someone who is engaged in the event. But to the common voyeur, the appeal of immediate communication is the ability to report/retweet the news first; not to provide help in any way.

Satisfaction. Short messages are easy to create and easy to digest – but in quick succession and without something to tie them together, fragmented ideas rely on the consumer to file mentally and to reassemble cognitively… hopefully before another set of message fragments steal attention and divert the brain to a new subject.

Following tweets from your tweeps is listening to a police scanner. You monitor everything and stop when you see something interesting. That model won’t last.

The union of traditional search for knowledge with the scale and speed of the internet

The future is more like a newspaper, an encyclopedia or the town crier, personalized and on demand.
Dynamic. Content should not only be relevant for the user, but updated and dynamic – Depending on the user’s changing perspective, the world’s changing information and the context for which a user is seeking knowledge, content should adjust. SMS allows the content to be broken up in to small enough pieces to be dynamic. Semantic data relationships are in charge of assembling it.
Trustworthy. Content needs to be trustworthy .. sometimes. Generally, people want accurate information, but there’s a difference between factoids for party conversation and real research. The capacity to assemble content from authoritative sources in addition to user-generated sources will continue to need balance.
Contextual. Data and short messages can have semantic relationships, but there also needs to be a contextual interpretation. Why does data X relate to data Z? Peanut butter is food. Spaghetti is food. So what? I have peanut butter, spaghetti and rat poison in my cupboard, and I’m hungry. “Stuff in my cupboard” returns related data, but it’s out of context and, in this case, not helpful.

Subjects, not people
Rather than following other people, we will begin to follow subjects and be able to refine relevancy.
None of this is new. Technology doesn’t change culture. Culture uses technology in ways that hasten change.

Following interest in subjects is not a new idea. The technology to assemble related content exists, although it lacks widespread adoption. Putting all of these things together hopefully will be a return to a society that values knowledge and wisdom over superficial fame and self indulgence. I hope that means that American Idol is canceled.

I remembered yesterday about an analogy that I made when teaching social networking concepts a few years ago. (Course redux here).

When talking about the point of Twitter and Facebook status updates, I referred to making connections with people through mundane posts – and even if your posts were not individually important, together they establish a persona – and people will folllow that engaging persona #1 because they’re pathetic (haha -kidding, sort of…) and #2 because the time investment is small. And if that persona eventually has something useful to say, people will be listening.

Well, that reminded me of these ads (which I swear were from the 80s and not the 90s, but I’ve already proven I’m old just by remembering them – dwelling on what year it was is one step closer to high-waisted pants.)

A lot of us absolutely hated these ads. But there was genius in them, or I wouldn’t still be talking about them 20 years later. Thirty seconds. Stupid, but continuous storyline. People either loved them or hated them, but talked about them nevertheless.

That’s one way to establish brand recognition. Guess it depends on how low of a price you’re willing to take …

Are you social networking? Man, if you’re not, you’re missing the boat.
Now let’s try substituting words for social networking.
Are you telephoning? Man, if you’re not telephoning, you’re missing the boat.
Are you wearing a nametag? Man, if you’re not wearing a nametag, you’re missing the boat.
Are you using words when you talk? Man, …

Social Networking isn’t a “thing” that you do. Networking is a part of living, part of developing personal and professional connections. Online social networking is one particular avenue for developing networks.

I’m connecting to a lot of noobs lately. And good for them, to be connecting and trying out “this social media thing.” Excitement and enthusiasm are great – but social networking is not a “thing”.

I look forward to when the hype dies and online social networking is just another tool, just another modern convenience – used organically to connect with people regularly, easily. Comparing movie taste with Shane from high school or discovering that you and Monica from your old job have a similar outlook on “The perfect Friday night” is only going to go so far (I give it two more years) before it becomes the next VH-1 retrospective.

And I almost feel sorry already for people whose lives will have an enormous void when Twitter finds its business model is a for-fee usage and 90% of the users drop out. What will they do?!?! How will they communicate and, more importantly, what will they teach to new users?

I don’t want or expect online social networking to go away – because I value it more than the hula hoop, the Lindy hop, the Rubik’s cube. But I fear that its fate will be affected by its length on the hype continuum.

If your business is promoting the use of social networking tools, do us all a solid and quell the hype.

My friend Sharon called Facebook, “An inane diversion of the bourgeoise. I expect Fellini to show up any minute to expose its ridiculousness.” (That’s not a direct quote, but that’s how I remember it.)

As more and more people join Facebook (and, oh god, twitter) worlds collide – and I find myself having to make difficult choices between my professional persona and my personas among close friends, former classmates, acquaintances, neighbors, church people, relatives, … And not only do I have to watch what I say, I have to watch what other people say and post about me and to me. (So no more friend suggestions!)

This form of social networking was fun for me when it was new – fewer people to keep track of, more discussions about the possibilities of its use. Now everyone’s either a self-proclaimed social networking expert or a wide-eyed newbie who loves the way they can dig up old friends…. But then what? Can it last? Not that there’s anything wrong with the world catching on and being better connected; but like anything else, when it goes from being a cult fascination to being the new dance craze, its usefulness diminishes because the pool of participation gets diluted. This is not a new phenomenon. In my lifetime, it’s been CB radios, the internet (before the WWW), chat rooms, message boards, and now “Web2.0”. And as Stu Weibel pointed out, “Social Networking isn’t new; it is what we do as social beings.”

Yes, modern is just old-hat, chromed. (-R. Kidney)

By the way, that quote from Sharon was over a year ago, before the massive adoption by middle class adults.

So as I eagerly await the next technology Wild West, I can’t help but think that it won’t be technology at all. We can connect with people all around the world, and some of us do. But we can also connect locally, and that can be much more satisfying. The pessimism that accompanied the last eight years of U.S. administration fueled the need to think big, connect and seek validation from the safety of our homes. If the world changes in the way I hope it will, people will come back to the public square, roll up their sleeves and make great things happen – together and in person. Ironic that the president that mobilized his campaign through social networking might be the change that renders it “an inane diversion” of the past.

I don’t think electronic social networking will go away, nor should it. But I hope that we’re all able to wake up from the pleasant valley sundaze soon and return our focus to meaningful connections. (… and Facebook, Twitter, et al have certainly enabled those connections to develop.)

In the meantime, I may find myself reading more books and fewer feeds, at home less and in the public square more. Maybe I’ll see you there.