The Fourth Dimension. Time. Everyone on the Internet who is taken with virtual worlds speaks of the 3D web, and yet what is known as the 2D web is in fact 3D. The 2D web, more visibly with Web 2.0 related technologies, incorporates time - a component necessary for meaningful discussion. A discussion makes no sense if it is scrambled just as a packet of data makes no sense if it cannot be reconstructed properly where it arrives - and to arrive in a way that this can happen, a sequence is necessary. That sequence is based on parts arriving before other parts: in a relative sense, this demonstrates that time is a component.
The 3D web isn't the future. The 4D web is. While it could be argued that time is accounted for implicitly in the phrases '2D web' and '3D web', such phrases downgrade the importance of time. Not to worry, I won't be the Richard Stallman of time, reminding everyone to say 3D instead of 2D or 4D instead of 3D - but I must point this out because it seems a lot of people simply do not factor time in. Well, anyone's time but their own.
The present social networking sites do not factor in brevity - instead, they seem to encourage quite the opposite because of their business models. The more time you spend on, for example, Facebook, the more time people in your network will spend on the network. That's the crux of it below the bottom line of the number of advertisment impressions and click-throughs. It isn't about making your time management better - it is about making your time management worse. Arguably, there are benefits to be derived from sites such as Facebook - but those benefits are of varying values to different users. Some people might stay there all day. Others may spend less than an hour a day on Facebook.
How many pages do you visit during one session on Facebook? Or do you leave it open in a tab, clicking refresh when you have time (I do the latter). What about LinkedIn? What about Second Life, the herald of what everyone is calling the 3D web?
Time management remains important for everyone, but it is not in the interest of social entrepreneurs to make a system that permits for more efficient use of time. It could be, but there are two major drivers of these business models that are dependent on advertising:
- Advertisers don't want to spend a lot of money.
- People mistake the Internet for Infinite.
Number 1 is somewhat intuitive: advertising on the Internet is relatively cheap and is driven down by the amount of content out there dealing with content that is relevant for advertising. Number 2 is less than intuitive.
The Internet, for all intents and purposes, is as large as the individual's experience. We've all seen the corny commercial about someone reaching the End of the Internet, and we scoff because we believe it cannot happen. However, when it comes to individual experiences there are more finite measures. Some people log in only to check their email. Others appear to be online at all times, so much so that it seems that they could not possibly get any work done outside of what they are doing on the Internet.
The Internet, as a whole, is ever expanding - but for users, it is finite. Busier people, by definition, have less time. While it is all well and good that people who are considered Internet mavens are the driving force behind the present Internet direction, their driving force is really keeping people on the Internet. In all honesty, I benefit from people who surf around on the Internet because of my own revenue model from my websites (and I'm planning yet another) - but the real future of the Internet will be more reactive toward the casual Internet user, not the hyperconnected person. The Internet is a way of life for some, but we all can't have blogs and let's face it: someone has to grow the rice, repair the roads and even come for an emergency repair of your overflowing toilet.
Enter the 4D web, where advertising prices are driven up because there's less of it because there are less page impressions and automatic page refreshes. People's time should be worth something, not squandered in page refreshes.
Do I know how to do it? No, I'm uncertain. But what I do know is this: I have less time to spend on the Internet these days, and it has become a lot easier for me to toss the extraneous and find what is more important to me. Search Engines and the Wikipedia are the closest to the 4D web that I can think of. Search engines are revenue based and only make money through volume of advertising - the focus is on providing the content; the systems are about providing content. Advertising based social networking business models are the AOL chatrooms of yesteryear; yes - there are benefits. But there is also a slippery slope of decreasing value after a user spends a certain amount of their 4th dimension on it.
After all, to talk about a movie you have to go see it. To write about a book you have to read it; to write about anything you have to think. All of these things take time.
In my mind, the 4D web is the future. The 2D and 3D web are full of too many time sinks of dubious value to me - but then, some find value in them. I wonder how those people pay their bills... probably from distracting other people from working on their own... :-)
As I wrote this morning in Oh, Too Many To Many (referencing Andy Oram's The Behavior Gap: Three Persistent Problems for Internet Technologies, we spend a lot of time switching between things and social networks are probably one of the most prime examples of this - indeed, their revenue models are enhanced by this. How do we change that to make a more efficient web experience? I'm sure that right now I'm not sure - but that is a worthwhile future, and one worth thinking about. That's where the value is... at least the value for people who don't spend all their time on the Internet spreading memes.
Image from the public domain; created by Jason Hise with Maya and Macromedia Fireworks.
Technorati Tags: 
