I’ve realised that the internet is largely to blame for my decision to become a graphic designer. Perhaps it was just the age into which I was born, but ever since it was first described to me, before I had even first “logged in” (the phrase held a mysterious lure for me from the beginning!) the idea of the internet has always held a very serious fascination for me.

“You can play a game of chess with someone in Australia”. — Wow!

So, it was the internet that led me to graphic design (specifically web design), and I remember having ambitions to work for Microsoft (c. 1999). If I think about what drew me to the internet, I can narrow it down to one word: communication, the prospect of connecting with people. I think that it is the principle of communication that is at the centre of many of my major interests. I am fascinated by the principle of how people can connect (the word du jour is share) with each other through technology.

Right now I’m interested in “social media” websites that are popping up everywhere. I’m interested to see how these sites develop to fulfill specific needs; and beyond that, I’m interested to see how they aggregate other social media websites, so they become virtual life-streams. Jaiku is one, and they describe their main goal as “to bring people closer together by enabling them to share their activity streams”.

This is a step forward. The next step I want to see is how this technology fits in with the lives of people. Of course we’re only a little way into utilising the possibilities for this kind of technology, and that is another reason that mobile, and especially the mobile web, is so interesting to me. The ‘Holy Grail’ for mobile social networks is, apparently, finding a way to use social networking technology in life. For example, profiles on demand:

Imagine walking into a meeting, classroom, party, bar, subway station, airplane, etc. and seeing profile information about other people in the area, depending on privacy settings. Picture, name, dating status, resume information, etc. The information that is available would be relevant to the setting - quick LinkedIn type information for a business meeting v. Facebook dating status for a bar.

People are already adopting a kind of cybernetic approach to organising their lives via mobile and the internet. So if proper privacy settings were implemented, then I would love to see the idea of profile information on demand in practice. While I’d find this socially useful, I would not feel totally comfortable taking part unless I had the option to become anonymous or “go invisible”. I want the option to deny my profile information if it was requested. A danger of having “profiles on demand”, of course, is that they could evolve to become the norm, and even suspicious or unusual not to display your profile.