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Just read an excellent piece by John Borthwick which starts by talking about disruption innovation and then introduces  the idea of the ‘Notificator’ as a potential ‘Google slayer’. I buy much of what Borthwick has to say, but more than this – I actually believe we’re observing the seeds of a structural shift  and I’m going to try and explain why.  Before I launch in to this, I would add that these thoughts are only partially formed, so this is work in progress….

One of my favourite biz books is The Clue Train Manifesto. It was from here,  nearly 10years ago that I first came across the idea that markets were conversations – and this thought  changed my thinking towards everything digital.
The Internet is brilliant for many things but it’s single most important aspect is it’s connectivity.
Email was (and still is to a degree) the killer app,  as websites began to pop up it was the connectivity between these that gave rise to Google and the ability for us to read/browsing all the amazing content which was being made available (at the time mainly  by ‘professionals’). As standards began to establish and network speeds increased we began to witness the rise of  self-publishing and expression through blogs and UGC sites and then more recently social-networking sites. Stripping away what a social networking site is and you’ll find that they are little more than self published web content with integrated social connection relationships i.e. you can see what your friends have written/uploaded/shared etc..
Fast forward a little further and one of the newest behaviours is the ‘Social/ Status Update’ – the what are you up to right now and self publishing this event to a network. This represents another step closer in terms of connectivity – you can now,  in near real time know my thoughts and  conversations I’m engaged in yet you are thousands of miles away or someone I met once 5 years ago. Add to this the fact that you are able to easily and cheaply aggregate the collective thoughts of millions and millions of people then you are getting very close to the market as conversations. Couple with this that at long last accessing the Internet on a mobile device is actually becoming a reality then you have the making of a seismic shift in behaviour- the web feels like it’s moving from this massive digital library of stuff we all used to live on via our PCs to being alive – this has significant ramifications. New social collisions can occur and time/social connection become the new context.

To be continued…