The Web 3.0 Social Network

I couldn't resist re-posting this article which first appeared exactly a year ago, on April 1st 2009. I hope you enjoy it... :-)

For many people the Social Web is simply far too complex to organise. Many of us have unwanted or unused Facebook, Myspace, Flickr or Bebo accounts 'out there' that we haven't visited or done anything with for a very long time. These stagnant accounts clog up the Web and use up valuable memory on someone's server somewhere. Messages, pokes and invitations for vampire food fights wait forlornly for an answer. Some complain that they find it difficult to follow Twitter, update their LinkedIn site and carry on blogging, because there is just not enough time in the day. Some people are completely confused over the whole Web 2.0 thing and simply don't get it. They fail to make optimum use of their social network because they don't know enough about its potential. Well, all that is about to change with help from the Semantic Web.

Software company Avinuon have just announced a new Web 3.0 tool that will give you more time by doing your social networking for you. Plonkr will not only organise all your web tools and services in one place, it will also regularly update dormant sites on your behalf using the latest, state-of-the-art intelligent agent software, even without being asked. Plonkr is 'intelligent' enough to send responses back to your network buddies in a manner that perfectly emulates your own style. Are you drinking in the pub when you should be working? Use Plonkr, and your boss will think you are still hard at work in the office. Using recurrence plotting and fuzzy measure analysis the software will be able to predict what you want to say even before you say it, or in some cases, according to its critics, whether you really want to say it or not. One critic of the new service, Dr Frank Lee, of the Paliamentary watchdog FIDO (the Federated Independent Digital Observatory), believes Plonkr may be a step too far. 'Call me a luddite if you like', he said, 'but do we really want machines doing our thinking for us? Here in Parliament we are quite capable of making our own mistakes without the aid of computers, thank you very much'.

Kurt Prilalofo, CEO of Avinuon, is clearly more positive about his new service. 'We are looking at the future of Web 3.0 social networking, right here, right now. This is a seamless, costless service that is at once both seamless and costless', he said. Prilalofo's new intelligent agent software algorithms are expected to break the mould of previously available systems, enabling people to 'literally be in more that one place at the same time' he said. Whilst this is neither here nor there, Plonkr seems like a great idea, and may well be the beginning of something truly monumental.