Boomerang

Facebook, like many social media sites, is complex. There are one-to-one relationships, there are one-to-many, and there are many-to-many, not to mention the varying degrees in between. I love it (and some might even call me addicted), because it’s in my nature to be social and to express myself. I want a place to unleash my creativity in a social forum. What’s so cool about all these emerging networks is that human behavior is actually driving the development of technologies. We’re constantly tweaking technology to better fit our social communication and productivity needs, which makes me think that Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, Jaiku, Digg and Del.icio.us are only the beginning of what’s to come.

For example, the number of APIs from various companies is driving innovation of new applications. A couple I like are Twittervision, a real-time geographic visualization of Twitter posts anywhere in the world, and Twittermap, which allows you to search a location (or Twitter user) to get a quick view of what people are doing in that area. The next thing I’d like to see is the ability to search for a phrase (e.g., basketball or the movie “The Departed”) so you could get a real-time snapshot of what people are doing or saying about a particular topic.