What’s the Future of our Web Interactions?

Facebook Chat

Facebook has recently rolled out an update to its popular IM system, FbChat.  It allows users to incorporate their customized “Friend Lists” on the chatting platform.  With this update, Facebook now allows users the ability to appear either online or offline to a select group of their friends.  A small, but useful update for those who love to chat while appearing invisible to those random “friends” who you just don’t want to be bothered with.  In fact, a handy tool for any “Facebook stalker.”

Joking aside, the more interesting question raised is: “What is the future of our web interactions?”

With so many modes of communication on the net today, I sometimes wonder what the future has in store.  FbChat is extremely useful to Facebook’s platform as a whole.  I know for me, Instant Messenger (AIM) has been completely replaced through the use of both the GChat (Google) and FbChat services.  And still, despite the luxury of instant messaging, email remains my preferred method of communication…at least for the majority of my online interactions.

So what’s the future of web interaction?  With the push for a more real-time web, many tend to side with instant messaging (can’t get more real-time than that, right?).  What about Twitter’s huge impact on the social web?  Are tweets, microposts, and status updates the new way to share our thoughts and feelings?  Have we completely escaped from the conventional vocal conversation?

What do you think?

  • I don't know if people are ready to give up on email, since it is the one binding thing on the web, no matter what platforms and services people are using. But I do think that things like Facebook messaging, status updates, and back and forth communication via Twitter is growing faster and faster.

    GChat has become the standard method of IM for the majority of people I know, and only increases with the popularity of GMail. Real time chat obviously has many advantages, and the fact that it ties in with an email platform like Gmail makes it even more relevant. The future might look something like a combination of services that work off of one platform like that.
  • Platform popularity unquestionably affects proprietary communication outlets (i.e. Google and Facebook). As the web matures and platforms become more robust, I wonder if their preferred messaging systems will take over the general public. For example, I would venture to guess that many users use Facebook's messages as a replacement for emailing friends. Interesting....we shall see.
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