Serious Gaming With Social Networking Future

Via: Matthew Buckland.com - The Future of Social Networking – A Concept Investigation

Matthew Buckland's post dated October 1, provides a few great insights on how social networking may work in the future focusing on mobile and Augmented Reality (AR).

Below are some concept designs created by Matthew Buckland together with Philip Langley, inspired by some brilliant AR concept drawings, such as:

 

"After some brainstorming and quite a few mockups, we came up with the below. Admittedly AR is the new hype. But you can see how valuable (and scary) this could be when applied to a social networking paradigm. It assumes amazing resolutions, facial and object recognition, and more accurate GPS — none of these far off", says Matthew.

"Imagine holding up your phone or other digital device against a person you've just met or passing by. You’d instantly have information returned about that person within seconds, gleaned from an automatic web, public profile and social network search. You’d discover common friends, talking points — and then have the ability to add him/her to your network. Using a semantic scan, you’d discover negative or positive comments on Google or elsewhere relating to this individual. It would be instant insight into the guy standing right in front of you."

"Tapping into public databases and directories, discover who lives where and if and how you are connected — then call them, email them, add them to your network right then and there."

Matthew explores some privacy implications, but he also considers the fact that, as almost everyone will be mostly in the same boat, we might well evolve into a society that’s highly transparent and accountable. 

About Matthew Buckland

Matthew Buckland is a web guy. He heads up an innovation startup called 20FourLabs. He is the former GM of Mail & Guardian Online and co-founder of blog aggregator amatomu.com and group blog, Thought Leader (Webby Honoree & SA blog of the year).

One of his proudest moments was when some of the world's biggest blogs Techcrunch and Mashable, his favourite site Wired.com and technology site Techmeme tried to break his servers by linking to this blog in the space of a few days over his Jimmy Wales revelations. His next proudest moment was when this blog scooped "best business blog" at the 2008 SA blog awards.