Omnibook

 

Facebook is consolidating all forms of communication by offering multiple modalities trough the same platform: facebook chat, mail and messages, and of course its regular mechanism of wall posting are now an ubiquitous communication framework across all things wired, from cellphones to desktops.

 

This is very similar to Google's consolidation of search: webpages, pictures, video, location and more are simply Googled. It seems the major uses of the web are slowly but surely being centralized. Wikipedia for example has definitely become the one stop shop for getting the 101 on almost any subject. If you want to see or hear anything you can probably find it on youtube.

 

And so, as the web's giants become bigger, the web becomes a lot smaller. There's no user waxing nostalgic about using Veronica to find some information trough the quaint gopher protocol, but it's very useful to wonder what the next step is. When will a few websites be all the internet most people will ever use? When will facebook become omnibook and be a completely self-contained online experience?

 

I think this has already happened for many happy-go-lucky netizens. Technology has done something marvelous: We've reached the simplicity on the other side of complexity. We've made what was once the purview of intrepid explorers of cyberspace the commonplace activity of billions. Yet along the way we've lost much of the diversity and magic that made the net a world of possibilities. It's become a small world after all.