The future of the PC, Social Media and the impacts on our lives

Ok, well that’s quite a lengthy title, especially for my first public facing blog. So first things first, what makes me think I can see into the future, well I don’t. However, as my father always says “To know where you’re going, first you need to know where you’re from”, and I believe this is true, even with IT.

I am in that rather unique position of being both a geek and a businessman. This means I do often look at new technology, concepts and ideas in a different light. My geek side really likes to know how something works, and gets caught up in its potential. However my business side looks at things in a broader and bleaker fashion. Because of this I often find myself disagreeing with my Technical Director (here at One Degree) and also disagreeing with more business focused facing people, PR departments etc (Honestly I am not hard to get along with…)

 

Where have we come from with the PC?

So where have we come from with the PC. OK, this is going to be a very brief and when I say a broad overview, get ready for how lacking in detail this will be.

Home computing wasn’t a big thing, it was showing promise though. The BBC B Micro started showing up in classes all over the UK, with youngsters starting to get involved. Things kept moving forward, however nothing was “revolutionary” until a young man by the name of Gates thought it would be a great idea to put a PC on the desk in every home. Shortly after that, the PC as we know it had arrived.

So how did Gates actually manage this? Simple, he made using the computer accessible to everyone.

 

So what’s this got to do with Social Media?

Well this is the new thing, or is it? Social networking sites in essence have been around for some years, though often aimed at the dating scene. Looking back, what is a little surprising is why it took someone so long to actually make these social sites available to everyone, enabling them to keep in touch with friends etc?

So now we are all on Facebook, many of us use twitter and are blogging. But are we? Just like the early computers, there is a lot of talk about the power of Social Media, and lots of potential, but are we in the middle of a revolution, or simply slowly moving forward?   If we take our PC history, I would say Social Media is at the same point the PC was in before Windows 3.11

Many of you are now asking, how can he say that? Facebook may have 39 million users, Twitter has close to 8 million users (sorry if my figures are a little wrong), that’s hardly small numbers, and to those of you who are saying this, I would say, correct. These aren’t small numbers. However, compare them to the actual number of people who have access to a PC, or the number of people throughout the globe. Or, the number of users on an adult dating site called Adult Friend Finder (in excess of 30 million). What does this tell me? It tells me that Social Media has the potential to be just as revolutionary for communications and PR as the PC has been for us as individuals and business.

 

So why aren’t there more Social Media users? Well going back to our early PC, it’s all about accessibility. At the moment the concepts of Social Media, getting people connected, sharing content etc are all good, however they do take effort for us to do. For some they just cannot be bothered, for others its simply they don’t have time.

So to make Social Media the revolution it is touted to be, we have to make it so easy and accessible that anyone can get involved at any time of the day.

 

The Future?

Well I believe it’s about accessibility again, this time how accessible it is to access our PC and our content, and therefore interact via Social media.

 Sounds a little obvious? Well I am not talking about Windows 7 being touch enabled here; I am talking about making communicating with my PC more accessible, or more to the point, the content and processing that computer has and does for me.

Take this scenario. I am a gym instructor, and spend all day at the gym training individuals. I don’t have access to a PC, and I don’t have my phone on with clients. When I get home, will I make the effort to go to the computer and turn it on just to look at Twitter or Facebook? No, I am too hungry and tired, so unless I have work to do, I won’t be online.

However, am I likely to check my phone? Yes. Am I likely to turn on the TV? Yes again. The mobile at present seems the best and easiest way to then interact with the world of the web, friends and content. However, the screens will always be too small and it will never match the computing power of my PC.

Where am I going here? Well, what if my PC is my mobile phone? Or, even better my PC is the TV? If I could control and communicate with my PC with those devices, then my PC is very accessible and therefore my content more so.

Essentially when I turn on the TV, my PC can tell me via the TV, what eMails I have, tasks I have to do, events that are up-coming, feed updates etc. I can then sit back in my sofa and quickly flick through my emails, feeds etc. I may even decide to complete a timesheet or expenses sheet for example, on my actual PC but via my TV.

There is nothing stopping my PC then communicating with other household appliances. Maybe I will have my PC controlling my cooker, pre-heating it for just before I get home. Maybe I will use my PC to control my central heating system? (I know we can do this to some extent, but doing this wirelessly, and as a common thing is what I am driving at).

Let’s take things further. If my mobile can communicate with my PC directly, why can’t I access my mobile from a friends TV for example? If I can do that, then I can pop into a friend’s house, use his TV to interact with my computer, all because my Mobile is with me – essentially connected to my PC.

 

The Cloud…

Maybe I don’t have to mean an actual physical PC. It could, quite easily be my PC in the cloud somewhere. With cloud computing comes a number of interesting ways in which we may actually make computing and content more accessible (just like Gates did with the PC originally).

The problems I have with cloud computing though always boil down to two main issues, actual physical location of my content and how secure is that content. Though I see so many benefits of cloud computing, something is nagging at me that this isn’t quite the way forward.

So what would I rather see? Well I would rather see my PC sitting in a room in my house, with all my devices securely and wirelessly connected to it (though not dependent on it).

 

So what is the impact of all this on Social Media  and our lives?

By making it even easier to interact with our PC and digital content, we have made it even easier and more importantly, social media far more accessible to everyone all the time. At this point, I believe social media will be a real revolution in the way business and we communicate with each other. If you like, Social Media will have its Windows 3.11 moment. Essentially we will almost always be connected to information streams and everyone most of the time.   At this point the powers of Social Media will far outweigh those of any other form of communication.

One point, remember, you can always turn off your devices and enjoy some me time…