Looking at the path the internet has taken over the last ten years, a repeating pattern is emerging. The pattern starts with the establishment of a new asset or application class. It proliferates throughout the web. Then the aggregators come along and start skimming the cream off the top and presenting the best in single package. This pattern began with pages, moved on to shopping, news, reviews and downloads.
Today, with the proliferation of stand-alone applications, the environment is ripe for the next level of aggregation.
A Glimpse
An early entry into this space is If This Then That (ifttt.com). ifttt is a meta application that allows users to build custom programs that uses separate apps as triggers and components.
How It Works
Using ifttt, you can create a task (or recipe) that automates a process that you used to do manually. For example, take a Facebook status update as a trigger to create a tweet, a new blog entry and update a photo automatically. Or, it might use a weather report or new information on an RSS feed to trigger a series of actions across personal sites, social networking pages, email or micro-blogging. While it is still rudimentary today, don’t shrug it off as just a novelty item.
Going Beyond the Individual
Consider instead how an application like this could integrate with Google’s social graph. The potential to trigger actions that are rules based, broadly social and widespread are staggering (and potentially virus-like).
While we shouldn’t underplay the concerns about security and the stultifying effect that automated messaging can have on human-based social interaction, the promise of this next phase of aggregation is beginning to come into focus.
Image: The Librarian, oil on canvas, Archimboldo, ~1566