CONCLUSION What the Future Holds

MANY PEOPLE love to speculate on what the next big thing is going to be, whether it’s the next killer app, or service, or what have you. The tools we use will come and go; even by the time you’re reading this, half the tools I mention throughout the book could be out the window. Rather than focus on what’s going to replace Twitter (or what may have replaced Twitter already—hello, people of The Future!), we should tackle some of the coming concepts that will enhance our ability to create change in the world.

First, the problems of information overload detailed in the previous chapters will start to wane as two things happen: Culturally, we’ll adapt a more wide-angle-lens, holistic view of our information stream; and technologically, we’ll develop tools that attach relevance and meaning to the data coming at us. With nuanced, relevant info, more granular control over our own data, and a better mindset to process all of it, we’ll be more equipped to share meaningful pieces of our lives and opinions.

The web is rapidly evolving from a one-dimensional platform of information, where information is passed back and forth and it’s largely up to humans to determine its meaning, to a multilayered platform called the Semantic Web.¹ The semantic what? Let’s break this down: Semantic pertains to “meaning,” right? So, many engineers, including the guy who created the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, are working on adding meaning to all that information out there.

For example, instead of publishing just a straight news story with a headline, a photo, and content, Semantic Web applications will be able to attach other relevant data to that story—pointers (a type of invisible link) to the people, places, and subjects referenced in the story, perhaps pointers to public records like Senate bills or local laws, and so on. This will all be done automatically, without the need for humans to create the links themselves.

The benefit of adding all of this relevant, relationship-oriented information is that web developers can then build applications that sift and filter according to readers’ overt specifications, or based on a profile that they’ve filled out, or via any other of myriad ways that tech people can come up with. Not only will this help cut down the amount of noise we experience, but it will also help us to find other people who are interested in the same things we are, or who are like us in some respect.

The serendipity that creates that kind of discovery is powerful. It feeds into the very human, primal drive that often puts us into social networks to begin with: to know that we are not alone. Matched with the element of surprise, connecting and sharing with other human beings creates an experience that is unfailingly moving and often simply delightful. We remark on what a “small world” it is when we find two people in our social networks who know each other independently from us; the truth is, it is a small world, getting smaller with each new relationship. Imagine that feeling of serendipity applied to discovering news, actions, and social change, and sharing becomes a network of support and empathy, not to mention a whole movement.

Not long from now, web and Internet technologies will have set the stage for each of us to have more intuitive experiences as we explore our world, online and off, and fundamentally connect to each other. It will be through pure joy that we find common ground, share our experiences, and then fight the good fight together.