Tech Lunch

Back in March I wrote that Reuter’s had announced plans to develop a corporate version of MySpace for people who work in finance. I said at the time that we might shortly see a rash of ‘grown-up’ uses of Web 2.0-style social networking. This does seem to be happening, and it looks like Facebook is stealing a march.

One of the interesting things about Facebook is that, according to Mark Zuckerberg, its co-founder (see video), its fastest growing segment is the 25+ age group. Facebook seems to be attracting an older, professional user and, indeed, there has been a slew of articles in the press over the last couple of weeks lauding the professional uses of Facebook, with the Observer calling it the current “craze du jour”. Why is this happening?

Firstly, and perhaps ironically, MySpace, which is owned by media giant News International, seems to have dropped the ball with regard to getting journalists to join and use the service. Journalists write technology stories, which readers follow up.

Facebook, for example, hosts the National Union of Journalists, and the BBC’s Facebook work group has over 13,000 members (and only employees with a BBC email address can join). Facebook claims it has over 500 groups for “journalism” although the vast majority are either student journo class groups or the less than serious, “Blondes for better journalism” (47 members), for example. A quick search of MySpace groups using the same term gave me 45 results and, as far as I can see, none (please correct me if I’ve missed something) are serious, professional networks.

Secondly, there has been a huge interest in the potential for innovation that is provided now that Facebook allows third-party programmers to add their own widgets through its Platform development system. These small applications can be made available to any user on Facebook and can even be revenue generating—what The Register calls a “social networking operating system”. High profile and media oriented developers of such widgets include Forbes and the Washington Post. Such a move is in contrast to MySpace, which has been reluctant to allow completely open access to third-party developers through their service.

But Rupert is aware. The Wall Street Journal reports that when asked whether newspaper readers (who tend to be older) were going to MySpace he replied: “I wish they were. They’re all going to Facebook at the moment”. No doubt there will be an impressive response shortly.

When you think about it, using a computer is quite a solitary experience. Personally, I think there’s a lot to be said for that, but bearing in mind that we operate in a working world that is increasingly about collaboration, team working and group brainstorming, sitting on your own in front of a smallish screen could be seen as rather anachronistic.

Bill Gates promised back in November last year that the next revolution in computing would not be the further development of the Web, but rather the manner in which we actually interact with computers. The first fruits of this were announced yesterday with the launch of Microsoft Surface, a coffee table with a built-in PC and touch-sensitive screen that several people can interact with at the same time.

Although this follows in the footsteps of Apple’s announcement of the touch-screen iPhone, what’s particularly interesting is the potential for multi-user activities. For sometime now, researchers, particularly in high-end activities like particle physics, have been experimenting with group working using wall-sized displays. The Surface may bring these kinds of activities down to less esoteric domains such as the average office, school or restaurant.

It’s not only fingers that will be used to interact with the display. Microsoft is keen to explore the potential for interaction between physical objects, for example, using RFID tags. The Microsoft press release cites a futuristic scenario where a wine glass triggers the display of information about the wine’s vineyard. However, from the coverage I’ve seen it’s not entirely clear what would happen if you actually used it as a coffee table and just put down a steaming hot mug of coffee and a plate of biscuits.