Visions of ’08, Vol 4

With ’08 hard upon us (less than 8 hours, per my analogue-clock-widget), I’ll look at one more set of predictions about weblife for the year ahead. They come from USAToday, an operation that, far more than many of its peers, “gets” the whole 2.0 world. (But then one of the big pieces of USAT news for ’07 was its need to layoff 60 people, which may show us exactly how much a newspaper’s “getting” 2.0 is doing for the bottom line.)

Its piece is by Marco Della Cava, “Get Real,” is about all sorts of social trendishments. But among its 2.0 points:

1. People will begin to turn away from the amateur opinionations of web 2.0: Says Marshal Cohen of NPD Group: “The average person may well be shouting ‘I want a say,’ but that’s created an absence of legitimacy on the web. [In ’08] “We’ll listen to those we deem worth listening to, because we’re tired of all the noise out there.”

2. Now that we of the Glucosamine/Chondroitin generation have joined social networks like Facebook, these operations will become venues for intergenerational communication. Says Peter Sealey of The Sausalito Group: “Adults will turn to these sites to ask three questions of their loved ones: How are you? Where are you? And what are you doing?” he says. “The conversation on these social networking sites will flow between kids, parents and seniors.”

Which permits a segue into one of my favorite recent e-mail pass-alongs from a Friend of a Certain Age (which is to say, mine). Facebook for old people.

Enjoy. See you on the other side. Of the New Year, I mean.

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