The Lounge was trend forecasting in The Evening Standard this week, From 11 for 2K11: Trends to watch out for in 2011 (Mon 20/12/10) :
Anti-social networks
Forget having 1,576 Facebook friends. James Layfield, director of The Lounge marketing agency, predicts that 2011 will be the year we begin to personalise our online friendships. "We will choose to tighten our friendship circles, turning to the likes of Path, which allows a maximum of 50 contacts, and Diaspora, which sorts your connections into aspects so that any private information you post will only be shared with the people you really know," suggests Layfield.
Is this an effort to maximize our public persona's privacy?
ReplyDeleteHey Bobby,
ReplyDeletePrivacy is definitely an important issue. There was that recent backlash against Facebook sharing info with people who aren't contacts, but aside from that people are becoming increasingly aware of which contacts they want to see what.
The issue here is Facebook's own success - everyone is on there! Users are naturally going to be more reluctant to hit the 'share' button knowing that 400+ 'friends' are going to see it. People are increasingly keen to share their private rather than public persona, but with a smaller number of trusted contacts.