Location Is The Missing Link Between Social Networks And The Real World
November 18, 2009 at 06:08 AM EST
Imagine a world where you sit at your computer and you never go outside. Where you never see another human being. This is the world that sites like Google and Facebook want you to live in. Though they'd never admit to such a thing, the reasoning should be obvious: The longer you're at your computer, the more time you're spending on their sites. The more time your spending on their sites, the more ads you're being served. The more ads being served, the more money they are earning. No matter why these sites originally started, or what features they add, that is, quite literally, the bottom line. They'd have us strapped to a chair with our eyes taped open like Alex in A Clockwork Orange , if they could. The only difference is that we'd have a contraption on our arms to allow us to click on the ads being shown every so often. Thankfully, we don't quite live in that world yet. And there are a couple factors pushing us the opposite way from that. Mobile devices are the biggest one. But even that is still just a screen. You may not be chained to a desk using it, but as plenty of people with an iPhone will tell you, you may end staring at this screen even more than you do a desktop or laptop monitor throughout a day. But there's another up and coming factor working against our screen slavery: Location.