Friday, April 2, 2010

Where does your Social Map take you?

Imagine looking at a map and that being literally filled with millions of tiny red dots. Now imagine those dots representing people. Every living person is now located on this map that you are looking at. If you need to find somebody, simply pull out this map and look for the John or Jane you are looking for. I imagine this map is our future or will be, at least as long as Geo-Social networking is involved.
If you are not familiar with Geo-Social networking feel free to reflect on this at a previous post, "The Beginner's guide to Foursquare.". I use Foursquare. I have no problems with this application. I am proud to be mayor at half a dozen locations, but the question remains where are these applications headed.
Though people are worried about privacy I cannot help but think a social map is going to exist down the road. People are worried, as the day's come and go, that we will eventually be machines with chips in our heads. But have they thought about the active map, that will show our every movements. Where is the privacy line being drawn? Do people at this point want privacy?
But what does all of this mean? Imagine a website such as WWW.PleaseRobMe.Com becoming a staple for most Americans. If you are unfamiliar with WWW.PleaseRobMe.Com, I recommend visiting the website at least once. Though the website is currently down, after being flooded by hate mail and nasty complaints, the website was a breakthrough idea and really made us question Geo-social networking applications. The website literally listed every check in that people made using Foursquare and added a "please rob me, I'm not at home" to these check ins.
Though social networking is still a "niche" program these days imagine if people checked in everywhere they went. This map would literally be a social satelite of where you have been and where you are at that very moment. Is this a problem? I am not suggesting that is, all I am saying is that our maps might lead us somewhere different in the not foreseeable future.

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