Stuff I wanna talk about

I haven’t failed. I’ve simply found 10,000 ways that do not work.

Thomas Edison

“Yes, I am a wanderer on this earth – a pilgrim.”
Johann Wolfgang van Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

Let’s face it: as a tech junky we are all connected and addicted to social media, Twitter app, new Facebook feature or any new trends the magical world of Internet brings us everyday.

But is this involvement going to be the norm? I wondered if only the techno addicts have time to spend on all these time-consuming applications or if the average Joe will also adopt them in a near future.

10 years ago, when the mobile phone became so popular in Western Countries, the sceptics kept saying that a mobile phone is useless as we have been doing fine without it and it will continue like that. But the truth is: now everybody has a mobile phone. Today we hear that social media like Facebook, Seesmic, LinkedIn, Twitter or FriendFeed are really useless and wasting time website. Is it right? Is it wrong? It is very difficult to forecast innovation and future.

The other day I was discussing on Twitter with a person in Japan whom I have never heard before, just a person who added me in her follower’s list. However, as soon as we “twit” we share a part of us and allow others to know who we are. I met people thanks to blogs, thanks to Facebook. People whom I can count on, now, as friends and whom I would never have a chance to know without the online community. My personal experience is relative and can not be seen as the average but I am deeply convinced that this phenomenon is not unique and that many other people outside are sharing the same kind of experience.

In a new world, where 24-hours-connected-tech-savvy can’t stop being connected and receiving news and information as soon as they pop out, we can wonder if this 24-hours-information is not killing the information itself. Yes, Web 2.0 or Social Media can help us to experience new things and enrich ourselves, but do we realise how much information we keep having?

Some years ago, the difficulty was to manage different e-mail addresses and accounts. But how many were we really surrounded by? 2, 3 or 4, at most. Today, we have at least an account on every new trends, account with different friends or same friends doing different things. It makes it really difficult to follow everybody, everywhere and not feel like suffocating under the flow of information. But the funny part is that social websites or e-mails are not the only part of our daily connected-life. RSS flux is another one. How many RSS flux do a tech-savvy have in his/her reader? 20, 50? How often are these flux updated? No doubt we can easily get lost.

In the über connected Korea, all these trends are common. Most of the people are having virtual avatar and virtual life. Internet has been on every mobile phone since some years. 63% of South-Koreans make payments using their mobile phone. You think UK is at the top of high-tech when implementing 21st Century Network. Korea has already FFTH (Fiber to the Home or Curb) and plans 100Mbps by 2010. Is Korea a trend-setter, an innovative country or the leader of a future digital life?

Social media is an equivalent of digital food. Nourishing, tasty, necessary for some of us and consuming too much can have big consequences. Nevertheless, the good part is we can participate in the way we like and it could have good consequences in our everyday life. We just need to learn how to manage it.