The other day I blogged about similarities between email and Social Network. I talked about how Social Network might evolve in future looking at how email has evolved. In today's blog, I want to talk about the differences between them, and where the future may look like for these two different communication mediums.
There are several differences between email and Social Network (again, I'm using capitalized Social Network to mean social Web 2.0 sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Jive, Connections, Sharepoint, etc.).
First is what I would call centralized data repository. This is often hosted in SaaS environment. Unlike email where all data is sent from sender's mail client to receiver's inbox, Social Network maintains data in its data center and make them accessible by multiple people. Collaboration is easier because there exists a place in the virtual page where people can come to find out context and history. No more forwarding of emails with 10MB attachments to share context. They are all available from Social Network.
Second is the idea of subscription. Information is not manually sent to people. People are alerted of information update. This is such a simple idea, but it is what enabled the virtual page to work. Imagine having to go around and checking all pages where you are meaning to keep up with. Not only it won't be cumbersome, it will introduce many unnecessary round trips to pages where there's no update. This subscription idea can be applied to people as well, and this gets into the next difference that I want to highlight.
Third is relationship graph. Social Network enables you to connect with people, and this social graph is translated into bits and stored. Because it's stored in bits, they can be viewed, crawled, surfed and discovered. Whereas email contact list is locked up in your private address book, these information about who you are collaborating hence connected to is available for people to find out.
Fundamental shift with Social Network is that data is more open by means of central storage. This is enabled by faster and ubiquitous network connection. No longer people come to a terminal to send a information. People are going to the virtual meeting room to access the data where data can be discovered, even when they are walk down the street.
As pace of innovation accelerate, so will the need to effectively collaborate and share information with all contributors. Email is not the tool built with collaboration in mind. It is a way to send message electronically, and its strength comes from reaching everyone everywhere. With single identity scheme, although email address as identity leaves much to be desired, email is a powerful tool to send messages. People and corporation are realizing this shortcoming of email, and are beginning to transition to Social Network to build more collaborative work force.
I don't anticipate email going away. Rather, email will be used as a notification tool to alert users of an event. More and more real collaboration will happen on virtual space where all data is available along with the latest relationship graph. There will be, however, increasing shift to virtual work space, be it enterprise social network or collaboration platform.
There are several differences between email and Social Network (again, I'm using capitalized Social Network to mean social Web 2.0 sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Jive, Connections, Sharepoint, etc.).
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| People may use Social Network for different reasons, but it will soon be the way we communicate & collaborate at work |
Second is the idea of subscription. Information is not manually sent to people. People are alerted of information update. This is such a simple idea, but it is what enabled the virtual page to work. Imagine having to go around and checking all pages where you are meaning to keep up with. Not only it won't be cumbersome, it will introduce many unnecessary round trips to pages where there's no update. This subscription idea can be applied to people as well, and this gets into the next difference that I want to highlight.
Third is relationship graph. Social Network enables you to connect with people, and this social graph is translated into bits and stored. Because it's stored in bits, they can be viewed, crawled, surfed and discovered. Whereas email contact list is locked up in your private address book, these information about who you are collaborating hence connected to is available for people to find out.
Fundamental shift with Social Network is that data is more open by means of central storage. This is enabled by faster and ubiquitous network connection. No longer people come to a terminal to send a information. People are going to the virtual meeting room to access the data where data can be discovered, even when they are walk down the street.
As pace of innovation accelerate, so will the need to effectively collaborate and share information with all contributors. Email is not the tool built with collaboration in mind. It is a way to send message electronically, and its strength comes from reaching everyone everywhere. With single identity scheme, although email address as identity leaves much to be desired, email is a powerful tool to send messages. People and corporation are realizing this shortcoming of email, and are beginning to transition to Social Network to build more collaborative work force.
I don't anticipate email going away. Rather, email will be used as a notification tool to alert users of an event. More and more real collaboration will happen on virtual space where all data is available along with the latest relationship graph. There will be, however, increasing shift to virtual work space, be it enterprise social network or collaboration platform.
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