Andy Jaeger big thinking for a small world

Where’s the social in social networking?

For reasons which now seem somewhat mysterious to me, I decided to spend part of my holiday at Internet World today, and was enormously disappointed and uninspired. Despite being imminently responsible for a project that will completely rethink a complex and interesting website, and hence expecting to find something to spark my imagination, I found nothing useful. I think it's because the exhibition is answering the wrong questions.

Ten years ago, five even, perhaps even as recently as last year, technology was everything. What was really exciting in the world of the web was how the stuff worked. New innovations in social networking, connectivity, mobile access, content management... these things were really important. Like Mr Gutenberg and the early days of his terribly impressive movable type, everyone was excited about the mechanics. If all your energy and thought is going into how big your typefaces should be and how to arrange them in the frame, it doesn't much matter what you print. What's most exciting is that something's been printed.

Just in the past year, almost imperceptibly, things have started to change in the world of the web. It wasn't until I was halfway through a pint in the pub afterwards that it struck me. Going to Internet World was like stepping into a time machine and going back to 2007. I got side tracked into a demonstration of what was billed as a new exciting content management system, only to find that it was no more dynamic and sophisticated than what I could achieve with blogger. Which is to say, the technology in and of itself has stopped being impressive. I wonder whether it's possible to be wowed any more.

Wandering around Internet World, I was faced with an unanswered question, despite all the answers on offer, because nobody seemed interested in what technology, connection and sharing could achieve. Everything on offer seemed to be about bits of kit. Despite all the interest in social networking, the focus was the networking, not the social. Despite the thousands of people coming through the doors, humanity seemed strangely missing.